Relationships

My Valentine Is Bigger Than Yours

It happens every year, on pretty much every occasion—I get outdone by Ken. It’s bad enough that I have a terrible memory and Ken writes EVERYTHING down:

Ken: Guess what day it is today??!!
Me: Oh, god, no. What day is it?
Ken: It’s the 33rd year anniversary of our third date! Here, I got you a little something…
Me: Sigh.

But it’s worse on the major occasions. We’ve been married for almost 32 years, and Valentine’s Day is no longer a big deal. Of course, when we were first dating, and then married, it was a week long celebration of our love, complete with red roses, special dinners, and flirtatious lingerie, and let me tell you, Ken looks wonderful in boxer shorts decorated in hearts. After a while though, as it does, the excitement died down a little. Twenty years in, it became less of a surprise and more of a competition, which Ken inevitably won:

Ken: Is it OK if I drop you off at the grocery store? I went to three different places yesterday, and I can’t find the thing I want to get you for Valentine’s Day.
Me: What? You don’t have to get me anything. It’s not a big deal.
Ken: No, I have this thing in mind. You’re really going to like it.
Me: All I got you was some chocolate…
Ken: That’s OK. I just want to get you something special. Do you want to know what it is?
Me: Um…OK?
Ken: It’s a digital picture frame!
Me: But that’s really expensive. All I got you was chocolates.
Ken: But you’re worth it. Don’t worry about it.

On that Valentine’s Day, he presented me a beautiful digital frame so I could have pictures of him, Kate, and all kinds of flowers, clouds, fences, and trees that I could look at while I was working. But I won in the end though:

Me: Here’s your chocolate. AND YOUR CARD.
Ken: Oh no! I forgot to get you a card. I’m so sorry.
Me (a little smugly): That’s OK. The present was enough. Don’t worry about it.

In recent years, it’s been a little hit and miss—sometimes we just have a great dinner; other times Ken gives me something special and I get outdone once again, and I can never predict what’s going to happen. So this year I decided to nip the whole thing in the bud and announced last week, “Here’s what we’re doing for Valentine’s Day. I’m going to buy you chocolate and you’re going to buy me wine. No cards. Cards are a waste of money, and we just throw them away now anyway.” Ken agreed.

Then, the day before Valentine’s Day, I had completely forgotten about it, and I was driving home from work when it hit me that I had nothing to give him in the morning. Luckily, the local liquidation store was open until 6, so I drove there quickly and grabbed him some delicious gifts—a giant peanut butter cup AND a more pricey tin of Bailey’s filled chocolates. I was feeling pretty good about everything, so the next morning while he was at work, I put them on the counter with a piece of scrap paper that I had lovingly drawn a heart on in crayon. When he came home, I dragged him over to show him his presents:

Ken: I have your present in the car, chilling. I’ll just go and get it.
Me: Ooh!

And he brought in not one, but THREE bottles of wine. I was flabbergasted. Outdone once AGAIN!.  And then he said, “Oh, hang on, I forgot your card!” He ran upstairs with me yelling behind him, “We said no cards!!”

“It’s okay,” he reassured me. “It’s just a piece of paper with a heart drawn on it. I mean it’s bigger than yours and more card-shaped….”

Outdone, indeed, but my heart was drawn more symmetrically. I may have snickered a little to myself at that point. But don’t tell Ken. He’ll always be MY Valentine.

Smells Like Teen Syrup

On Thursday, I went out shopping. Thrift store shopping because this month is ‘Cabin Fever’ month at the antique market, which means most of the booths, including mine, are on discount to encourage people to come out even when the weather is crappy. Sales have been good—or I should say, stock has been moving, because between the commission the market already takes combined with the discount of 20% that I agreed to, I needed to do a little buying. So I headed into town to Goodwill. It was absolutely pouring rain, in keeping with the ‘weather is crappy in February’ theme (three days before it was a blizzard), and I ran into the store, soaking wet. After taking a turn around the metalware section, I headed for vases. A few months ago, I found a vase at a different thrift store, and recognized it as something I’d seen at the market before—turned out it was a Chinese vase from the late 1800s and I resold it for $300—not bad considering I’d paid $5 for it—AND had a coupon. So I’m convinced that the same thing will happen one day, just like I’m convinced every time I play the lottery that I’m going to win, but I never do and I’m always disappointed. And on Thursday, I was not only disappointed but also disgusted. Why? Because I was looking through the vases and turning them over to see it there were any interesting makers marks, as one does, when I picked up a small urn that looked like it might be satin glass. As I flipped it over, suddenly my hand felt…wet. Something had dripped out of the vase and onto ME. And it wasn’t water. No, it was some kind of weird oil. AND IT SMELLED. I immediately went to the cashier, holding my hand in the air:

Me: Do you have any paper towels? Something just dripped onto my hand from that vase over there.
Cashier: No, sorry.
Me: Nothing? Like Kleenex or wet wipes? Seriously? It’s BURNING.

He grabbed me a couple of tissues and passed me a pump bottle full of hand sanitizer. And as I cleaned myself off, I realized that the smell was kind of perfume-y, but not the good kind of perfume. The smell was more like if you said to an AI, “Design me a perfume that smells like maple syrup and gingerbread” and it gave you a bizarre approximation of what it THOUGHT that was. Or like when you walk past the Yankee Candle store in the mall, and the mixture of scents is initially sweet then REALLY off-putting. And I had to keep shopping with this weird, expired candle/moldy syrup smell on me until I got home.

Once I was home, I washed my hand very vigorously with soap. I dried off and checked but it was still really pungent. I took off my rings and washed them too, but it didn’t help. That night, I had a long bath, and when I got into bed, I shoved my hand in Ken’s face.

Ken: What are you doing?!
Me: IT STILL SMELLS!
Ken: Yes, it does. Please get your hand away from me. It’s like a candle that no one wants burning in their house.
Me: I KNOW!!

On Friday, the scent was still very strong, despite me having washed my hands several times and soaking my hand in wine, which is totally something that normal people do. And then I had a bath again on Friday night, but every time I waved my hand near my face, I could still smell the combination of old gingerbread and expired maple syrup. Sure, it was getting fainter, but how the f*ck was it still lingering?! Was it the cockroach of smells? On Saturday afternoon, Ken and I were out, and I held my hand up to his nose:

Me: It’s still there!
Ken: Get it away from me!
Me: You are SO mean. “Meh, don’t make me smell you!” What a baby.
Ken: Is this going to be a forever thing? Like, you will always smell this way? Because…
Me: That’s not very nice.
Ken: And neither is the way your hand smells.

I have scrubbed it and scrubbed it, and even as I write this, if I put my hand up close to my nose, I still get a faint whiff of that oil. But I don’t feel quite so bad tonight though, because Ken just made coffee and it smells even worse. Maybe if I rub the grounds into my fingers…

Here’s a picture of Ilana in a box because a picture of my hand is nowhere near as cute:

In other news, my new short story collection At The End Of It All came out last Tuesday, as you might have read, and I was completely floored when I saw that it debuted at Number 1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases Chart. And it stayed at Number 1 for most of the day before being supplanted, so despite reeking like the corpse of a gingerbread man who has been embalmed in maple syrup, I was pretty excited. I know a few of you have started reading it—I hope that if you like it, you can give it quick review. It would mean a lot.

New Year, Same Me

It’s New Year’s Eve as I write this. I’m feeling slightly nauseated, not because I’ve been drinking—I mean, it’s only 11 o’clock in the morning after all. No, it’s because Ken decided to run some errands, and right before he left, he made himself a cup of coffee because he obviously HATES ME. The smell has permeated the house, reaching right into my office, and now I understand how the woman feels who posted this ad on Facebook Marketplace:

I don’t know what her husband did to her that he no longer deserves a wet/dry shop vac, but I’ll bet it involved a percolator. So right now, my house smells like a skunk died in the kitchen, and I’ve taken futile refuge in my office to think about the new year ahead. I never make New Year’s resolutions, as I’ve said before– mostly because if I want to change something about my life, I do it when I think of it, not on some arbitrary and imaginary date line. But still, the moving forward of time does give one pause, and by “pause” I mean “let’s stop and think about what the f*ck we’re doing and do we want to keep on doing that?” So here are a couple of things I will most likely be doing in 2023:

1) I will finish the book I’m currently writing by the end of February. I have to, because I quit my job at the antique market to focus on it. Also, the antique market was no longer a fun place to work, and Ken and I promised each other that when we retired, we would only work at jobs we enjoyed doing. Not that I didn’t enjoy the work I did BEFORE I retired, but moving forward, I will only work at things I really, REALLY enjoy, like driving a forklift around the neighbourhood helping people move picnic tables or whatnot, or petting kittens and puppies. And writing. Writing is definitely something I enjoy. The new book is called Charybdis and it’s a gothic thriller that takes place in two different time periods involving a little-known reclusive Victorian poet and the modern-day graduate student who’s researching her life. What horrors will she discover? If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know there will be several! And then, once Charybdis is done, I’ll be starting on the third book in The Seventh Devil trilogy. Book 2, The Devil You Know, will be out this summer, and Book 3 will be called The Devil You Don’t. And of course, there’s At The End Of It All, which will be out in February and I can’t wait for you to read it. I love writing short stories, and I already have some more stories in the planning stages, which is to say I have notes on my phone like ‘laces where joints are supposed to meet’ and ‘Glitter for Brad’ and I have no idea why I wrote that down but it’ll make a great story once I figure it out.

2) I will travel more. I will have to do this spontaneously, because whenever I PLAN to travel, I instantly regret making travel arrangements and would rather just stay home.

Me: But what’s the use of being retired if I can’t travel?
My mind: Where do we want to go?
Me: I don’t know. Somewhere fun.
My mind: Home. Home is fun.
Me: No, NOT HOME! We need to see more of the world!
My mind: We’ve already seen plenty. The world is too scary now.
Me: Sigh. You have a point.

3) I will buy more clocks if I want to. You can’t stop me, KEN. In honour of clocks, I promised to show a picture of my favourite:

But I WILL make Ken a deal. I’ll stop buying clocks if he stops drinking coffee (at least in the house). Tick tock…

Anyway, Happy New Year. Let’s hope 2023 is a little more sane that the last few years.

Give And Let Give

If I had a dollar for every time someone that I know and love said to me, “I didn’t know what to get you—you’re so hard to buy for”, I’d have enough dollars to buy myself something that I really like. But I am NOT hard to buy for. Here are the things that I like: jewelry, perfume, make-up, clothes, fine leather goods, electronics, antiques, clocks, and alcohol. That’s a pretty comprehensive list. But Ken will tell you that within this list, there are only specific types of things that belong to each category, which is why he always approaches buying me gifts with a certain amount of dread. I think this is totally unfair, and it makes me feel really guilty. And I’m a very believable recipient—I always act terribly pleased, regardless of the gift, and no one but Ken ever knows if I’m not. This is part of the problem—I CAN’T FOOL KEN. He always knows when I’m not being sincere, because, unfortunately, Ken was my partner in crime when I taught Kate how to handle getting things she didn’t like, for example clothes instead of toys, which was to say “Thank you, it’s beautiful!” (this came out as “Tank you ids bootyful” when she was little and it was sooo adorable). Of course, now that Kate is much older, she doesn’t bother with the niceties. This was the conversation a couple of years ago on Christmas morning:

Kate: 2 more pairs of pajamas. Wow.
Me: But you said you needed pajamas.
Kate: No, YOU said I needed pajamas.
Me: Well, SOMEONE said you needed pajamas! Either way. Now you have lots of pajamas, and I don’t have to look at you in that pair you’re wearing right now with the knee ripped out.
Kate: Yes. Now I have a different pair for every day of the week. Thanks. Is there anything under the tree for me besides more pajamas?
Me: Um….
Kate: Again, wow.

While I might not be very imaginative when it comes to picking out gifts, the trouble with Ken is that he tries to be TOO imaginative. For example, one year right as we were about to open our stockings, Ken announced, “The gifts in your stocking this year are based on a THEME.” We all stopped what we were doing. Nobody spoke. Then Kate said, “I don’t see this ending well.” Because apparently the theme was “things you can use to cook my dinner with”.

The first stocking stuffer was a shaker of spices. I looked at it curiously, and Ken said, “You can use it to sprinkle on the potatoes when you roast them!” He was getting nervous. I smiled, and opened the next gift—a jar of pizza spice “for when you make homemade pizza.” This was followed by a grinder full of chipotle and pink Havana sea salt, and a selection of “peppercorns from around the world”. At this point the smiling kind of stopped. I didn’t know quite what to make of any of it, except that I had a lot of cooking ahead of me, and it was going to be very spicy. But that’s OK—I really like cooking, and in retrospect, they were pretty cool gifts with a lot of thought behind them (even if he did buy them all at Homesense on Christmas Eve). But the main point is that I don’t really care about presents all that much. At this time of year, I like to remember one of my favourite quotations: The best things in life aren’t things. The most awesome gift of all is having Ken and Kate (and her boyfriend) with me on Christmas morning. And like the Whos down in Whoville say, “Christmas day will always be/Just as long as we have we.” Plus this year, Ken got me the wine fridge that I asked for, two bottles of very good wine to go in it, and some other nice things, so I never once had to say “Thank you, it’s beautiful”.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Peaceful Solstice, and all the joy of the season to you and yours.

The Deepest Cut

Last weekend, I was supposed to do a live reading in another town. I get very stressed about things like this—not because of the reading, but because the venue was downtown with very little parking, and I have a lot of anxiety over parking. It’s always my first question: “Where will we park?” In fact, I will actively avoid doing things if the parking situation is unknown or sketchy. I know some people who are about to open a new store and my first reaction was “No one will ever go there. It’s right downtown and the parking is terrible.” By ‘no one’, I obviously meant me, because I know I’m the only weirdo who stresses about parking and most people are happy to just leave their cars literally anywhere:

Carefree Person 1: Oh my, we’re two miles from the venue. Stop the car. Right here.
Carefree Person 2: Excellent choice. I shall abandon the vehicle on this verge.
Carefree Person 1: It’s a lovely night for a trek to the concert and the weather continues charming. Well, it’s raining slightly, but no matter.
Carefree Person 2: Might we be late? Yes. Yet it matters not.

So anyway, I said to Ken, “We need to leave by 2:15 at the latest, so make sure you’re ready to go. I’m serious.” And Ken nodded and went back outside to ‘finish up the one thing he was doing’, which was using the table saw to make a small wooden box to house the transformer that runs our outdoor Christmas lights. I was preparing by silently reading and timing myself in the kitchen when he came back in, around a quarter to two. He looked weird.

Me: What’s wrong? Why are you cradling your hand…
Ken: I think I’ve really hurt myself.
Me (panic rising): What did you do?
Ken: I cut my finger. With the table saw.
Me: Let me see!…Oh god. We’re going to the hospital.
Ken (weakly): No, it’s okay. I’ll just tape it.
Me: You can’t tape THAT. You need stitches.

Then Kate came in:

Kate: What going on? Let me see. JESUS! Is that bone?
Ken: Can you stitch it up? You’re a vet tech.
Kate: NO! Go to the hospital.

In the meantime, I was calling to cancel my reading, and then calling the nearest Urgent Care to see if they did stitches, to which the nurse I spoke to cheerfully replied, “We sure do!” as if people almost dismembered themselves all the time. Which, in fact, people probably do, judging by the casual attitude when we arrived, Ken holding a wad of blood-soaked paper towels around his hand and me looking like I was about to faint, cry, or both. The nurse was like, “Go sit down in the waiting area, and someone will bring you some gauze.”

After about an hour, we finally saw the doctor (which was actually pretty quick, although I think we maybe got pushed to the head of the line due to ALL THE BLOOD), and his immediate and unsurprising reaction was, “Wow, that needs stitches. But it doesn’t look like you severed the ligament, which is a good thing, or you would have lost the use of the finger altogether.”

Ken: I hope you can fix it. It’s my favourite finger.
Doctor:
Me: It’s the one he uses for texting. The ONLY one. That’s why he texts so slowly. Will this heal quickly? Otherwise, I’ll never hear from him.

After he was all stitched up, we came home. Did we have a conversation that started with “How many times have I TOLD you to wait until the blade stops” and ended with “I love you and I’m so happy it wasn’t worse”? Of course. At any rate, I can’t show you the picture of his finger after it was stitched up because it looks pretty gross, but here’s a picture of a very cool wooden hand that he made once I’d given him his tools back.

57 Skidoo

Candlelight is the best light

So it was my birthday on Friday. I’m old enough that I don’t get particularly excited about my birthday anymore (that’s a lie–I can’t wait to open my presents and this year, Ken got me really beautiful earrings and took me on a wine tour). But I’ve reached the age where a little retrospection is required–in fact, it happens without any effort at all. So in honour of my birthday, here are some of the things I’ve discovered now that I’m 57:

57: You now have a favourite mirror because “the lighting is good”. In fact, there are three mirrors in my bathroom at home and two at work, but I only look in one of each of them because the wrong lighting makes me look like…I’m 57.

57: You worry about your teeth. You ask the dentist, “So are my teeth doing ok?” and he looks at you like you’re weird, but you have this feeling deep down that maybe they’re planning a mutiny and you have three different toothbrushes that you use based on how your teeth feel on any given day.

57: You reply, when people ask what you’d like for your birthday, “I would like for things not to hurt so much.” It would be great to be able to sleep through the night without getting up to take an Advil.

57: Your parents take you out for dinner and you drink a LOT more than them, but it’s ok.

57: You NEVER mean ‘ducking’ and autocorrect finally give up and stops trying to convince you that you meant ‘ducking’.

57: You have 27 pairs of reading glasses at a variety of different strengths and you can’t find ANY of them at any given time, and every time you ask, “Have you seen my reading glasses?”, you’re met with raucous laughter.

57: You get unreasonable angry that the barn being built on your way home STILL isn’t finished and you exclaim “When are they going to finish that f*cking barn?!” (That is a very specific example but it happened tonight so I included it.)

57: You now have a good ear and a bad ear.

57: You can stay up as late as you want. But you can’t.

57: You can sleep in as late as you want. But you can’t.

57: You’re pissed because you still don’t get the seniors’ discount.

57: You give thanks for every day that you have because, best case scenario, you have about 25 years left, 30 tops, and you’re terrified of dying and you keep calculating how much time you might have left so it’s good to make the best of it all.

57: You’re neurotic but happy. Life is generally good, the lighting is generally good, the wine is always good, and you have a wonderful family.

In other news, I finally got a couple of hard copies of the Arabic version of my second novel The Dome, and who would have thought that I’d be an internationally published author at 57. Cool.

Batter Up!

Recently, Ken has taken a part-time job at the local gas station. It’s a great gig—it’s a thirty second walk from home, he only works four hours a day, and most people pay at the pump so he’s not run off his feet. In fact, the only downside is that his shift is 5:30 to 9:30. IN THE MORNING. Now, he loves it, being an insanely early riser and all, but it’s been hard on me. You may remember that our house has been experiencing strange events, from doors being left open, to taps running, to the dog staring at the basement door and growling—and while things have gotten slightly better, which is to say that I haven’t needed to enlist the neighbours in a house search lately, I and especially the dog are both a little jumpy. The other morning, Ken left for work but forgot to close the door to the family room, which meant Atlas was free to roam the house. He decided to pay me a visit and announced himself by leaping onto the bed and staring into my face:

Me: Huh? What’s going on?
Atlas: Nothing. Just came for snuggles.
Me: Okay. Be quiet though.

Then five minutes later, he suddenly lifted his head, started to growl, and ran out of the room barking. He wouldn’t stop, and it was making me really nervous so I finally had to get out of bed and found him at the top of the stairs, hackles raised:

Me: What are you doing?
Atlas: Noise. Downstairs.
Me: Go look.
Atlas: No, you go look.
Me: YOU’RE the dog. And YOU started this. Go see!
Atlas: Hard pass.

At which point, exhausted and fed up, I went back into the bedroom and grabbed the baseball bat I keep under the bed. And why do I keep a baseball bat under the bed? For the exact same reason I keep a hammer in the drawer of the bedside table. I also have both a hammer and a baseball bat in the bathroom, and a hammer in the family room, as well as two large oars in my office. I don’t have either a hammer or a baseball bat in the kitchen because in the kitchen THERE ARE KNIVES. And all this is because I am the Queen of Worst-Case Scenarios. In fact, one year for Christmas, I bought Kate a book called “The Little Book of Worst-Case Scenarios”, and I forced her to read it so she would know what to do under different circumstances, for example:

a) Being chased by a bear (make yourself look as large as possible and scream loudly to let the bear know you could take it in a fight. Don’t run—unless you’re with someone who’s obviously slower than you).

b) Accidentally driving a car into a river (find an air pocket, wait for the car to be submerged, then open the door and swim to the surface). Kate was like “I’m seven years old–why would I ever drive a car into a river?” I DON’T KNOW, Kate. But if you plan for these things, you might SURVIVE them).

c) Playing in a bouncy castle that suddenly becomes untethered and begins to float away (which apparently happens more often than you think, prompting our local school board to ban them from school property. They also banned dunk tanks. Because of all the dunking).

And Kate has learned her lessons well, because a few weeks ago, she came home for the weekend, and after she left, I went into her room to re-make the bed (because I’m weird and like things a certain way). As I was moving the pillows to one side, I found a knife under one of them. I smiled, put it back where I found it, and said to myself proudly, “That’s my girl.”

Anyway, I have assorted weaponry in the house just on the off chance that Atlas is correct for once and there actually IS an intruder in the house.  Here’s the scenario:

We wake up in the middle of the night to strange noises coming from downstairs. Ken offers to investigate. He puts on his housecoat and goes down with the dog, who is clearly agitated but too much of a chicken to go see by himself. I wait, wracked with fear. There are shouts, commotion, then nothing. The intruder has tied up both Ken and the dog, and is taunting them as he steals our stuff, mainly clocks and paintings of Paris because he’s a robber with good taste. I quietly get the baseball bat out from under the bed and sneak downstairs. The intruder has his back to me. Ken sees me, but luckily, he’s gagged so he can’t do what he would normally do and say something like, “Why do you have a baseball bat?” At this point, I swing, connect with the intruder’s head, and down he goes. I free Ken and Atlas, put back my clocks and paintings because I’m weird and like things a certain way while Ken ties up and gags the intruder, and then we call the police. Ta dah.

But to make a long story short, I went downstairs with my baseball bat in hand, but as usual, there was no reason to sound the alarm. I came back up, slightly unnerved from the experience to find Atlas fast asleep in my spot. He’s the worst guard dog ever, but he’s very warm and snuggly.

Is It Just Me?

The internet is a scary and dark place sometimes, but it does have its uses. In fact, on occasion, it can actually be a comfort. Before the advent of social media and search engines, I’m sure people lived in frightened little bubbles, not sure if what they were feeling was normal. Now of course, we’re often frightened in a GIGANTIC way, but at least we aren’t in bubbles anymore. What the internet has taught me mostly is that the things I thought were strange and quirky about myself (“mydangblog…strange and quirky?!” I hear you whispering in shock) are traits that a great many other people share. Imagine 100 years ago not knowing that having upwards of 8 decorative pillows on your bed was perfectly reasonable? Or that there were other people who not only knew what “the good tea towel” was, they also got upset when someone used it to wipe the counter?

Recently, I have discovered that several things that I thought were unique and unusual about myself are quite common, and I learned this on Twitter:

1)

I was shocked to learn that I am NOT the only person who does this. Whenever I take a plate of chicken out to the BBQ, I grab the tongs, and the first thing I do, immediately, is to click the tongs together, like “Clang, c-clang, clang”. The only difference between me and Wil Wheaton (the author of this tweet) is that I don’t REALLY do it to make sure they work. I mean, that’s part of it for sure, but for me, it’s more of a swashbuckler-y type thing. I like to imagine that I’m a grilling female Errol Flynn, and when I clang them, I also do a little lunge and a quick parry. I sometimes end with a flourish and a bow because that’s how I roll.

2)

Even though I used to work for a secret agency, technically I am NOT a spy, and anyone who knows me knows that is true, because I do exactly what this person’s tweet says. I have two dresses with pockets, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve been complimented on them SOLELY because of the pockets. The other day at work, a co-worker was wearing a new dress, and when we told her how nice it was, she immediately said, “It has pockets!” Then we all stood around saying, “Ooh—pockets!” while she modelled using them for us, which is to say that she twirled around with her hands IN the pockets. It was awesome. Is there a male equivalent of this?

Frank: Hey Jerry, we really like your tie.
Jerry: Thanks guys! It’s a clip-on!
All: Ooh.

3)

The identical thing happened to me a few weeks ago, only I didn’t call 911, I called Ken.

Ken: What’s going on?
Me: So…I went to Winners after work and bought some new workout clothes.
Ken: Nice.
Me: Then I worked out.
Ken: Good for you.
Me: And now I am stuck half in and half out of my new sports bra. It was fine going on, but I’m currently unable to get it off. I’m calling you with the arm that’s NOT trapped in it.
Ken: Um…can you hook it onto a doorknob and then, like, drop yourself out of it or something?
Me: I don’t think you understand physics.
Ken: Gravity. Can you call the neighbour to come over? She can help you.
Me: You mean, she could grab it and pull it off me, and then I would be naked in front of her? No.

Eventually, with a Herculean effort that involved almost dislocating one shoulder, I got it off and managed to not be naked in front of anyone.

4)


A while ago, Ken and I had a family get together, and someone left a spoon behind. It was a f*cking weird spoon, all flat and plain and whatnot, completely unlike all my other normal, human spoons. But every time I reached into the cupboard to grab a spoon, IT was the one I always came out with. Once, I actually said out loud to it, “I hate you, stupid spoon.” Then one day, I got fed up, and I threw it in the garbage. So I apologize to whatever family member it belonged to, but seriously, if I come to your house and see the rest of your weird-ass spoons, they’re all going in the trash.
5)

This is kind of like the opposite of Number 4, and while the person who wrote this tweet doesn’t understand proper punctuation (and thanks to the internet, I know I’m not the ONLY one who cares about things like this), it’s true. Just the other day, Ken came into the room. My first reaction was to say, “What are you doing?!” His response was to pause for a moment, so that he could do a mental scan to try and figure out why I was asking him that.

Ken: Um…nothing?
Me: Why are you using my mug?
Ken: (nervously scoffs) This isn’t your mug.
Me: Uh, yes it is.
Ken: No, it’s not—your name’s not written on it.
Me: There’s a giant f*cking “S” on both sides, Ken.
Ken: We have tons of other mugs. Use one of those.
Me: I could offer you THE SAME ADVICE, KEN!!

And now, I have to hide my mug. Oh well, he DOES respect the “good tea towel” and he thinks it’s perfectly normal that I fence with BBQ tongs, so that’s something.

In Memoriam: James Douglas Whytock

It’s been a tough week. Last Tuesday, Ken got a call from his mom that his dad, who’d been suffering from Alzheimer’s and had been in a nursing home for the last couple of years, had stopped eating. He’d been on a steady decline and if any of you know anything about Alzheimer’s disease, you’ll know that’s pretty much a signal that the end is near. And it was. Ken’s father, a lovely man, passed away peacefully on Thursday night at the age of 87, surrounded by people who loved him very much. And while the last two years of his life were incredibly sad, as we watched him drift further and further away from us, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about him.

James Whytock was a kind, hard-working man. He had to quit school and take over the family dairy farm at the age of 16 when his own father passed away very young. He and Ken’s mom built a good life for Ken and his siblings, and I know they all look back on their childhoods with fond memories. One of my first experiences with Jim was when Ken and I had begun dating and I would go with him to the family farm. In the morning, our chore was to feed the calves while Jim milked the cows, and he would razz me about being a ‘city girl’, even though I’d grown up in a town that really wasn’t much of a city, but to Jim, anything larger than the 1000-person town he called home was a metropolis.

He loved to tease people, but never in a mean-spirited way. He was quick with a one-liner and had a variety of sayings for all occasions. He was the skip of our family curling team, and I still laugh when I remember the time we were winning but the other team was gaining points—he leaned over to me, winked, and whispered, “Now the cheese is starting to bind!” It made me laugh so hard that I could barely sweep, but we won the tournament–and some bacon. Even once the dementia got hold of him, there were still glimmers of the old Jim—every once in a while, he’d crack a joke and it would let us know he was in there somewhere.

He was an incredibly creative person. When, at the age of 62, he and Ken’s mom sold the family farm and moved to town, he finally had more time to devote to all his favourite hobbies. He was a talented photographer (in fact, he was the photographer at our wedding and did an amazing job). He also worked with glass. He taught me how to do stained glass, and we shared ideas and designs. He had a glass kiln as well and made all kinds of things out of fused glass, including my favourite set of checkerboard “Alice In Wonderland” coasters.

He collected all kinds of things, notably coins and diecast tractors. Kate inherited his love of coin collecting, and when she was younger, they would discuss coins—she was always impressed by how knowledgeable he was. And not only did he collect tractors, he also customized his own collector vehicles, one of which sits proudly on a shelf in Ken’s office—a gift from his dad.

James Whytock leaves behind a family who loved him very much and who will miss him terribly, and an enduring legacy as a man who always saw the positive side of things—I don’t think I ever heard him say a bad word about anyone, and my last image of him this past Father’s Day was the smile on his face as he ate the chocolate that Ken’s mom brought him. Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease and I’m glad he’s finally at peace.

My favourite coasters
A lamp made by Jim

June/December Romance

The other day Ken was about to leave for his new job. Another job? I hear you ask. Wasn’t he spending all kinds of time in hot air balloons? What on earth is he doing now? And these are all good questions, the answers to which are a) yes, another job b) the balloon gig is only from May to October and c) he’s picking up and delivering parts, snowblowers, and lawnmowers for a local mechanic. And one of the parts pickups happened to be about 2 hours away by highway. I had to go to work myself that morning, so we agreed that I would call him when I was on the road, so we could chat while we were driving.

Me: How far away are you?
Ken: Not sure. It might be tricky. The map only showed the general area. I think I know what street to take when I get off the highway.
Me: What map?
Ken: I looked it up on one of the maps I keep in my office.
Me: You aren’t using your GPS?
Ken: No need. I had a map.

I used to tell Ken that he was like a 65-year-old man when he did things like write cheques to pay for everything because he “doesn’t trust online banking” or carried a Blackberry around for ten years even though it was virtually useless:

Me: What’s taking so long? I thought you were posting a picture.
Ken: I am. I just have to—hmmm. Or maybe…
Me: Use the image icon.
Ken: I will, after I write the post.
Me: You’re not done yet?
Ken: No, I’m trying to find Facebook.
Me: Maybe the problem is that you have a Blackberry. You know how the “interwebs” works, right? (*old man voice*) “I just can’t keep up with you kids and your newfangled gadgets and the Twitters. What ever happened to the good old days when people used typewriters?!” Oh wait, you ARE using a typewriter. Look at the keyboard on your phone.
Ken: Blackberries are great phones.
Me: Yeah, if you’re 65 years old. (*old man voice*) “I like to feel the keys go down when I press them, just like they did in the 1950s.” Also, could your screen be any smaller? No wonder you can’t find “the Facebook”.
Ken: Ha. Posted. So there. Oh wait, not yet—it’s a little laggy…I wish I had a flip phone with an antennae.

But now that Ken is less than a decade away from actually BEING 65, I have to call him a 90-year-old man, because even 65-year-olds will use a GPS when they’re going somewhere unfamiliar.

Me: But you don’t know where you’re going!
Ken: It’s fine. I memorized the map.
Me: What are you, a f*cking cartographer? (*old man voice*) “Ah yes, I studied the mysterious art of latitude and longitude at the academy.”
Ken (laughs): If it was still dark, I could navigate by the stars.
Me: I can just see you now, driving around in circles until you have to ask for directions. (*old man voice*) “Excuse me, my good sir, would you be so kind as to direct me to the horse and buggy repair shop?”
Ken: It’s fine. I have an internal compass.
Me: Is that a sextant in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Ken: You have 37 pairs of reading glasses, and you can never find ANY of them.

He did get to the place eventually without having to use his GPS. Fortunately for Ken, I have a thing for older men with a strong sense of direction. And now you’ll have to excuse me while I tuck him in for his nap.

And in other news, I found out last week that I was nominated for Spillwords Press Publication of the Year (non-poetic). I know the site is a pain I had to contact them directly because it kept locking me out), but if you’re able to, you can vote for me here before the end of day Sunday (and as always, if you do, I’ll name a character in a story after you): https://spillwords.com/vote/