My Week 262: All Along The Watchtower

A few weeks ago, I decided to decorate my bathroom. Well, I didn’t really DECIDE to do it; it was more of a defensive reaction to Ken constantly complaining that he hated the wallpaper. Personally, I love the wallpaper, which is a Waverly print of large cabbage roses, but for some reason, Ken finds it off-putting and outdated. Fair enough, since it’s been the same since we moved into the house 15 years ago and perhaps it was time for a change. So I scoured the decorating magazines that I regularly receive in the hope of finding inspiration. What my brain really wanted was something in cool, gray neutral tones, featuring a vanity with a marble top and brushed silver accessories like this:

Unfortunately, my heart had other ideas. I’m convinced at this point that in another life, I was a very gay Victorian man, if my interior design sense is any indication. And that’s not a stereotype—if you know anything at all about Oscar Wilde, you would know that his Aesthetic style was pretty much the way any man of certain proclivities back in the day would decorate:

And while a dining room like this (not mine…yet) might be horrifying to many of you, it fills me with joy. I will die on a hill of Persian rugs to defend this. And so it was that, instead of a sleek, modern white vanity with a smooth white marble top, I was immediately drawn to this particular monstrosity, which I ultimately decided that I couldn’t live without:

Plus it was on Facebook Marketplace and it was a great buy. Ken and I went out on Friday night after work to pick it up. Unfortunately, the granite countertop can’t be removed, so while Ken and the seller loaded it into our SUV, once we got it home, we were stymied. I don’t have anywhere near the upper body strength to help unload it, so it’s currently still in the vehicle.

At the same time, I was contacted through Marketplace about a small antique cupboard that I’m trying to sell. I’m only asking $25 but I can’t even GIVE the damn thing away. I had a woman who was supposed to come for it and stood me up twice, then gave ME a bad seller rating, and on Saturday, I once again was waiting for some rando to take it off my hands. Which brings me to the point of the story, which is less about furniture and more about why, on Saturday morning, I got out of the bath that I had just stepped into and ran downstairs to the door in my housecoat. As I had just been about to sit down, I happened to look out the window and saw two women coming up the walkway, and I assumed it was the person who was buying the cupboard arriving early. It wasn’t until I got downstairs, leaving wet footprints in my wake, that I realized one of the women was carrying a bible. But before I could beat a hasty, soggy retreat, they saw me and smiled and waved, so I had no choice but to open the door. They were, as you might have guessed, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and here is why they were standing on my doorstep:

A few years ago, the Jehovah’s Witnesses came by our house for the first time. I was never comfortable with the usual reaction that many people have to this circumstance, which is generally to tell them to go away and shut the door in their faces, so I politely took a pamphlet, thanked them, and wished them a good day. In retrospect, I think Option A might have been the better choice, because now they come by regularly, and they know me BY NAME. Let me just point out that the woman who came to our house on Saturday was accompanied by another younger woman, a complete stranger, yet she had the intel on us, like a religious Mata Hari, and called Titus by name. It occurred to me long ago that they imagine me as a new recruit. “Her dog licked me this time,” they might report back. “It’s a good sign—tell Jehovah that she could be one of the 144,000, and let Bob know he probably just lost his spot in Jehovah heaven.” Little do they know that Titus will lick anything–in fact, I just had to tell him to stop licking the refrigerator.

But I don’t want to be a Jehovah’s Witness. That sounds really whiny and self-centred, since I’d be such a victory for them and whatnot, but there are some serious drawbacks to joining them. First and foremost, I like Christmas, and I hear that you can’t celebrate Christmas or your birthday either if you’re JW. What kind of f*cking religion is THAT? No Christmas or birthday presents? Presents are great—even Jesus got presents. Second, they don’t drink. Right away, I foresee a problem with this—I would almost immediately rebel, and it would become obvious really quickly. “Hey did you see that sign of the apocalypse?” “Uh, no sorry, I was opening another bottle of wine…” (Actually, I just looked it up and they ARE allowed to drink in ‘moderation’, but unless ‘moderation’ means ‘as much as I want’, it’s pretty much a deal-breaker.) And lastly, and maybe most importantly, I could never get Ken to buy into whatever the JWs believe in, so he’d have to leave me. And I say it like that because I have no plan to move after all the decorating I’ve done, so he would have to get an apartment. But I’m a sucker for door to door salespeople, this is the problem. Once, Ken and I had some people over, and we were drinking ‘moderately’ when a guy came to the door selling golf packages to a local country club:

Me: Ken, this is a great deal. I’m totally buying one of these.
Ken: But we don’t golf.
Me: Yes, we do. We’ve golfed.
Ken: We went golfing once. And you were more interested in driving the cart than hitting the ball.
Me: You’re crazy. I love golf.
Ken: *rolls eyes*

So I bought the golf package. It’s still on my desk, two years later. I think it’s expired. Which brings me back to the fact that, just as I’m a lousy country club member, I would also be a terrible Witness. I would suck at going door to door and talking up Jehovah to people. I think it’s pretty well-known by now, if you come here often, that I’m not a huge fan of talking to strangers. I tried being an Avon lady once, but I never made any sales, and people LIKE Avon. I’d just end up throwing Watchtowers onto people’s porches and running away, like I used to do with Avon catalogues. (My favourite edition of The Watchtower was “Satan—is he real?” The article started, “Like carbon monoxide, Satan is invisible, very hard to detect, and extremely dangerous.” So if my carbon monoxide detector goes off, does that mean Satan is in my house? Should I call the fire department or a priest?) Ultimately, since I just don’t have it in me to be rude to people who are so pleasant (even though they are secretly scheming for my eternal soul), I think the best thing to do is leave a recycling bin on the porch full of wrapping paper, ribbons, and liquor bottles, and train Titus to stop licking strangers. Otherwise, I’ll be coming to a neighbourhood near you soon.

By the way, I just paid to have the ads removed from my site. Let me know if you’re still being harassed by pictures of foot fungus.

My Week 239: Cracked Up, Animal Nicknames

On Wednesday, I was driving on the highway for the very last day of off-site work. I had just gotten off the dreaded 401, and was on the delightfully empty 407 toll highway. Finally able to turn off the damn traffic report on the radio, I had my iPod playing ‘Sugar, How You Get So Fly?’ (the Robin Schulz version) and I was cruising at a nice 120 kph, merrily bobbing my head when suddenly, “BANG!!!” I jumped in my seat and looked around wildly, then I realized that my windshield now had a huge, radiating crack on the passenger side. My first thought was, ‘What the absolute f*ck?! I didn’t even see anything coming!’ and my second thought was, ‘This isn’t fair—I’m wearing my favourite underwear and that means it’s supposed to be a good day!’ I’m not going to describe the underwear to you since it’s kind of personal and some things should be kept to oneself, but suffice it to say that whenever I see it, all freshly laundered and ready to go, I smile and quietly say “Yes!”. It’s like the Wordsworth poem, “My heart leaps up when I behold/A rainbow in the sky”, but instead, substitute ‘my favourite underwear’ for ‘rainbow’ and ‘drawer’ for sky’. There is nothing wrong with waxing poetic about your special lady garments by the way, and I’m sure that men feel the same about ties or fancy socks or that special jockstrap or whatnot. But enough about my underwear, because I’m trying to be more discreet about personal things, like on Thursday when I was helping Ken take some donations to a local auction. Someone had donated an antique baby carriage, and one of the old guys there pointed at it and said to me, “Maybe you’ll need one of those soon.” I shook my head and said, “I doubt it” and he replied, “Oh ho, you never know!” And I so BADLY wanted to say, “Well, I don’t have a f*cking uterus, so I think I kind of do,” but instead I winked at him and said, “I guess you need to talk to Ken about that.” Discreet, right?

Cracking me up.

Anyway, maybe the whole windshield situation was my fault because not even 20 minutes prior, the sun had come up and was blazing into my eyes, causing me to curse the windshield which, despite a recent car detailing, was once again kind of cloudy. I believe my exact words were, “I hate this stupid windshield. Why is it always so dirty? Maybe I should get a new one.” And TA-DA. So I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken.

Ken: Hello?
Me: My windshield just broke!
Ken: What? Are you ok?
Me: Well, it’s just a crack. But it’s big.
Ken: Does it go all the way across?
Me: No. It’s just above the windshield wiper on the passenger side. It looks like half of a spider web. I’m afraid the windshield is going to implode while I’m driving!
Ken: I doubt it. You should be all right unless you go over a really deep pothole or something.
Me: This is Canada in the spring, Ken, so that’s not very comforting!

But I made it to work without any spontaneous shattering, and I called the car dealership. Luckily, I already had an appointment for Thursday to get an oil change and swap out my winter tires, and they said they could do the windshield too. So maybe it was good that I was wearing my favourite underwear after all.

Here’s a link to Sugar, How You Get So Fly. You’re welcome.

Last week, I was talking about tree rats and it occurred to me that I have a lot of strange nicknames for animals that you might see outside in your yard. Here are a few of the more notable:

Squirrel: Tree Rat
Raccoon: Trash Panda
Mouse: Dirt Gerbil
Rabbit: Hoppy F*cker
Canada Goose: Evil Lake Chicken

Evil Lake Chicken

Swan: Long-Necked Psycho
Pigeon: Hobo Bird
All Other Birds: The Dawn Chorus (except for that one weird bird that I call the ‘Cool Whip Bird’)
Groundhog: Roadkill Hamster
Bat: Flappy Bastard
Skunk: Pepe Le Pew
Dog: Pupperz/Goodboi
Monkey Butler: Ralph Van Wooster (you might see a monkey butler in your yard–you never know)
Rat: I don’t have a name for rats because I’ve never seen one in real life and I doubt their existence. If I ever DID see one, I’d probably just give it a name like Bob. Maybe you’ve actually seen one and have a cool nickname for it–let me know.

So now, if you ever see me outside early in the morning yelling, “Get off my lawn, ya hoppy f*ckers!” you’ll know I’m cursing at the rabbits, not the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who, by the way, literally just appeared while I was writing this as they’ve done the last twice I’ve mentioned them in a post. How do they know? It’s as if I’m conjuring them or something, like in a horror movie but instead of saying “Bloody Mary” three times, you have to say “Business Biblical” and then their well-dressed asses come to steal your immortal soul. Or your favourite underwear.

My Week 228: Dishing It Out

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks and I know I have a lot of catching up to do, mainly because I got tagged for a couple of things by some blogger pals. I try hard to keep track but I only post once a week, so sometimes I have to go a ways back to remember what I’m supposed to be doing, and I only respond to these things if a) the questions are interesting or b) I can just make sh*t up. I don’t have an “award-free blog” which I recently learned is a thing, and frankly it befuddles me. It’s like celebrating Christmas but telling people “don’t buy me any damn presents” or being the Jehovah’s Witness of blogging (and in a strange twist of fate, they actually just came to my door right now to battle for my immortal soul, as they do fairly regularly. I won, as I also regularly do, but they took a moment to remind me that Jehovah loves me anyway, which is an award in and of itself, am I right?). Anyway, I guess some people have their own agenda or whatnot, and blog awards interfere with that, but me, I’m always looking for a topic that I can turn into something mydangblogggy, and just have a good time with it. Now, I’m not fishing for any more nominations—I’ve been tagged in a few awards already and it’s just the nicest thing imaginable to me that someone cared enough about my writing to do that, especially since I know that I’ll never get a Pulitzer or even a White Pine Award (that’s an Ontario thing) but goddammit, I’ve been nommed for the “Made My Dish Award” and I’m super-pumped. This award was totally invented by my friend Cecelia at Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks because I made dinner using one of her recipes, and it was delicious (I used gluten-free pasta but don’t tell her because I don’t want to give this award back). So now I have to answer a couple of questions, and they’re very good ones:

Unwrapped? Hard pass.

1) When you leave a restaurant, do you look for a bowl or mints or candies?

I might look for them, but I would NEVER touch them. Have you never seen those exposés where they take a blacklight and shine it on the candy bowl? There’s enough feces on those fruit drops to give you a nice healthy dose of dysentery. It’s a sad fact that a lot of people don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom on the grounds that “I never actually touched anything” but YOU DID, BOB. And then Bob touches the candies with his poopy hands and it becomes a dish of norovirus-covered nougat. I have a strict policy to never deliberately ingest anything that is offered to me in an unwrapped state (see below for details). I also sanitize the handles of shopping carts, as well as the headrest and tray of my airplane seat. I recently watched a documentary about airline cleanliness, and it was a shock that not only are airplanes hotbeds of bacteria, but that the headrest is the dirtiest part of the plane. Who knew?

2) What is a candy that should be invented/sold?

If there was a candy that tasted like a good New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, I would be happy, although I know you can get ice wine chocolate, so maybe it’s already been invented. I used to really like salted chocolate but right now, that’s giving me terrible flashbacks.

And as you know, if you answer any or all of these three questions in the comments, you can also claim a “Made My Dish Award”, the dish in question being a blog.

Also, I was tagged by my pal and fellow Canuck (with an abiding love of Denmark), Cyranny of Cyranny’s Cove for the Solidarity Blogger award, so thank you for that. There’s only one thing I have to do for this, and that is to talk about what solidarity in blogging means to me. So I’ll get serious for a moment and say that if it wasn’t for this wonderful blogging community, I would never visit other countries, try great recipes, learn about art and graffiti, read incredible poetry, listen to great music, laugh (especially at the adventures of Alistair and Alexis), cry, commiserate, rejoice, grieve, think deeply about important topics, and mostly try to bring a little levity to YOUR world.

Synergy:

Ken and I have been married so long that sometimes we don’t have actual conversations. We just KNOW.

Me: That.
Ken: Yes.
Me: I know, right?
Ken: Uh huh.

The other night, we were driving home, and we passed a sh*tload of pylons:

Me: What?
Ken: Couldn’t get a building permit.
Me: Parking lot then.
Ken: Mmm.
Me: That fire.
Ken: Yeah.

The one thing we DON’T have synergy with, though, is music. Especially when we’re driving and Ken has control of the radio.

Me: What IS that? Is that a documentary? Like, on the radio? NO.
Ken: She’s an author. It’s interesting.
Me: She’s crying because she got divorced and her mom won’t forgive her. Her mom needs to be more supportive and you need to find something else to listen to…OK, I’m not 60—try again…this sounds like elevator music…Disco is DEAD, Ken…not COUNTRY!…put on Virgin Radio…you just switched the channel from one commercial to another…go back—that was Nirvana…yes, I know you hate that Calvin Harris song, but I like it—don’t be so judge-y.

We usually just end up compromising on the Comedy Channel:

Ken: Is that?
Me: Yeah. I love him.
Ken: That one joke.
Me: I know, right?

And just this morning:

Ken: The doorbell rang?
Me: Yup.
Ken: Jehovah loves you.
Me: Obvs.

Synergy.

My Week 114: 2 AM Eternal, Christmas Toys for Girls and Boys

Friday: 2 AM Eternal

I’ve had a lot on my mind recently and, as if my brain isn’t already like a jukebox most of the time, it’s been made even worse by thoughts that are stressing me and decisions that I currently have to make. As a result, I found myself wide awake at 2 am on Friday morning, with my head in full overdrive. What I normally do under these circumstances is try to distract myself, and since it was getting close to the weekend, I tried to focus on writing, and what this week’s post would be about. Then I just let my mind drift…

I like that so many people read my blog. I mean, I love writing it, but it’s nice that people read it. Isn’t it weird though, that my most popular post is still Week 9: Jehovah’s Witnesses? I wonder why. Is there a Jehovah network out there, and they’re all reading it with plans to descend on my house en masse one day? Or do people click on it, thinking it’s some kind of rant? Have MY Jehovahs read it? They asked me once what the web address of my blog was. Could they actually have remembered it and looked it up?! That would be embarrassing, them coming to the door every week, knowing that I know that they secretly want to steal my soul in a universal battle like Batman vs. Superman, and that the empty liquor bottles and Christmas decorations on the porch are my version of Kryptonite because apparently in this scenario, I’m Batman. Not sure why. But there may be an upside—if they ARE reading my blog, this would be a great time to tell them not to come before noon. I feel really self-conscious and weird when they come at 10 and I’m still in my pajamas. Last week, I saw them coming up the walk, and I screamed down to Ken, “The Jehovahs are coming! Hide!” Eventually, they left, and then I felt guilty, so if they are reading this, you need to come later in the day, kind of in between the time when I’m not wearing clothes and haven’t started drinking yet. So let’s say, 1:30 to 2:00 pm. It’s a small window, but I DO like your weird magazines…

Why is Harry Potter Puppet Pals in my head right now? Snape, Snape, Severus Snape (Dumbledore!)

Imaginary Me: I really like your weird magazines, except for all the Bible stuff.
Imaginary JW: The Bible stuff is kind of the point, soon-to-be-convert.
Imaginary Me: You’ll never own my soul! Anyway, here’s a question. Why was the Bible written by a bunch of white guys when everything took place in the Middle East?
Imaginary JW: Why do you think they’re all white guys?
Imaginary Me: Well, they all have white guy names, except for the main character. Mark, John, Peter…I’ve never met a Middle Eastern guy called Luke.
Imaginary JW: The Bible was translated from Hebrew to English. Their names were originally less white.
Imaginary Me: You just googled that, didn’t you?
Imaginary JW: No, it’s something you remembered—this is YOUR imaginary conversation. Plus Google was invented by the devil. We only use Bing. It’s Jehovah’s True Search Engine.
Imaginary Me: OK, now you’ve gone too far. BING—I could NEVER get behind that.

Snape, Snape, Severus Snape (Dumbledore!) Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley…

…If what Google says is true (well, at least the imaginary Google in my head), then isn’t it the biggest irony of all that David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan, has a Jewish first name? All those crazy anti-Semites out there, and most of them are named after Hebrew people. I wonder if they realize that. Although from the idiocy I’ve seen and read coming from the so-called “alt-right”, I highly doubt it…

Imaginary KKK rally

David Duke: All right, white guys—time to put on your silly hoods. Aaron, Adam, Ben—you guys are in charge of leading the chanting. Dan, Ethan, and Gabe—you can set the cross on fire.
All: Yeehaw! That’ll show those foreigners with their weird-ass names and strange, cultish behaviour.
David Duke: Look at me! Whee! I’m a wizard!

…the KKK confuses me. Are they supposed to be Christian? Cuz their leader is a male witch, and that sounds really magic-y to me. Plus, why do they burn crosses? These guys are just FULL of irony. Or stupidity. It’s hard to differentiate with the KKK…

Alt-right, Alt-right, Severus Snape (Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Harry Potter)…

…I wonder if Kellie Leitch is a secret member of a white power group, or is she just trying to ride the Trump train? What exactly ARE Canadian values, anyway? And who gets to define them? I could do it. I’m great at running stuff…

Imaginary citizenship hearing

Judge: Do you promise not to EVER write stupid comments online? And to NEVER re-post articles without checking them out on Snopes.com first?
Immigrant: You betcha.
Judge: Will you line up in an orderly fashion, even on Black Friday, or when waiting to use the washroom at the Air Canada Centre?
Immigrant: Do I HAVE to go shopping on Black Friday?
Judge: Heck no. This is Canada.
Immigrant: Then, you betcha.
Judge: Will you be respectful and accepting of other people’s viewpoints, religions, and gender identities?
Immigrant: Obviously. That’s why I came here. Oh, do I have to care about other people’s marital relationships?
Judge: Absolutely not.
Immigrant: What a relief. Being all up in other people’s business is so tiring. And time-consuming. So, yes, I agree.
Judge: Cool. You’re in. Now go apologize to someone for something and pet a beaver.

…I could totally run this country.

Finally, I started to get sleepy. It was 4:10 in the morning, but I got a lot accomplished. And here for your viewing pleasure is a link to Harry Potter Puppet Pals, so it can be the soundtrack to YOUR insomnia too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4

Saturday: Toy Sexism

Yesterday, I was out shopping at a local store that has a huge Christmas display of toys. As I wandered around, looking for something for my niece, I was really disturbed. I’ve written before about toys and sexism, but I’ve never seen anything quite as blatant as the stuff from a company called Play Go. These people are seriously trying to inculcate little girls into the worst kind of stereotyped gender roles. First, I saw “My Cleaning Set”. This is a kit with a broom, dustpan, mop and bucket. On the box is a little girl in a pink t-shirt happily holding the broom, because cleaning the house is the career goal of most women. But for the really ambitious gal, they also sell “My Cleaning Trolley”, which has a vacuum as well, and is portable enough to take your skills on the road. Everything on it is pink and light purple, which are obviously the colours of success. Next was “Let’s Cook—the Complete Kitchen Set”—38 pieces of pink kitchenware, featuring a little girl in a pink t-shirt and apron, wearing a chef’s hat. What’s wrong with this picture? Obviously the chef’s hat, cuz aren’t all chefs guys? This company should be ashamed to imply that girls can grow up to be chefs just like men. But the really interesting thing is that all of the little girls on the boxes seem to be members of different ethnic groups. So is Play Go trying to be diverse, or are they secretly being racist as well as sexist? But I’m not just targeting Play Go, because what really stood out for me was the Construction Set right next to the “girl toys”. It was made by Little Tikes, another well-known company, and it featured two little boys in green and navy t-shirts, happily building things. So now I get it—girls stay home and clean and cook, and boys build sh*t. I wish I’d known that BEFORE I went to all the trouble of going to university and having a professional career. Hell, I could have just stayed home and cleaned my house. Now, this is not to say that I don’t respect women who DO choose to stay at home, raise their children, and take care of their families, because I absolutely do, if that’s their choice. Ultimately, the goal of feminism wasn’t and shouldn’t be to force all women into the workforce—it was to give them the right to CHOOSE what they wanted to do with their lives without being attacked for it either way. But toy companies shouldn’t be influencing two-year-olds to make that choice based on pretty colours and “realistic vacuum sounds”. As I was looking in dismay at the toys, a woman with a little girl around the age of 3 came over. “Look!” said the little girl pointing at the cooking set. “I can make all the food for everyone!” I was really hoping the mom would say, “Or you can build a railroad like the kids on THIS box” but she just said, “You could!” Then the grandma came over, put a Santa hat on the little girl’s head and said, “Look at you! You’re SO pretty!” Sigh.

Then later, in a strange twist of fate, Ken was reading Awake!, the magazine that the friendly local Jehovah’s Witnesses had dropped off while I was shopping (Sorry, JWs–maybe next time). One of the articles was about “respect in marriages”. It featured an imaginary conversation between a husband and wife where the husband was expressing that he didn’t feel like his wife treated him with respect because she was always talking loudly, using exaggerated facial expressions, waving her hands around, and interrupting him.

Ken: Don’t you think this is really sexist? The wife is getting all the blame. There’s nothing here about what the husband does to make the wife feel disrespected. Then there’s a bit from the Bible about how women should treat their husbands with respect.
Me: Or MAYBE it’s reverse sexism. Maybe the Jehovahs are secretly sexist against men for being such big, f*cking babies. Like “Oh, poor me, my wife is mean to me.” Maybe the hidden message is “Grow the f*ck up, imaginary lame-ass guy”. You never know with the Jehovahs.
Ken: Well, all right then…
Me: Sorry, was I disrespecting you? Get over it. I love you.
Ken: Sigh. I love you too.

Poor Ken. I’m going to cook him a really awesome dinner tonight. Because THAT’S my choice.