Well, we’re back from our trip. The second last day was my favourite, I think, mostly because we toured around Halifax in an ‘amphibious vehicle’, which is to say that our tour bus turned into a boat at a certain point and we literally drove down a ramp into the water and then we were floating and it was supercool. I’ve done that once before, many years ago, but it wasn’t made clear to me that the bus BECAME a boat—I thought we were changing vehicles halfway through, so imagine my terror as we headed straight off the pier into the water. But this time I was ready, and I really enjoyed it. Overall, the cruise was pretty good—at least the food, wine, and destinations were great. It was just the crew that was chaotic, like tiny animated characters in an old-time video game just zipping around without any seeming purpose and bumping into walls and getting stuck and whatnot. The last day was pretty exhausting, having to get up at 7 am, eat a quick breakfast, and then wait to get called for our airport transfer. Once we were off the boat, Norwegian basically washed their hands of us and we had to find the bus to the airport on our own. We eventually did, and then had to battle all the other passengers who were equally desperate to get away from the ship and had NO F*CKING IDEA HOW TO LINE UP, CAUSING INCREDIBLE PANIC AND DISORDER WHEN THE BUSES FINALLY ARRIVED.
At any rate, we arrived home later that day, and Atlas was very pleased to see us; in fact, he stood up, put his paws on my shoulder and then licked my neck and face, something he has never done before, and it was very sweet. And sloppy. We unpacked, I did a little prep for the presentation I was doing the next night at the local library on writing, and then we went to bed. The next morning, I woke up and Ken was already downstairs. When he came up, he looked terrible.
Me: What’s wrong? Ken: I was up all night with a fever. Me: Oh f*ck.
So I gave him a covid test and guess what? IT WAS POSITIVE. Which meant I had to cancel my presentation, cancel work on Saturday, and pretty much spent the next few days taking care of him. Fortunately, we’ve both had all our boosters so he’s not as sick as he could have been. I tested negative, and so far, I still am, fingers crossed.
Ken on the left, me on the right
So you were right, ‘Mole, my friend—cruise ships really are a hotbed of bacteria. But the upside to all this (aside from having a readymade blog topic) is that it’s quince season and the quince on the bushes in my backyard are ready to go. It was a bumper crop this year, so I’ve spent the last couple of days making quince jam, quince crumble, quince juice (which is what you get after you poach the quince to get it ready for cooking). Quince is labour-intensive, more so than any other fruit in existence I think, but it’s worth it in the end. I have so much quince that I posted it for sale on Facebook Marketplace which obviously meant fielding stupid questions from people who don’t read ads and want to know where I live (it’s in the ad) and how much the quince is (it’s in the ad) and do I deliver? (no, I am NOT bringing quince to your house—I picked it for you so if you want it, get your ass over here).
So wish me luck—I’m usually a positive person but right now, I really need to stay negative.
Last night, Ken and I were watching a YouTube video about songwriters that got sued because their songs sounded too much like other songs. And there were a LOT of them. Most of the time, the newer songwriters lost in court and had to pay royalties to the previous songwriters. And it got me thinking about other things that are like things, only I don’t know if anyone ever got sued over any of these:
One Christmas, Ken put something amazing in my stocking. We’ve always given each other stockings full of socks, chocolate, wine, and other small cool stuff, and that year I was excited to receive a pen. That might sound less cool than I’ve made it out to be, but wait! It wasn’t just a pen—it was also a screwdriver, a level, and a ruler. It was, in fact, a “4-In-1 Pen Tool”, and if that isn’t the best thing that is like another thing, I don’t know what is. Now, no matter where I go, I can measure something, check if it’s level, repair it, or write down an interesting fact about it. Because multi-tasking is an art, and things that are like other things are a multi-tasker’s best friend.
Here’s another example–if you’ve been here before, you know that I LOVE gummy vitamins. They’re multi-coloured, taste just like gummy bears, and are the best of both worlds. The first thing I get to do when I get up in the morning, even BEFORE I eat my yogurt, is have some candy. And it was recommended by my doctor! I NEVER used to take vitamins before, on the grounds that they tasted bad (except for Vitamin C tablets, which taste like oranges, or just like the baby aspirin they had when I was a kid. I used to sneak baby aspirin every so often because they were so delicious–I could fall off my bike and bleed half to death because my blood was so thin, but it didn’t hurt at all), and I didn’t really care about thiamine or niacin or dioxin or whatever. But now, I take vitamins every day because it’s fun AND healthy.
And that got me thinking about: First, things that are like other things that make me happy, and next: the things that SHOULD be like other things that would make me even happier:
1) One of my all-time favourite things which is like another thing is ‘Pants That Are Pajamas’. After working from home during the pandemic, I accrued several pairs of these. Some people call them ‘Yoga Pants’ but I don’t do yoga, unless you count a vigorous stretch to grab a wine glass from the cupboard. And if you’re still working remotely, ‘Pants That Are Pajamas’ allow you to easily transition from Business Casual to Nightwear with very little effort at all.
2) If you’ve ever flown, you know that your seat cushion turns into a flotation device. Which begs the question (which I think I heard first from Jerry Seinfeld) ‘why doesn’t the plane just turn into a cruise ship if it lands in the water?’ I know this is totally possible, because my next favourite thing which is like another thing is a bus that turns into a boat. We went on a bus tour in Ottawa a few years ago, and after we’d driven around for a while looking at the Parliament buildings and whatnot, the driver suddenly announced that we would also be cruising the harbour. Then we drove down a ramp, STRAIGHT INTO THE RIVER. I was totally freaking, but Ken was like, “Don’t worry–the wheels turn into propellers and there’s a ring underneath that inflates.” I responded very calmly with “Liar! We’re going to drown!” and Ken said, “They ADVERTISED this. Why are you acting all surprised? Don’t you remember?”, but I reminded HIM that first, I thought they meant we would get OFF the bus and get ON a boat, and second, I may or may not have been enjoying a very nice Sauvignon Blanc the previous evening when he pulled out the brochure and was waving it around, saying, “Ooh, this will be fun.” But you know what? Once I got used to the idea that my bus was now a boat, and the bus driver was now a sea captain and I could refer to him as ‘Skipper’, I really enjoyed the whole experience. Kate, of course, remained calm throughout the entire tour. Or maybe she was bored. Mainly because the tour consisted of just looking at buildings. But still, the Bus-Boat was very cool.
3) Canes that become swords. Okay, technically, they don’t BECOME swords, they just have swords in them. It would be awesome to be hobbling around, all decrepit-like, then suddenly whip out that sword like a superspy ninja when the need arose. I also love canes that double as flasks for alcohol, because who DOESN’T want to crack that bad boy open when no one’s looking? It would have made my Bus-Boat trip a hell of a lot more interesting once we were on the water, that’s for sure.
4) Sporks. This is two handy things in one–a spoon and a fork. Take it one step further by sharpening the plastic edge, and you have a sporfe: a spoon, fork, and knife all in one, which I just invented. Actually, this might have already been invented, most likely by a prisoner, who stole a spoon from the canteen and turned it into a weapon to shank his cellmate with first, then ate the guy’s pie and ice cream after. Wow, that got dark kind of quick for a fun plastic utensil.
5) Closed Captioning. This allows you to watch TV and read at the same time, so all those people who think reading is a more intellectual pursuit than Netflix can get stuffed.
Okay, so I’ve listed some things that are already like other things, so here are some ideas about things that I WISH were other things:
1) An exercise machine that is also a bar. Many years ago, I had a recumbent cycle, and I used to pour a big glass of wine, turn on the TV, and cycle for a few kilometres. It was hardly like exercising AT ALL, and I broke even on the calories.
2) A bookshelf that is a door. I’ve been bugging Ken about this for a while now, trying to get him to think of a place in our house where we could put a bookshelf that is, in reality, the door to a secret room. There are a couple of spots where we could do it, but Ken thinks it would be really complicated to build. What a baby. I mean, I’m no engineer, but I do have a 4-In-1 pen, and I think it’s definitely possible.
3) A pen with a Tide White Stick on the other end. This is great for people like me, who are fairly clumsy and wave pens around for emphasis, inevitably getting ink on their clothes. But see, with my invention, all you’d have to do is flip the thing around, erase that blob, and you’re good to go. Combine it with the 4-In-1 Pen and you wouldn’t be able to keep them on store shelves—they’d be snapped up faster than a recumbent cycle with a built-in wine fridge.
Ultimately, I am the QUEEN of multi-tasking. Whether it’s eating, drinking, working out, or just relaxing, I’ve got a pen for that.
On Tuesday night (or was it morning? —it was dark), I woke up to yet another pounding rainstorm. I immediately had a panic attack, because we live in a very old house, built in 1906, with the grossest basement you could imagine. For the last 17 years, the basement occasionally gets damp in the spring but then dries out in the summer and we’ve never had a flood—until this spring when the sump pump stopped working and suddenly there were several inches of water. Ken fixed the pump, but the constant rain here has made the basement even wetter than normal, causing me to go into Worst-Case Scenario mode, thinking the whole house was going to come down around our ears thanks to a crumbling foundation. I lay awake for a while, tossing and turning, until eventually Ken woke up:
Ken: What’s wrong? Why did you wake me up? Me: The basement. It’s going to flood again. Ken: No, it won’t. The sump pump is running. It’s an old house; there’s nothing we can do.
Oh really?! The gauntlet was thrown. I immediately began planning exactly what we were GOING to do first thing the next morning, which was a) buy a rain barrel so that the excess moisture didn’t sink into the ground, and b) plant more plants in the garden to replace the ones that Ken killed last year by insisting on “breaking the roots apart” when he planted them, thereby leaving large gaps where the water wasn’t getting absorbed by flora and roots and whatnot. And then I insisted on telling Ken the plan right then and there, causing him to groan and whine about “needing to sleep.” Well, I’m sorry KEN, but this is our equity, and I won’t have it ruined by stupid rain. And the climate gods were with me, because we set out the next morning to buy a rain barrel, which are relatively expensive, and we came across a yard sale that had one for 5 bucks. We installed it, and planted some shrubberies (the kind without deep root systems that might damage the foundation) and it all looked very nice. Later that day, there was an absolute deluge, but Ken had fixed all the downspouts so they went into the rain barrel instead of into the ground next to the foundation. And everything would be great if it would just STOP F*CKING RAINING because now I keep having to empty the rain barrel and find something to do with all the water that’s accumulating BECAUSE OF THE F*CKING RAIN.
So in between stressing about the rain ruining my house and dealing with Atlas, who got sprayed by the same skunk AGAIN, it’s been a hard few days. But then, yesterday morning, the sun came out again for the second day in a row (gasp), and I decided it was time to mow the lawn. I’d been putting it off based on my previous experience on the John Deere Death Machine, but not being one to give up easily, I decided to try again. This time, I wore a better bra and went a little slower, and it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the first time. I think I only screamed twice—once because I went down a hill more quickly than I’d intended and second because I badly misjudged the clearance on a group of very sharp spruce boughs. Later, I was talking to my mom:
Mom: What did you do this morning? Me: I mowed the lawn. Mom: You did WHAT?! Me: I mowed the lawn. Mom: Are you okay?! Me: Yes, except for a few scratches on my neck. But my boobs are fine. Mom: Oh good! Me: And it was lucky too, because it’s supposed to rain all afternoon. Mom: I’ll bet the lawn looks great. Me: Thanks, Mom.
She really is the best mom—if only she could make it stop raining…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
2)
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.
Ivory Towers is one of Canada’s leading drag queens. With over 18 years experience she has won many titles including Miss Gay Toronto, Crews and Tangos drag race and many more. She has been featured in commercials with Sephora, Visa debit, Molson Canadian and Ikea.
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