Need Versus Have

The other day, Ken and I were doing ‘Fun Thursday’, where we pick an interesting place to visit and go there. It used to be ‘Fun Friday’, but then Ken got a job, and he was too tired to do anything for the rest of the week, but now he’s unemployed (it’s okay—he’s retired and has a pension). I currently have a job at an amazing bookstore, but I have much more stamina when it comes to doing things during the week, even though I’m several months older than Ken. Anyway, we were on our way to Chiefswood Historic Site, which is this really cool mansion built by a hereditary Chief of the Six Nations, and on the way there, I reminded Ken that he needed to finish cleaning out his office:

Me: Taking 10 year old hydro bills out of one binder does not constitute ‘cleaning up’.
Ken: When was the last time YOU got rid of stuff?
Me: I donated an entire bag of purse straps to Goodwill YESTERDAY, KEN.
Ken: Why did you have so many in the first place?
Me: Because I live by that timeless adage, ‘It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.’
Ken: Good point. I might need those hydro bills.
Me: YOU WON’T. Although I’m starting to worry about the purse straps…

But then we began making a list of things that it was good to have and not need, than to need and not have:

1) A generator. Occasionally, our power goes off. Like if it’s mildly windy, or slightly snowy, or the rain is falling at more than a gentle trickle. And once, it snowed quite a bit and we lost power for three days, at which point, we went out and bought a generator. We haven’t used it since, but still…

2) One lime. I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve suddenly needed a lime for a spontaneous dish that required a shot of citrus, and didn’t have one. Luckily, we have a lot of neighbours who like Margaritas.

3) Kittens. I have often needed a therapy kitten but didn’t have one. Now, I have a wonderful kitty and while I don’t always need her, I have her at my disposal. On Friday, after we drove an hour and a half to the airport to pick up our daughter and her boyfriend at 5:30 in the morning, only to discover that they weren’t flying in until Saturday, and then had to drive the hour and a half home again, I came into the house, got back into bed, and Ilana settled herself across my chest and fell asleep with my arms around her. I definitely needed that. Dogs also fall under this category. I always have a dog. And I always need one. Atlas is like a therapy dog, if your anxiety is soothed by someone else racing around like a maniac, trying to chase the cat and yelling, “Ma!! A skunk!! It’s a skunk!!” But at night, if I offer him a little wine, he WILL snuggle me.

4) Oil of oregano. Trust me, it’s much better to have this sh*t and not need it. And if you need it, you’d better make sure you have a wine chaser. In the same vein, it’s much better to have wine and not need it, than need it and not have it. I regularly need some wine and I’m lucky that my dad and I regularly bottle A LOT of wine so I always have it.

5) Snow tires. I just got my summer tires swapped out. I’d never had snow tires until 2014 when I got the car that I’m still driving. My previous car was made out of plastic but even still, it never needed snow tires. The first time I drove my current car on a snowy day, I almost ended up in the ditch and I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken:

Ken: What’s wrong?
Me: This car is STUPID!!
Ken: Why?
Me: I HATE IT.
Ken WHY?!
Me: It won’t drive in the snow!
Ken: You should get snow tires.
Me: WHERE IS MY THERAPY KITTEN?

6) Husbands: I’m pretty self-sufficient, but still, sometimes I need Ken. Like for reaching up high, or taking the lid off a jar, or driving me around in the dark because my night vision is sh*t, or massaging my shoulder when I’m in pain, or generally just being super-supportive of everything I do. Like last week, I was on the radio again, and after, I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken:

Me: How did I sound?
Ken: You were amazing. I’m so proud of you!
Me: What did you break?
Ken: What? Nothing!…
Me: Did you hurt yourself with a power tool again?
Ken: No! I just really love you, and I’m so happy I’m married to you!

Yeah—I have him AND I need him. He’s better than a lime, that’s for sure.

Phoning It In

For today’s post, I’m sharing the last four pictures I took on my phone.

1) You might be squinting right now and saying, “Is that some kind of bug?” and you would be correct. I was staying at my brother’s to be there for my nephew while my brother, who has a PhD, was involved in some very important work stuff. I, being retired, was more than happy to fill in. We were going to have one of my nephew’s favourite meals, ‘Thai-Inspired Beef Bowls’. It was in a bag in the fridge from one of those ‘meal kit’ places, and on Monday night, I got it out and started to prep it. I poured the rice into a pot, and one of the grains looked very dark. I put a different pair of reading glasses on (one for REALLY close-up viewing, unlike the pair I was already wearing, which was for medium viewing, and also unlike a third pair in my purse which is for ‘things that are approximately four feet away’), and I scrutinized the rice. And forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe that rice grains have legs. I called my nephew over for his opinion:

Me: Hey, do you think that’s a bug?
Nephew: Definitely.
Me: It looks dead. I could pick it out…
Nephew: You could.
Me: The rice has to be boiled anyway. That would kill any bug corpse germs, right?
Nephew: It would.
Me: Then we’re in agreement?
Nephew: We are.

Seemed a shame to waste a meal that had been so obviously packaged with care. And the ‘inspired’ part? I’m going to try making this at home—without the bugs.

2) This ad is confusing. Mainly because I never get cranky when I drink. But these boxes…and I’m not sure how it works. Do you put the drinks IN the boxes? Do they play music WHILE you drink? No wonder they’re cranky. I’d be pissed off too if people kept clogging up my wind-up mechanism with alcohol. And they’re all in perfect condition except that one…is a plate. It always amazes me though when, rather than looking up the actual term for a thing, someone chooses to just post an ad like this:

Box Owner: I need to post an ad for these weird alcoholic boxes but I don’t know what that thing is called that winds them up.
Random Friend: You could look it up.
Box Owner: Looking up things makes me cranky—oh wait!

3) I took this screenshot from LinkedIn. After my last post ABOUT LinkedIn, I got a message teasing me that people had been looking at my ‘profile’. I get these quite often but they won’t tell you WHO was actually looking until you give them money to upgrade your plan. But now I think LinkedIn is just f*cking with me, because the Canada Revenue Agency is the government taxman, like the IRS, and the Attorney General oversees the court system and I HAVE COMMITTED NO TAX CRIMES, LINKEDIN SO NICE TRY. The other two companies make sense, but when I saw the last one, I was inordinately excited, like why is a steakhouse looking ME up? Cuz it’s usually the other way around and maybe it’s a sign that I should go and get some steak.

4) This is the cutest cat on the planet. Period.

Kit and Ka-glue-dle

Right now, I’m covered in white glue and seething with anger. Why, you ask? Because—and I should have known better—I bought another miniature kit from Amazon, and this one is a veritable nightmare. It looked so adorable on the website—a 2 story apartment with a four poster bed, a grand piano, vintage accessories INCLUDING a desk made from a cast iron sewing machine base, and best of all—an UNDERWOOD TYPEWRITER. And then the kit came. And once again, the instructions were incomprehensible, having been reverse engineered into English from Chinese.

But the worst part was that EVERYTHING had to be built from scratch. Therein lies the problem. I have never been known for my manual dexterity. I have very large hands and enough arthritis that they just don’t work very well. In order to build this kit, I have to manipulate pieces of balsa wood so thin and tiny that I’ve already broken several parts. LUCKILY…there is white glue to put it all back together. Oh, not the glue that came with the kit—that was dried solid—but good old Lepage’s white glue. I gave up early on trying to be accurate with my glue spurting, and now I just layer it on everywhere. It dries clear, which is the only good thing about it, aside from the fact that it eventually sticks things together. So I glue a bunch of stair treads, hold them in my fingers until they’re fairly stable, and then try to pry my hands off without pulling apart the stuff I’ve just glued. And I’m not always successful, so then it’s back to SQUARE F*CKING ONE. Pardon my language, but the typewriter? The one I was so jazzed about? It’s literally half an inch wide and it took TWENTY-TWO pieces of miniscule balsa wood to construct! You heard me—TWENTY-TWO. And don’t get me even started on the stupid grand piano. I would have given up days ago (and it’s been days…many, many days) but if you know me at all, you know I’m no quitter. I will complete this monstrosity, right down to the ridiculous lamp that requires me to glue 8 pieces of plastic and two pieces of metal together, or my name isn’t Player One. The only thing I refuse to do is the insane wireframed eyeglasses that are supposed to sit on the paper feather that I had to carefully cut out (and then locate once it landed on the kitchen floor, and that was eighteen minutes of my life I’m NEVER getting back), because I can’t even see it with my OWN glasses. I hate it. I hate it so much. But I will glue-fully triumph…and then I will throw it onto our firepit and watch it burn like the hellspawn it is.

In other news, Ilana, my favourite cat, is back living with us while the kids are home. And she continues to be completely adorable, as you can tell from the picture below, and is slowly getting over her fear of Atlas, who loves her SO much that he wants to be near her all the time. Sadly, she does not reciprocate his affection. Still, it’s such a joy every morning when she comes running to see me (and my bag of kitty treats) and lets me pet her to my heart’s content…with my glue-y hands.

Reactine Well

Reactine Well

The virtual book launch for my new novel Charybdis just finished and it was lovely, so huge thanks to everyone who came, to my special guests Susan Richardson, Lawrence Moore, and Paul Brookes, and an especially big thank you to my amazing publisher Jane Cornwell of JC Studio Press for organizing it!

Aside from that, it’s been a lovely week because I’m currently kitty sitting my grand-kitty. Kate and her boyfriend are on the West Coast visiting his family, so we’ve been left in charge of the delightful Ilana. The delightful and furry Ilana. Did I mention that I’m very allergic to cats? So while I’m loving taking care of this tiny monster of joy, I’m also stuffed up to the gills, which is being compounded by all the pollen in the air now that spring is finally and definitely here, because if you know anything at all about Canada, you’ll know we actually have something like 13 seasons here, and I take this from the several many memes about Canadian seasons that one can find on the internet:

Winter
Fool’s Spring
2^nd Winter
Spring of Deception
Third Winter
Pollen Spring (this is where we are now)
Construction
Summer
False Fall
Second Summer
Fall
Winter Is Coming
Hello darkness my old friend

So you can only imagine how difficult breathing is for me right now, but I can’t help it. Ilana is adorable and sweet and a total little goblin who likes to wake me up in the middle of the night by punching the back of my head and then rubbing her face against my nose until I wake up:

Me: What the hell?
Ilana: There may be a mouse…
Me: Well, go get it. That’s your job.
Ilana: But I want you to know about it. If I catch one, I will bring it to you.
Me: Please do NOT do that.

Like most cats, she’s also very fickle about how and when she receives attention:

Ilana: I present to you my tummy. Please rub it.
Me: Awwww. Such a cute—ouch! Why did you attack my hand?!
Ilana: Changed my mind. Wait. Rub my tummy.
Me: Will you attack my hand again?
Ilana: No, I promise.
Me: Okay. You’re so sweet—ouch!! Damn it!!
Ilana: One more time?
Me: Sigh. Alright.

Of course, she’s still not comfortable around Atlas but she’s getting more used to him, and he still regards her as a wild woodland creature:

Atlas: That skunk is back.
Me: Not a skunk. But don’t bother her regardless. You think a skunk is an issue? Wait until you try to rub her tummy.
Atlas: Fair enough. Will you rub MY tummy?
Me: Will you attack my hand and bite me?
Atlas: What do I look like—a psychopath?

At any rate, we have her for over another week, and I’m thoroughly enjoying everything about her, because, as you can see by the pictures, she is the most precious little kitty in the world—no matter how much of a psychopath she is, and I’m single-handedly keeping the allergy medication people in business.

Building A Better Mousetrap

Last month, I came downstairs and Ken was staring at the kitchen counter. “Did Kate do some baking last night? There are crumbs everywhere.”

I looked more closely, with my reading glasses on. “Those aren’t crumbs—that’s MOUSE SH*T!!”

The infestation had begun. We immediately got out our trusty old live trap and set it up that night with a tasty assortment of cheeses inside it. The next morning, sure enough, there was a tiny mouse shivering in the trap. “Never mind, little Mickey,” I told him. “You’re going to a lovely field to live out your days.” And that’s not a euphemism—Ken really did take him to the park and set him free to frolic in the long grass.

That night, before we went to sleep, we set the trap up again in case Mickey had a Minnie. But in the morning, instead of another mouse curled up in the trap, there was mouse poo all over the counter—and the cheese inside the trap WAS GONE. “Are these mice learning from each other’s mistakes?!” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” said Ken. “I have an idea for a better mousetrap.” So he put together a contraption with a seesaw made out of cardboard and doweling and positioned it over a large wastebasket. “See,” he said, “when the mouse walks out to get the cheese, the cardboard will tip and it’ll fall into the basket.”

And it worked! The next morning, there was a wee rodent in the bottom of the wastebasket. “Minnie, I assume,” I addressed it. “Don’t worry—you’ll be reunited with your other half soon.”

That night, we set up the basket trap again, and again in the morning, the cheese was gone and there was mouse poo all over the counter. “What the hell!” I exclaimed, infuriated. “How did it get the cheese and not fall in?!”

“I guess it’s a smarter mouse than the last one. Do you want me to just buy a snap trap?” Ken offered.

“No!” I exclaimed. “Unless you do it without telling me and then don’t tell me what happens. You know how much I hate killing things. You have to promise to keep it a secret.”

But before we resorted to a kill trap, Kate decided to try her hand at building a better mousetrap. It was the same principal as Ken’s but with the addition of a toothpick to securely hold the cheese so that the mouse couldn’t just reach out and snatch it from the safety of the counter. Of course, the first night, she got involved in an online game and forgot to set it, but the NEXT night, it was in place and ready to execute our clever plan. Unfortunately, as clever as we thought we were, the mouse was smarter. The mouse had absconded with the cheese but left behind an extraordinary amount of poo. “Should we let Ilana out of Kate’s room at night?” Ken suggested.

“But what if Atlas finds out? He’ll try to eat HER before she eats the mouse.”

It seemed we were at an impasse, then Ken went out shopping and came home with something called The Tomcat. Its claim to fame was the following:

Ready To Use
Child Safe
Captures Up To Ten Mice At Once

The side of the box equally sang the praises of its sleek design that “blends into surroundings”, its “reliable, highly sensitive trap door”, and the fact that it was “strong and durable” as evidenced by the accompanying picture of someone dropping a can of peas onto it.

“Phew,” I said. “I have full confidence in the Tomcat. I shall sleep well tonight.”

And in the morning, I rose with a smile on my face, ready to greet several of the tiny evil geniuses that were causing me to bleach my counter on the daily. And what did I find? An empty Tomcat with a hole chewed through it, no cheese to be seen, and mouse poo everywhere. So much for strong and durable. Maybe they should have tested it on actual mice instead of a can of peas. And as much as I hate to do it, unless any of you have a better mouse trap idea, Ken will be keeping secrets from me for a long time.