Relationships

A Canine Comedy

Here’s a little throwback to the time I watched the National Dog Show with our last Labrador, Titus. He was an incredible dog and I still miss him, even though Atlas is awesome too.

Titus and I watch the National Dog Show.

Well, it’s that time of year, when frou frou dogs get to shake and shimmy their little selves down the catwalk (there’s some irony for you). Yes, it’s the National Dog Show, brought to you by Purina, the company who doesn’t believe feeding dogs antifreeze could possibly harm them. (Propylene glycol, according to Purina, is very safe to ingest. I wonder if any of their senior executives would care to sample it?) Anyway, the show itself is highly entertaining, as much for the strange remarks by the two male commentators, as anything. We tuned in a little late, but just in time to see the Toy class:

Me: Titus, look. A Japanese Chin!
Titus: I didn’t know the Japanese had different chins from you guys.
Me: No, wake up. It’s a kind of dog.
Titus: Ugh. It looks like a bug.
Me: It’s name is Michael.
Titus: Sounds about right. “Michael”. Ha!
Me: What’s wrong with Michael?
Titus: Look it up on Urban Dogtionary.com. You’ll see.
Announcer 1: Up next is the Yorkshire Terrier, Bugsy Malone. Did you know that Yorkies were originally bred to guard factory workers’ lunches from rats?
Titus: What kind of self-respecting dog GUARDS lunches? I’d be all up in that sh*t. There’d be nothing left, let me tell you. Guarding lunches—bah.
Me: Yes, I think we all know better than to leave YOU in charge of food. God, look at this thing….
Announcer 1: And here we have the Pekingese, Chuck. Chuck is a little slow off the mark. Oh wait, there he goes—he’s really “scorching the earth” now, haha.
Announcer 2: You know, you could be walking this dog backwards for two years and never notice. Wow. He just won his class. Way to go, Chuck.

Then we went on to the sporting class, which seemed to be made up of a lot of setters, pointers, and spaniels.

Titus: Wait—did he just say “Cocker”?! This gets better and better.
Me: Grow up!

Then the announcers started to fill in the dead air between announcing the dog’s breed and watching it parade around the ring with some pretty random pronouncements:

The Irish Setter: She looks like the redhead who walked into the cocktail party. (Titus: He said “cocktail”. Snort).
The Weimeraner: This dog is the grey ghost. It’s like a ninja. I have one, and he just appears out of nowhere.
Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retreiver: This dog has a long name, and it’s the official dog of Nova Scotia. It has to be strong enough to carry a two pound duck.
The Chesapeake: Oily coat and webbed feet. An interesting dog. Waterproof.
The Springer Spaniel: This is by far the prettiest dog I’ve ever seen. His name is Timmy.
Miniature Poodle: This haircut is not whimsical. The miniature poodle is a gentleman’s hunting companion (Titus: Hunting for what? Aliens?).
Schipperke: Look at those nice, erect ears. (Titus: He said “erect”. Snort).
Lhasa Apso: Bred to be a guard dog in monasteries.
Tibetan Terrier: Also guarded monasteries. (Titus: Why were all these dogs in monasteries? Geez, live a little, why don’t you?)
The French Bulldog: Did you know Parisian streetwalkers used to use these dogs as icebreakers? You know, to start a “conversation” with a potential client…
The Border Collie: These dogs are incredibly intelligent. (Titus: Not intelligent enough to refuse to be in a dog show.) His name is Slick. (Titus: Well, at least he has a cool name.)

Finally, the show was done, and the overall winner was a Greyhound named Gia.

Titus: I think I’m in love.
Me: She looks a little too mature for you.
Titus: What?! Why?
Me: Really? From the guy who snickered every time the announcer said a word with “cock” in it? I thought you were going to fall off the bed when he said “erect ears”.
Titus: Guilty as charged. You know, you missed your chance with me. I could have been a show dog. Just look at these pearly whites.
Me: I’d have to rename you. How does Dick sound?
Titus: Absolutely awesome.

titus-teeth

Calling Jeff Goldblum

My car, the Chevy Sonic Turbo, recently turned 12 years old. I’ve had it for 10 years myself, and together we’ve enjoyed a decade of driving. I love my car, but the one thing that drives me crazy, and I’ve discussed this before, is the fact that the hands-free calling is very archaic. There are a lot of commands to go through, and it has a terrible time recognizing simple names like ‘Ken’. As a result, I changed ‘Ken’ to ‘Kenneth’ in my contacts list, but even still, it invariably asked me, “Did you say ‘Kenneth’? as if I have some thick accent that makes my requests indiscernible. But then on Friday, this happened. I was driving back from the bank in another town, but I’d stopped off at the Restore Store, and wanted to let Ken know about the cool lamp I found. I hit the call button on my steering wheel:

Car Lady (because it’s a female voice): Ready.
Me: Call.
Car Lady: Call. Using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name or number to call.
Me: Kenneth.
Car Lady: Did you say ‘Jeff Goldblum’?
Me: What?
Car Lady: Pardon?
Me: ???
Car Lady: Please say a command.
Me: Call!
Car Lady: Call. Using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name and number to call.
Me: Kenneth!
Car Lady: OK. Calling ‘Jeff Goldblum’ using ‘Suzanne’s phone’.
Me: What the f*ck?! (hangs up)

I sat there for a minute, not sure what to do. Jeff Goldblum? Then I realized that years before, I had received a link to get text messages from Jeff Goldblum, which I thought at the time might be a scam. I had received an initial text from him that said this:

Which is exactly what someone who WASN’T Jeff Goldblum would say, am I right? At any rate, Jeff Goldblum really WAS in my contacts list, but that didn’t explain why my car phone lady was trying to get me to call him. Was it a sign from the universe? But I didn’t want to talk to Jeff Goldblum, I wanted to talk to Ken, although I’m sure Jeff Goldblum would have been breathlessly ecstatic over my lamp find, if the way he acts in most of his movies is any indication. I pressed the car phone button on my steering wheel again:

Car Lady: Ready.
Me: Call.
Car Lady: Call using ‘Suzanne’s phone’. Please say the name or number to call.
Me: Kenneth!!
Car Lady: Did you say ‘Jeff Goldblum’?
Me: No, you stupid woman! Kenneth!! Kenneth!!
Car Lady: OK, calling ‘Kenneth’.

The whole situation was so bizarre that I decided to investigate. And you know what? It turns out that the text number IS actually Jeff Goldblum. Here’s a link to his Facebook video from November 2019 announcing that if you set his number, 310-620-6558,as a contact, he would text you with updates about his career: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=529097061000888 But I guess he got bored very quickly of the whole thing, because I haven’t had a message from him since 2022. Yes, I got ghosted by Jeff Goldblum. And I’d gotten over it, years ago, so thanks Car Phone Lady for re-opening that wound.

Speaking of wounds, Ken once again managed to almost lose a digit on the table saw. This time it was his thumb. And this time, I was a little less sympathetic—I mean, the first time, it’s a terrible accident; the second time, it’s more like, “WHAT DID YOU DO?? WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT WAITING FOR THE BLADE TO STOP SPINNING?! Even the doctor at the hospital (who had sewn him up last time) asked, “Is this ‘weaponized incompetence’? (which is where you do something so very badly that no one asks you to do it again) to which I replied, “I didn’t ask him to build a shed! He WANTED to do it!” and the doctor said, “Oh, I wasn’t talking about him,” and I said, “Are you referring to the way you’re stitching up his thumb? Because yes, I’m hoping we never have to ask you to do this again,” and we all laughed. Except for Ken, who was grimacing in pain.

In other news, last week, I had a lot of people ask for pictures of my cute boots, so here they are:

Adorable, yes? Jeff Goldblum would love them.

It’s All Good

This past week, Ken and I went out to the East coast of Canada. Travelling within your own country is great—no worries about currency exchanges, border security, or paying exorbitant amounts for cell phone plans. We decided to rent a car, visit friends, and then drive the Cabot Trail. It’s the perfect time of year to do it because the fall colours are just stunning. And doing so much driving gave Ken and I a lot of opportunities to have very important conversations.

Me: The other day, I got an Amazon delivery and I was about to throw away the box, but I didn’t.

Ken: Because it was a good box?

Me: Obviously. We’ve officially reached the age where we keep empty cardboard boxes because they’re good boxes, not because we actually need them.

Ken: They always end up coming in handy—that’s a guarantee.

And we realized that it’s not just boxes…

Gift bags: You know the ones I mean—not too big, not too small, holiday-neutral but fancy enough for any occasion. Even better if the gift tag hasn’t been written on. If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know I have the gift wrapping skills of a five -year-old (actually most five-year-olds can wrap a present better than I can) so gift bags and tissue paper are my go to. And anytime I get a nice one, someone else in the family gets it back.

Wood: Ken does a lot of woodworking and wood can be expensive so we have no issue grabbing a piece of wood off the side of the road to use later.

Me: Ooh, stop! There’s a lovely pallet at the end of that driveway there!

Ken: Nice! I see a coffee table in our future!

We actually did make a coffee table out of a wood pallet once which I sold it for $75 bucks pure profit. The one thing I never nagged Ken about cleaning up is his woodpile. Even if Ken has no plan for any of it at the moment, it’s still all good wood and might come in handy later. And you can scoff, but he’s almost finished the new little cabin he’s building me and he did it all with his late dad’s “good wood” as well as our own finds and offcuts. The other day, we went by a dumpster and found several pieces of good wood that I might do something with—or not, but at least I have the wood.

Bubble Wrap: Who in their right mind ever throws away a piece of bubble wrap? That stuff is like gold. If you don’t use it, you can pop it. It’s multi-purpose.

Envelopes: I don’t do it often, but I have been known to keep a good envelope. They go with the loose Christmas cards I have stored in the dining room closet. And there’s nothing like the satisfaction of matching an envelope with a card…

I’m finding it really hard to concentrate because I’m in the airport waiting at our gate and there’s a woman talking very loudly on her cell phone to someone and apparently she has 120 oat cakes in her carry-on and just got a tattoo in Halifax with “the best line work she’s ever seen” but she can’t show it to the person she’s Face-Timing with because it’s on the inside of her thigh. But we’ll be home soon, so it’s all good. Also, Happy Thanksgiving!

The Keys To Happiness

(Here’s a little throwback from a several years ago):

A few days ago, I was in the kitchen and I happened to look up at the really cute key holder on the wall that I’d made out of an old breadboard and antique keys to hold not-antique keys. My brow furrowed. “Ken!” I called. “Did you put all those keys on that lanyard and hang it on the key holder?”

Ken (yells back): Yes
Me: Well, what are they all for?
Ken: I don’t know.
Me: If you don’t know what they’re for, why did you put them all on the lanyard? Where did they all come from?
Ken: They were all just hanging on different hooks on the key board so I put them together.
Me: But you don’t know what they’re for.
Ken: Correct.
Me: So if you don’t know what they’re for, and we don’t use them, why didn’t you just throw them away?! What are you, some kind of key hoarder?
Ken: I am NOT a hoarder. They’re just nice keys and you never know when you might need one.

This is me holding the lanyard up to Ken and demanding to know what they’re for. In the picture, I have transformed into an angry elderly man and the lanyard is a two-dollar macrame plant holder, which is just about as useful as a multitude of mysterious keys.

There were 18 keys. We have 4 doors that require keys, so you’d think at least one of them would have fit at least one of the doors. You would, however, be incorrect. I took the systematic approach, and by that I mean at first, I carried all the keys around and tried them in the doors, but there were so many keys and doors that I lost track and couldn’t remember which ones I’d experimented with. So I took them all off the lanyard and lay them out on the counter in a straight line. Then Kate came in and identified three that were for the lab at her former university from several years ago (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, apparently), which left 15 keys. I tried each key in each door and you know what happened? Again, none of them fit any door in our house.

Me: This is f*cking bullsh*t.
Ken: You sound like that guy at the brewery the other day.

And here’s a fun tangent. The other day, Ken and I went on a roadtrip to our antiques booth, and on the way back, we decided to stop for lunch at a local brewery that had outside seating. There was a foursome at the next picnic table, and we couldn’t help but overhear their conversation, which was an absolute cornucopia of epithets (and for the purpose of this conversation, I will be transcribing the swearing verbatim so there will be no asterisks):

Sweary Dude: If you fucking go to Scotland, they don’t fucking say ‘yes’ there. They say fucking ‘aye’.
Woman: Really?
SD: Fucking right. So you better be fucking prepared because they say ‘aye’ a fucking lot. And I was fucking talking to Pete the other day, that fucking German guy…

So Ken and I discussed the use of the word f*ck and what parts of speech it could be substituted for: noun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition…

Ken: Can you use it as a pronoun?
Me: Only if you say f*cker. Like ‘F*cker ordered another beer.’ It can also be used as an interjection. Do you remember Schoolhouse Rocks?

And that led us down a rabbit hole of 1970s animated linguistic cartoons, culminating in Ken’s favourite, Mr. Morton, which is about predicates: “Mr. Morton talked to his cat (‘Hey Cat, you look good’), Mr. Morton talked.” Because Mr. Morton is the subject of the sentence, and what the predicate says, he does. At the end of the song, Mr. Morton gets the girl, Pearl, and they get predicately married. It’s very sweet, and there is not a single use of the word f*ck in the entire cartoon, as one would hope.

At any rate, I myself was quite sweary after putting 15 keys into 4 separate locks and discovering that none of them opened any door in my house.

Ken: Maybe they were for other locks, like ones we’ve replaced.
Me: We’ve lived here for 21 years. We’ve replaced the locks on ALL the doors. Why do we have 21-year old keys??!!
Ken: We could make a craft with them.
Me: Or we could throw them away. The last craft we made with keys is still sitting in our antiques booth because no one wants NEW KEYS.

So I threw them all away. But you just know that next week, we’re going to find a padlock or something that we hadn’t even thought of, and now we won’t have a key for it, or one of you will be like “Here’s a cool thing you can do with new keys” but now they’re gone. F*ck! That’s an interjection.

I Just Want What I’m Owed; Book Advice

Whenever I go anywhere, I like to take back country roads. But the more I do, the more there’s something I’ve noticed, something I’ve become painfully, jealously aware of:

Me: I want to move to the country.
Ken: Why?
Me: Because I want a camper and a boat.
Ken: What?
Me: Because when you move to the country, you automatically get a camper and a boat. Obviously. Apparently, it’s a rule.
Ken: Whose rule?
Me: The government, I assume. Like, it must be a government program or whatnot. When you move to the country, the government gives you a camper and a boat. It’s probably some kind of incentive—you know, to reduce congestion in the cities.
Ken: You know that’s not true, right?
Me: Not true? Look around, KEN. Every single place you drive by in the country has at least one of each. Bob has TWO campers—AND a horse! See, this is why I love socialism. Universal healthcare, social security, free campers and boats. It’s awesome.
Ken: They’re NOT free! And you HATE camping.
Me: I hate camping in a TENT. I’d totally go camping in our cool free government camper.
Ken: And what about the boat? We aren’t anywhere near a lake.
Me: No one EVER IS, KEN. But we have a trailer hitch. We can tow it places. Or, it just sits next to our barn. That’s what most people do with them, as far as I can tell. It’s ‘Farm Chic’.
Ken: We’re not moving to the country.
Me: You’re so mean! I want my boat and camper. It’s only fair—I pay my taxes! I want MY DUE! (starts scrolling through Realtor.ca for a cute country property)
Ken: Sigh. Let me know if you find anything.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of a country property with a camper and a boat because the government doesn’t want people to know about it—it’s a state secret.

In other news, as an author and owner of DarkWinter Press and Literary Magazine, I often get asked what comes after the initial thrill of a book’s release. Here’s a fun little article I was asked to write by Women Writers, Women[s] Books about things you can do once your first book gets published to keep the momentum going! https://booksbywomen.org/so-your-first-novel-just-got-published-now-what/

Dem Bones, Dem Bones

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

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

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

A moral dilemma…

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

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

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

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

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

Skin Game

Before I start, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to a couple of people. First to my mother—Happy Mother’s Day and thanks for being a great mom! Next to D. Wallace Peach of Myths of the Mirror, a wonderful writer and supporter of writers who just posted an awesome review of my new short story collection Dark Nocturnes, which you can read here. And finally, to Susan Richardson of Flowering Ink and A Thousand Shades of Green, also a wonderful writer and supporter of writers, who’s been reading stories from Dark Nocturnes out loud every week on her podcast. The way she reads them gives me chills, and I WROTE them! You can listen to her podcast here.

I’d also like to say a huge thank you to the universe, because after receiving some disappointing news last week while I was out thrift shopping, I thought maybe the universe hated me, but then no less than 20 seconds later, I turned around and saw this:

The universe loves me. And understands my obsession with drippy, impressionistic paintings of Paris. Thank you, universe. Now off we go…

Not long ago, I had to renew my health card. For those of you who don’t know what a health card is, it’s the card we have here in Ontario that you show at the doctor’s or the hospital or whatnot, and then you don’t have to pay for anything. Everyone in the province gets one at birth and it’s funded through income tax paid by residents and businesses. And for some reason, it’s one of the few things that can’t be renewed online anymore, which meant I had to go into a Service Ontario office (similar to the DMV) and stand in line. I went in the afternoon, and when I walked in, there were only 5 people ahead of me, and the three at the counter were finished quickly. But the next guy in line didn’t know what his exact mailing address was and insisted on looking at Google maps and stood at the second counter calling three other people to figure out the best place to mail him something, and then the woman at the third counter just WALKED AWAY. Which left one poor woman available for the rest of us. But still, she was very efficient, and about twenty minutes later it was my turn. She looked at my health card and said, “No problem. Your driver’s license is coming due at the same time—do you want to renew it now as well?”

And that seemed like the smart thing to do since I was there anyway, so I said, “Sure.”

She filled in some information on the computer, then looked me straight in the eye and said, “Do you want to be an organ donor?” And I was really taken aback, having an actual person ask me this, instead of just ticking off the box on the back of my license, and I froze.

Me: …No?
Woman: Really? Are you sure?…OK.

And then I felt terribly judged and also remembered that I’d had laser eye surgery and now my eyes were pretty good and might help someone else, and also that my kidneys and liver had passed their latest tests with flying colours, so I said, “Wait! I changed my mind. Yes, I’ll be an organ donor.”

She kind of sighed, and said, “It’ll take me a minute to get back to that screen. Hang on.” Then, after a few minutes, she asked this bizarre follow-up question, and my blood froze. “Do you want to donate only for life-saving procedures or also for medical research?”

MEDICAL RESEARCH?! Like I’d be one of those cadavers that medical students experiment on? Would they give me a terrible nickname like Gangrene Greta or Basic Body B*tch or take selfies with me? No thank you, ma’am and I told that woman the same in no uncertain terms, but while in my head I sounded determined, it came out a very whispery “Just the first one.”

Woman: OK, no medical research. Now, are you good with everything, or do you have any exceptions, for example, would you like to exempt your eyes, your lungs, your kidneys, blood plasma, your bones, or YOUR SKIN?
Me:
Woman: Great. Now I need to get a picture so stand over there and don’t smile.

Don’t SMILE? You just told me that when I die, someone is going to flay me and then steal my skin and bones. The license hasn’t come in the mail yet so I haven’t seen the picture, but I’m sure I look absolutely horrified in it. Like, imagine this scenario:

Cop: Do you know how fast you were going? Can I see your license and registration please?
Me (gives him my new license): Sorry, Officer, I—
Cop: (returns my license and backs away): I didn’t mean to add to your trauma. Have a nice day. (whispers to himself) Poor woman. Must have been the ‘skin’ question.

When I got home, I was really disturbed and told Ken what had happened. “I didn’t know what to say! She asked me in front of everyone and I didn’t have any time to think about it. But I don’t want them to take my skin! Don’t let them take it!”

And I know I sounded like a big baby but Ken laughed and reminded me that as my survivor, he had right of first refusal over all my body parts.

Ken: Besides, there’s no need to worry about it. You’ll be dead.
Me: YOU DON’T KNOW THAT, KEN!! And don’t forget, if you let them have my skin, you can’t have me stuffed and put me in the living room.
Ken: I wasn’t going to do that anyway.
Me: You’re so mean.
Ken: It’ll just be one small empty urn on the fireplace mantle…
Me: You better hope I die first.

Beet It!

Here are two truths and a lie about me: a) I’m bad at math b) I do not have an inordinate amount of clocks and c) I really like to cook. Can you guess which one is the lie? And all three tie into a crazy dream I had last week where I started doing math, looked at the clock, saw that I’d been trying to solve a stupid math problem for over 10 minutes, gave up and made Cornish hens in red wine sauce instead. It was bizarre, but it reinforced one important thing–I love cooking. Some people don’t get this, mostly the people who don’t love cooking, but to me, there’s nothing more relaxing than picking out a recipe, getting the ingredients, and spending a couple of hours making something delicious. When Ken and I were first married, my culinary range consisted of Pillsbury frozen mini-pizzas, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, and ground beef with prepackaged noodles and sauce. Since then, I’ve had many adventures and misadventures (baking SODA rather than baking powder in the raspberry pie I made for the first time I hosted a family Thanksgiving is the most memorable, and probably the most disgusting), but I’ve steadily improved my abilities over the last 25 years.

Although Ken and I have different tastes (and taste buds, apparently), he loves food and he’s usually pretty good about eating whatever I make—mostly because if he complains, he knows the response will be “Fine. Make your own damn dinner then.” And Ken is one of those people who DOESN’T like cooking, so even though he’s really super-picky, he will tolerate whatever is on his plate and just eat around the stuff he doesn’t like, kind of like a toddler. Or, like a toddler, he gets a little whiny. Case in point—last summer, I was doing home-made corn tortilla fajitas with the awesome tortilla press that I bought online. But Ken was all like, “I don’t want corn tortillas! I want regular wheat tortillas! Just because you and Kate can’t eat gluten doesn’t mean the rest of us should suffer! Wah wah!” and he was adamant enough that he actually went out and bought some wheat tortilla shells right before dinner so he could have things his own way. I mocked him a little, of course, but then later I felt bad about it, because if he wants gluey, ‘stick to your intestines’ wheatiness, then who am I to judge? So the next night, I promised him I would cook him beets. While this may not sound like a big deal, the thing you need to know is that Ken LOVES beets. He’s always mooning about how amazing beets are, and threatening to buy some so he can “boil them, slice them, and eat them with salt and butter.” Even saying it makes me feel slightly nauseated. But I had found a recipe for “roasted root vegetables” and figured that if I put the beets in with enough carrots and potatoes, it just might be edible.

So on the way home from the antique market, we stopped at a Mennonite fruit and vegetable stand (Mennonites are the Canadian equivalent of the Amish, if you don’t know). There was no one around for a couple of minutes and we were just about to give up, when a little girl about six years old flew out of the farmhouse about 300 feet away and came running down the lane in her bare feet. We told her what we wanted to buy—3 cobs of corn, a pint of raspberries and a bunch of beets—and asked how much we owed her. She just stared at us with big eyes. She was adorable but apparently, she didn’t speak English, and couldn’t do math, which made her the perfect salesperson for a small business in Mennonite World. But I shouldn’t be critical. I was as flummoxed by the math as she was, having bought 3 cobs of corn at the price of $4 for a dozen. Luckily, Ken is a whiz at math, and he figured out the total cost with some complex algorithm involving fractions and long division and we were on our way. But I was concerned about the whole strange situation:

Me: What was she, like 6? Is that even safe?
Ken: What do you mean? God, these raspberries are amazing. Can you make cheesecake for dessert?
Me: Well, what if we were in a van? Would they have still sent her out? We could have been kidnappers.
Ken: I’m sure someone was watching from the window. Oh my god, these raspberries! Do you have the stuff you need to make cheesecake?
Me: How could they see from over 300 feet away? By the time someone noticed that she was being snatched, they would be gone! Maybe they have different aged children they send out depending on the vehicle. If it’s a single guy in a van, they send out the 15-year-old with the huge muscles from working in the fields. We’re a couple in a small car, so we get the adorable 6 year old?
Ken: These raspberries will be awesome on cheesecake! I can’t wait!
Me: Sigh. If you keep eating them, there won’t be any LEFT for cheesecake. That’s it. Two more raspberries then the bag goes away. I mean it.
Ken: Aw….

That afternoon, I started getting everything ready—husking the corn, making the cheesecake, marinating the steak—until finally, it was time to tackle the beets. I peeled and chopped the potatoes and carrots first, avoiding the inevitable. Then I pulled the beets out of the bag. They smelled disgusting, like an open grave. I washed and peeled them, and it didn’t help. Kate was sitting at the counter, and I said, “God, these things smell and taste like dirt!” She said that was because they came from the ground. I reminded her that the same was true of carrots and potatoes but they smelled like they were meant to be eaten, not buried in a tomb. Then I held a peeled beet up to her nose, and she was like “God, they DO smell like dirt! I’m not eating any of that!” At this point, I realized that my hands were now dyed an alarming shade of pink, as was my cutting board, and as I mixed the chopped beets into the roasting pan, the carrots and potatoes started to turn pink as well. “Holy sh*t, the beets are spreading their poison to the rest of the food!” I exclaimed. “What if this is how the zombie apocalypse starts?!”

While dinner was cooking, Ken came down and was using my laptop to research more beet recipes.

Ken: Hey, check this out. This website says that people “are very passionate about beets. They either love them or hate them”…
Me: Accurate assessment.
Ken: “A lot of people think they taste like dirt”!
Me: That’s because they do. I told you that about half an hour ago.
Ken: You already read this website! You’re plagiarizing Martha Stewart!
Me: I’m NOT plagiarizing Martha Stewart. Do you think she’s the only one who knows that beets taste like death? EVERYONE knows it. Martha Stewart is plagiarizing ME.

Then I served dinner, making sure that Ken got pretty well ALL of the beets. I had about three chunks, which only served to confirm that I am definitely one of the people who hates beets. But Ken was beside himself with joy, and I felt like I had made up a little for mocking him about the tortillas, especially because the cheesecake and fresh raspberries (what was left of them) were pretty amazing. Then the next day, I was in the bathroom, and I came out and said to Ken, “I think I need to call the doctor. The water in the toilet—“
“That’s just the beets,” he laughed. “Nothing to worry about.”
And I’m not worried about it, because I’m never touching one of those zombie death-bombs ever again.

Car Go Beep Beep

Why is it, whenever things finally seem to be going well, that your car breaks down or needs a major repair? It’s like Murphy’s Law or something, if Murphy was a mechanic. I was already due to get my winter tires swapped out, an appointment I made this past week for 2 weeks from now because everybody and his brother are doing the same thing, even though there’s a chance that we’re still stuck in false spring, the season right before second winter. At the time, it felt like my brakes on my 12 year old Sonic were a little shaky, but not squealing or anything, so I said to the guy at the tire place, “While you have the tires off, can you check the brakes?” “Sure thing,” he said. Everything was fine until a couple of days ago. I was driving into another town after work. It had been a wonderful morning—someone had bought a copy of MY book AND asked me to sign it. Then I picked up this cute outfit from someone on Facebook Marketplace, and when I said, “It’s $35, right?” she said, “Oh, just give me $20,” and I was feeling so lucky and upbeat. But on the way home, my car started to shudder. The faster I went, the worse it got. I was freaking out so I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken:

Me: There’s something really wrong with my car!
Ken: Pull over.
Me: But I’m right in the middle of town in heavy traffic.
Ken: I’m googling “What would cause my car to shake?” Says it could be a problem with a lugnut. Are you missing any?
Me: How would I know if one of my lugnuts is missing?! I’m driving!

I finally found a gas station and pulled in to check. Sure enough, my right front tire was sans one lugnut. How the hell that happened, I have no idea. Ken called our neighbour, who is also an excellent mechanic but who doesn’t do tire swaps, and he said to take a lugnut from our daughter’s car to get me home. I was finally able to pull over on a side road out in the country after white-knuckling it for several minutes, and sat there waiting for Ken. He got there pretty quickly and checked out the tire:

Ken: You’re not missing a lugnut. The cap is off but the lugnut is still there.
Me: So I never have to type the word lugnut again?
Ken: Not if you don’t want to.
Me: What a relief.

Then he started hoiking on my tires, reaching in and rocking them and whatnot, and sending me into full-blown “what if my tire snaps off and the car falls on his arms and dismembers him?” panic attack. The only thing to do at that point was to attempt the drive home with him following me, going 30 shaky kilometres an hour, which is like a little over 18 miles an hour, with our hazard lights on, and people honking at us. It took over 45 minutes. And since it seems like the situation is way more complicated that just “having a look when my tires are off”, our mechanic neighbour is going to take it to his shop tomorrow. (Update: he looked at it in the driveway and immediately realized that my brake calliper had seized).

So like I said, every time things seem like they’re going well, and I finally feel a little ahead financially, one of the cars breaks down. But at least I have a new cool swear word to use: “Aw, lugnut.”

Third Time Ain’t The Charm

I’m finally back from my European adventure and what a time we had! The cities, the museums, the history—it was all incredible—except for the food. Now, don’t get me wrong—we ate on shore once in Amsterdam (because we were late back to the ship for lunch and they claimed they had ‘no more food’), and it was excellent. No, I’m talking about the food on the ship. Ken and I have done quite a few cruises and we’ve never had complaints about the food, but this time neither of us (and none of the people we talked to) were very happy about it. Let me start with the ‘Angus Ribeye’. It was neither a ribeye, nor was it named Angus. I’m not sure how to describe it. But if you know anything about me at all, you know I love a good steak, so the first night, I was dying to try it. It came—it was mostly fat, but I forgave it because the dessert was cheesecake and that was awesome. Three nights later, I ordered the Angus Ribeye again on the grounds that the first one was just a bad cut. Again, it was mostly fat. But the dessert was chocolate mousse and it was great. Most of the other nights, the food was blandly non-offensive, but on our last night, I was determined. We sat with a mother and son duo quite often and when the son found out I was going for steak number 3, he was appalled:

Ron: You’re not serious. You’re ordering it AGAIN?!
Me: It can’t always be terrible. Third times the charm.
Ron: Okay, but you’re nuts.

Ron was right. It was horrible the third time as well. Another passenger, a dirty old guy who was always a) talking non-stop and b) hitting on all the younger women in front of his wife, was shocked when I told him I thought the food was bad:

Dirty Old Guy: What did you order?
Me: The so-called Angus Ribeye.
Dirty Old Guy: Really? I had that the other night. It was great—at least the half I could eat was great…
Me: I rest my case.

The most notable and weird dish I was served was the Taco Salad one day at lunch. The menu said “Iceberg lettuce, crushed nacho chips, cheese, and salsa, with a Ranch dressing. I ordered it. A giant bowl was placed in front of me. It was an entire head of iceberg lettuce, sliced into 3 huge sections. On top of it was a smattering of nacho crumbs, no cheese, a tablespoon of salsa in the corner and a little runny dressing. I looked at it, then I looked at the waiter:

Me: I don’t know how to eat this.
Waiter: I know, Madam. I’ll get you the grilled salmon.

Anyway, aside from a few subpar meals, everything else was wonderful, but wow, am I ever happy to be home.

In other news, as promised, I have faithfully recreated one of the paintings that we saw in the Museum of Contemporary Art. Below, you’ll find a photo of my painting and a photo of the original. Which one is the copy? Bonus marks if you know the original artist:

I hope you appreciate my efforts—it took me almost an hour. I just wish I got the same kind of money for MY paintings as the original artist—then I could have Angus Ribeye every night.