Author: Mrs. Completely

Call the Paramedics! Again!

You may not remember, or maybe you do, but a couple of years ago I almost cut off my hand and The Viking tried to steal my well-deserved sympathy by comparing an ass-bruise with my almost severed hand.  He called it a paper cut, but that’s only because he wanted his ass-bruise to qualify as the most significant injury of the week, thereby rerouting my inalienable right for pampering to himself.

And this isn’t the only time he stole pampering rights.  I had an abscessed tooth that required intravenous antibiotics for 5 days.  He countered with swollen glands the following morning that put him in the hospital for over a week.  So, not only did I not get any pampering, I was running back and forth to the hospital to pamper him, dragging my antibiotic pump with me!

I’m mentioning it here because The Viking almost cut his finger off with a box cutter which created a moment of utter confusion because he literally reversed the Natural Injury/Disease Time Continuum.  He came running in the house drizzling blood and swearing profusely and time slowed down as my mind desperately tried to understand what was happening.  His fountain of blood can only happen if a fountain of blood has already erupted from me.  That’s how our shit works.  First me…..then him!  But I hadn’t seen any of my blood or felt any pain and my limbs were all present and accounted for which, logically, would mean I am uninjured.  But, if I’m uninjured and he is injured, something has gone terribly wrong in the Universe.

He fiddles around in the shop with things I can only assume are mechanically magical and now, in light of these events, my only reasonable conclusion is that he accidentally stepped out of the Mechanic Pentagram and unleashed a Demon.  Of course, when you fiddle with magic you know that eventually something unintended will happen, but I had thought/hoped it would involve less blood and more Robots.  Cooking and cleaning Robots to be exact.

Once Time returned to its normal progression, I ran for the gigantic first aid kit* while he drizzled blood into the kitchen sink.  I grabbed a roll of gauze and started wrapping it around his neck.  He said, “What the fuck are you doing?!”  And I said, “Installing a Tourniquet”.  Apparently, crisis humor isn’t appreciated in the middle of a crisis.

He started examining the cut more carefully.  “I think it went right to the bone.”

I said, “Oh my god!” and almost fainted.

Yes.  I almost fainted.  Meaning, he got hurt and I was pre-empting his injury.  He sat on a kitchen chair holding pressure on the cut while I sat on a kitchen chair with my head between my knees, sucking in air like a guppy out of water.  After a couple of minutes, I thought I was okay and sat up and almost passed out again!  It took me 20 fucking minutes to get a grip!  To add insult to injury – my injury, obviously – he was happily calling me “Pale Face” which is Danishy for “Pasty Face”.

We needed to get to the hospital, I knew that immediately.  The Viking disagreed.  We should wait and see if it would quit bleeding on its own.  I had wrapped some gauze around the middle finger fairly tight and I was a little concerned about leaving it on too long.  Two and a half hours later, it was still pumping out blood and would obviously need professional medical help.

Four and a half hours after that, the ER Doctor was impressed that The Viking had managed to cut his finger so deep that he severed the main blood vessel and yet hadn’t severed the nerve.  It took 5 stitches to sew his finger back together.

So, to recap:  The Viking reversed the Natural Injury/Disease Time Continuum and in so doing may or may not have created a demon in the shop but definitely didn’t create a Robot that could cook and clean.  Being so confused by the shifting of reality, I co-opted his pampering opportunity by almost fainting.  I finally got to use the Gigantic, Industrial-Sized First Aid Kit and it wasn’t on myself.  The Viking called me a name, I put a tourniquet around his neck and an ER Doctor was impressed with The Viking’s cutting talents.

And that’s how you get yourself an extra-long weekend on strict Doctor’s orders.  And also additional state-of-the-art medical supplies for the next attempted amputation.

 

*He bought the largest kit available because he assumed I would hack a limb off while cleaning Cauliflower one day and he wanted to be “prepared”.  I took a brief moment to remind him of that and to point out exactly who almost cut what off first.

Soliloquies of Swearing and Cursing

Generally speaking, I like winter.  I enjoy the absence of bugs, the fireplace, my flannel duvet cover and heated mattress pad.  Fuzzy trees and the sun on fresh snow is beautiful and the squelching sound I make when walking on snow is almost delightful.  And having lived in the far north where it doesn’t get dark at night in the summer, I have a good appreciation for the coziness of night.

However, there is one part of winter I absolutely hate!  Indoor cats!  Sweet Geezus, they are driving me batty already and it’s only November.  It snowed yesterday which means wet cat feet which means wet cat prints on every horizontal surface, including all my paperwork and my boobs.

The Viking installed a Cat Door this summer to save me literal hours each day opening and closing doors.  Yesterday, I watched alternating Cat’s Asses for most of the day as Izzie and Teddy took turns poking their nose out the cat door to see if I had fixed the weather yet.  I hadn’t and they were both more than just a little disappointed in my abilities.

So now there is the necessity of learning to play/get along with each other during the long hours of self-enforced detention.  As you might guess, Teddy has superior playing skills while Izzie can’t quite understand the concept.  She’s confused about the difference between ‘playing’ and ‘killing’.  Every attempt at play is a colossal failure.  Teddy invites her to ‘play’ chase him and Izzie ‘kill’ chases him.  He objects to the claw treatment and the huge tufts of his hair stuck between her toes.  She screams like the hounds of hell are on her tail even though he doesn’t actually touch her.

During summer, they rarely spend time together.  One is usually out while the other is in, so territory disputes are few and far between.  Now that snow has arrived though, every fucking thing is a dispute!

Teddy walked too close to Izzie’s bowl of water – flurries of slapping and cursing.

Teddy was sitting in the front window – a rear assault that Alexander the Great would approve.

Once Izzie gets the window seat, Teddy retreats to my lap with a smug expression.  And just so Izzie gets the message, he wanders over to The Viking’s lap as well, never breaking eye contact with her.

Teddy plays with a toy Izzie has never, ever, ever touched and suddenly he’s committed the crime of the century deserving 3 smacks and creative name-calling.

Teddy claims the top perch on the cat tree where Izzie usually sleeps, and she is on the internet looking up how to make a bomb.

Teddy runs into the bedroom when I’m heading to bed and takes up a position between my legs, facing the doorway so he can ‘Cheshire Cat’ Izzie when she wanders by.

Teddy sees Izzie and says ‘Bitch’ and she sees him and says ‘Asshole’ and The Viking and I are just innocents in the middle of an epic battle, just trying to survive.

Between cat fights and paw prints, my vocabulary has devolved to unending soliloquies of swearing and cursing.  And apologizing to customers for the puckered paw prints decorating their invoices.

The most horrific of behaviors belongs to Izzie.  Of course it does.  She’s been going outside to get her feet wet, then runs in the house to the litter box, stomps around to get as much litter on her feet as possible and then dances around the house.  There is fucking litter EVERYWHERE!!  And while I’m shouting that she doesn’t need to piss or shit nearly this much and waving my arms for emphasis she just sits there, not even looking at me, obviously without even one fuck to give!  Teddy, at least, has the good grace to look apologetic when he does something awful, like plopping a half-eaten mouse with its guts hanging out on the kitchen floor where I stepped on it in the dark.

Sometimes The Viking and I wonder what our lives would be like if we only had Teddy.  He’s a cuddlebug who never gets into trouble.  He doesn’t get on the counters, he’s stopped playing with the bathroom tissue, he doesn’t claw me in the middle of the night because I moved a bit, he doesn’t shout abuse so loud the neighbours can hear it, he doesn’t bite or claw-slap customers, he doesn’t hijack people’s vehicles when they accidentally leave a window down, he hasn’t broken into a single house and held the owner hostage, he doesn’t bully the neighbour’s dogs, he doesn’t pick fights with Ravens who bring back their entire family and turn the yard into an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but…….most importantly…..HE DOESN’T GET HIS FEET WET, DIP THEM IN LITTER AND SPREAD IT ALL OVER THE HOUSE!

I’m going to stop imaging such a wonderous thing because it’s just leading to homicidal thoughts.  And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to sweep up litter for the 7th time today.

Leave me a comment, I answer every one of them!

Is This a Carved-In-Stone Law Or A Suggestion? There IS a Difference, You Know.

I was on my way home from the Danish Store and traffic in the right lane was crawling while everyone in the left lane was zipping so I joined the Zippers because I was getting bored.  It was from the Zipping lane that I saw what was holding up traffic.

It was a minivan followed closely by a one-ton flatbed truck with its hazard lights flashing.  It took me a second to realize exactly what the problem was but when I did see it, I was all what the hell?!

All four wheels on that minivan were wobbling in comic exaggeration.  I mean serious wobbles I could see from a quarter of a kilometer away!

via GIPHY

When I mentioned it to The Viking, he passed on a snippet of his brilliance.

“That’s because they’re fucking stupid.  They didn’t know what they were doing when they changed their tires.”

Evidently, when you change a wheel on your vehicle, you put all the lug nuts on and tighten them individually in small increments so no one lug is tightened more than the others.

Apparently, this is a rule that you should never break.  I understand this is how you are supposed to do it, but I thought it was more of a suggestion than a Carved-In-Stone Law.  And I think I should be forgiven for thinking this way in the face of all the rules that are suggestions rather than Carved-In-Stone Laws.  For instance:

    • Brushing your teeth in an up and down motion – that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense to me. Even when I was a small child I didn’t believe it because aren’t you just pushing food bits further under your gums?  It’s obvious that brushing side to side or in a circular motion are superior methods and I’m glad the Dental Association finally saw the error of their ways.
    • Speed limits – everyone knows the speed limit, but we all know that it’s an arbitrary number someone in an office assigned decades ago based on the quality of vehicles back then. Today’s vehicles have been engineered by aliens and that old speed limit is strictly a ploy on the part of the Powers That Be to increase speeding ticket revenue.  And to bore drivers to death.
    • Cold medication – sure, there is a dosage suggestion on the package, but that’s totally dependent on how terrible I feel at that moment. I don’t start free-basing cold meds just because I have a sniffle.  By the time I have assessed the severity of my flu symptoms and grudgingly decided I need to medicate, the two-pill dosage is obviously inadequate.    I start with a double dose and work my way up until I’m rendered unconscious for the duration of the flu.  Incidentally, the suggested number of Hot Rum Toddies you ingest during your suffering is woefully insufficient as well.
    • Wine – how much wine I put in a recipe is totally subjective. They say ½ a cup, I say 2 ½ cups and I drink the rest of the bottle because I hate leftovers.
    • Laundry detergent – if a quarter of a cup is good, then a half a cup is, logically, better.
    • Hair products – see above.
    • Serving sizes – once again, suggestions. The suggested serving size of Pickled Herring is categorically TOO LARGE!  A quarter teaspoon is sufficient, thank you very much, followed by 3 servings of something to get the taste out of my mouth.  Ice Cream, on the other hand, is a different matter.  The suggested serving size of a quarter cup is laughable!*  There shouldn’t even be a suggested serving size on Ice Cream and the Monster who suggested it should be jailed.
    • Exit speeds – why so cautious? As long as I have two wheels on the pavement, I’m good.  If someone screwed up the engineering of the exit ramp, forcing drivers to slow down far more than is reasonable, the sign should just be

**

I didn’t bother asking for clarification from The Viking.  He gets all squinty around the eyes when he has to participate in this kind of conversation and it always ends with shouting and eloquent curses.

Perhaps it would be better if I just check on a case by case basis.  You know, rain showers instead of a monsoon.  I’m sure he’ll appreciate my thoughtfulness.

 

* Unless it’s Licorice Ice Cream and then the Pickled Herring size applies

** And now that I’m thinking about it, a lot of traffic signs should be just emojis.  It would certainly make driving more interesting.

I Have a Skeleton in My Closet!

My Great-Grandmother, Mabel Applegate, wrote a book of her life that began at 2 o’clock in the morning on January 2nd, 1897.  She had quite a few of the books coil-bound and gave them to all her children, grand-children and great-grandchildren.

It’s marvelous.

I wanted to add on to her story.  I wanted to preserve the family history, so I started working on my parents’ story several years ago.  It’s been a LOT of work!  I scanned almost 800 photos to save on a stick to be shared so everyone in family could enjoy them.  I spent hours and hours talking with Mom and Dad, taking notes and asking questions.  Then I started writing the book, deleted it, started over, tried editing it, deleted it and started over again.  Eventually, I found my way through it and can finally say:

I’M DONE!!

It’s true!  I sent the entire manuscript to one of my sisters, Janine, and she went through it all for me.  I was worried.  What if she thought it was terrible?  What if I insulted someone?  It’s terrifying to put your work out there for everyone to critique.  My anxiety is through the roof, but I’m in too deep to back out now.  Thankfully, Janine loves it and says I shouldn’t change a thing.

The last thing to do before having it printed, is to transcribe Mabel’s book into the back of my parents’ book.  Since Mabel’s book was printed, there have been great-great-grandchildren born and I want to make sure that her story isn’t lost to the following generations.

While I was transcribing, I came upon a story she told about Andrew Hellman, alias Adam Horn in 1820.

What?!  Now, that’s interesting!  An alias?  Ooooo…..I hope it’s because he’s a pirate and that he collects powdered wigs, pinching them off the person’s head without them even being aware that it is gone!

I’ve read Mabel’s book several times but for some reason I’ve completely forgotten about Mr. Andrew Hellman and why he needed an alias.  He was only a tailor, after all.  This story was passed around in the family, but Mabel copied the text out of a book from that era.

According to the author of that book, Hellman was…

“…a young man of good personal appearance, sober, steady, and industrious, well behaved and mild in his demeanor and withal, intelligent and well informed.”

That doesn’t sound like someone who would need an alias.  I continued transcribing.

“He seemed, however, to have imbibed a lasting dislike to the whole female race, looking upon them as mere slaves to man…..a convenience for the other sex, to serve in the capacity of hewer of wood and drawer of water: to cook his victuals, darn his stockings, never to speak but when spoken to, and to crouch in servile fear whilst in his presence.”

Ugh!  I think I know why he needed that alias!

Hellman met a farmer named George Abel who was Mabel’s great-great-grandfather.  Hellman managed to hoodwink the entire family, by

“…restrain[ing] the fiendishness of his disposition.” 

Isn’t that Fabulous?!

Completely taken in by Hellman’s act, George lets him marry one of his daughters – Mary.  She is described as

“…in the twentieth year of her age, a blithe, buxom and light-hearted country girl, with rosy cheek and sparkling eye, totally unacquainted with the deceitfulness of the world.”

What a delightful description!!  The entire story is written like this and it’s fantastic!

Long story short:  Hellman begets a child with Mary – a girl and he’s not happy about it.  He begets another child with her – a boy but he’s not happy about that either because he thinks Mary was screwing around and refuses to acknowledge the boy as his.  The third child is another boy who is, you guessed it, apparently not his either, and Hellman threatens to kill Mary if she has another child.  She doesn’t.  Hellman tries to poison Mary, but she figured it out in time.  He then poisons all three children, two of which die.  Then, Hellman chopped Mary up with an axe.  Henry, the surviving poison victim, was visiting his Uncle at the time or he would have been chopped up as well.

Hellman escapes custody before he can be brought to justice, flees to Baltimore, assumes the name Adam Horn, and marries another woman.  He kills her, too.

“On the 4th of December 1843, the prisoner [Hellman] was brought into Court to receive the awful doom of the law…..that he be taken to the jail of Baltimore  County, from whence he came, and from thence to the place of execution……there be hanged by the neck until he be dead.”

So, pinching powdered wigs wasn’t the reason for the alias.  I’m disappointed, to be honest.  A powdered wig pinching pirate (say that 3 times fast) is so much cooler than an axe murderer on a branch on the family tree.  On the other hand, Andrew Hellman turns out to be a celebrity among the Unquiet Souls enthusiasts.  I checked.  He’s the unwanted gift that keeps on giving.

“He haunts his former house/the road by his house/the local lovers’ lane, ax at the ready for new, teenaged victims…”  taken from:

http://hauntedohiobooks.com/news/hatchet-man-a-story-for-atlas-obscura-day/

I suppose I shouldn’t complain.  We do have a skeleton in the closet and that’s more than some people can say, right?  And maybe, if I put a teaser at the front of the book, it will get new generations interested.

 

 

Pudding Crypts for Cookies

When we adopted Izzie (the black succubus from Hell), and Teddy later (the feline equivalent of Joey Tribiani), The Viking did a shitload of research into the best cat food versus the best price.  After developing a complex algorithm, he decided on a brand and invaded the pet store to purchase it in bulk, both dry and canned.

For three years we’ve fed the Cats the same food and everything was fine.  Until it suddenly wasn’t.  They just stopped eating the canned food one day.  I don’t know why – it smelled fine, it looked fine, the ‘best before date’ was fine, it was FINE.  According to the Cats though, it was a toxic stew that we should be ashamed to call food.  So, The Viking went back to the complex algorithm, found the next best food and invaded the pet store again.

And guess what?  They love it!  They love it so much they’re willing to trample me to death to get to The Viking as he dishes it up.

However, we still had a couple cans of the old stuff.  Personally, I was willing to just get rid of it because it was apparent that neither Cat gave a thought to being fiscally responsible.  We discussed it and they were adamant: not a single speck of the old food would pass their lips for the rest of their lives!   But nothing annoys The Viking more than wastefulness*.

So he came up with a diabolical plan that is only slightly less diabolical (only because he didn’t do it to me) than my Mother’s diabolical plans.  She used to make delicious pudding when I was a kid and then hide old, dead cookies in the bottom of the bowl and we were forced to eat it because child abuse was not quite as frowned upon as it is these days.  And now The Viking took a page out of Mom’s diabolical book and mixed the toxic stew with the new food and presented it to the Cats like it wasn’t abusive at all.

I’d like to say that both Cats noticed immediately and refused to eat it.  But, nope!  They happily chowed that crap down and licked the bowls clean and I find that reprehensible.  It’s like they compromised without a thought.  Where’s their pride?  What happened to standards and expectations?  Don’t they know they have a responsibility to the rest of us?  When they give in to tyranny once, the overlords know they’ll do it again.  And if Cats will cave, then humans will cave, too, because everyone knows that Cats have an aversion to authority that surpasses even The Viking’s aversion to authority.  It is common knowledge that if you want to take over the world the plan begins with Cats and they’d better have good catnip toys.

What they’ve done is create a world of possibilities where any atrocity is possible.  They’ve shifted the current Space/Time Continuum and we now live in an entirely different place.  A place where Mom’s diabolical Pudding Crypts for Cookies is the norm and not considered the unimaginable horror that it is.

And I can’t just ignore who kicked off this current regime of terror – The Viking!  He has become the kind of person who will hide terrible food under delicious food.  He’s become a Monster!  If he’ll betray our cats, it’s only the smallest of steps to betraying me.  How can I trust any food he makes now?  Will I find Pickled Herring masquerading as a pork chop?  Fried Liver hiding under a lovely cream sauce?  Sauerkraut disguised as Spaghetti?  Curry Meatballs pretending to be any normal kind of meatball?

I’ve given this considerable thought and my only option now is to install HD video surveillance in the kitchen.  Yes, I could sit and monitor exactly what he does when he’s cooking, but he’ll bide his time until I need to pee, or the phone rings, or another Just Energy salesman rings the front doorbell, before he slips Kale into something.  I would rather be safe than sorry, so I’ll install a Viking Cam in the Drinking Horn on the sideboard.  And then I’ll squat like Golem in a dark closet with the monitor, watching every move he makes until I can bust his ass for Food Crimes Against Humanity.

The cats are on their own, though.  The little traitors deserve every gross thing The Viking hides in their bowl because they brought this on themselves.

 

*Slow drivers in the fast lane comes in a close 2nd.

Corpse Legs

First and foremost, I want to send a huge Shout Out to all the people who sent hugs and luvs and support when my Father passed away last month.*   You all have my deepest gratitude.  Thank you.

The two weeks surrounding Dad’s passing were the most stressful of my entire life and it goes without saying that when I get stressed I do Stupid things and the greater the stress the greater the Stupid.

Two days before the funeral, I ripped through my closet looking for something to wear only to find that nothing fit (thank you Diabetic Medication).  I went shopping and found a dress, then stood in front of the two colors of pantyhose the store had in stock.  And I definitely needed pantyhose to disguise my poor un-tanned legs (thank you, shitty summer).  Light or dark.  Light or dark.  The dark ones were stupidly dark but the light ones were close to the actual colour of my legs, so those were the ones I grabbed.

And now…..a quick word on Anxiety.  There are going to be people at this funeral.  Even worse, Family people.  Family people who know every stupid thing I’ve ever done, have heard all the stories, have re-told all the stories and watched me humiliate myself in spectacular fashion on numerous occasions.  They aren’t terrible people; they just have knowledge I would rather they not have.  And the effort to avoid more humiliation in front of them fuels ever more anxiety.  To be honest, I’d rather stand in a crowd of strangers because those people have no point of reference to compare – they take me as I am, right at that moment, totally unaware that I’m a train wreck waiting to happen.  They’ll be just as surprised as I am when shit happens and it’s easier to avoid strangers than it is to live down the reputation that precedes me at family events.

Anyway, the morning of the funeral, I made myself a promise to just let it happen.  Take what comes with dignity and grace and hope for the best.  Deep breaths.

And it worked.  Until I was getting dressed and realized that those fucking pantyhose were too light!  So light, in fact, that my legs resembled something from The Walking Dead.  I would have tossed them and went au naturel except I hadn’t shaved my legs because I had Pantyhose!  That’s a terrifying choice to make on the day of your Father’s funeral – corpse legs or hairy legs.  I feel another ‘Typical Lori’ story coming.

Just forget about it, Lori.  There’s nothing you can do about it now so stop beating yourself up. 

And that worked brilliantly until I got in the car and saw my legs stretched out in front of me.

Geezus!

via GIPHY

I almost chickened out completely at the Funeral Home, but I put my chin up and wiggled my way through the crowd.  I found the Funeral Director in the middle of the foyer and asked where Mom was – in the Family Room, of course.    I was relieved for exactly 23 seconds until I realized the Family Room was filled with Family.  White spots started dancing at the edge of my vision and my chest tightened.  Fuck me!  I immediately looked for the Sister I was most comfortable with and headed in that direction before I passed out.  Everyone was looking.  Probably without judgement but that would end as soon as they saw myfuckinglegs!

I sat down on a sofa behind my Sister and said, “Look at my legs!  They look like CORPSE legs!”  She turned around, most likely to tell me to keep my voice down when discussing corpses at this particular moment but before she could say anything, I lifted a leg and made point-y/stabby motions at it.  “CORPSE LEGS!”

And then my mind froze, and my vision darkened.  Did I just say the word “Corpse” at a Funeral?  My Dad’s funeral?  Christ!  Not only did I say it, but I shouted it, didn’t I?  Everyone in the entire building heard me compare my legs to a corpse.  In a building built specifically for corpses.  Sweet Jesus!

via GIPHY

At the Luncheon in the Seniors Centre, I hoped to get a cup of coffee and a dark corner.  That wasn’t to be, though.  What followed was a wonderful/terrifying hour of hugging and exchanging pleasantries.  People who were friends of Mom and Dad, came to introduce themselves and they were so kind and sweet.  One of them had been wanting to meet me because my Dad always talked about me.  Oh Gawd!  Really?  What stories do you know?!  A teacher from 6th grade came over.  “Mrs. Venables?!”  She had been hoping to see me, too.  Oh Gawd!   Please don’t tell an embarrassing story from 6th grade.  I hoped I wasn’t the only person in the family she was hoping to see.  My favorite cousins were there, and it was so wonderful to see them again, too.  There were many others and, joy of joys, no one told a humiliating story about me even once.

That I heard, anyway, but I’m willing to accept that as a win.

So, I lived through it.  None of my worst nightmares happened.  I was worried for no reason at all and I should learn from this experience.  Besides, no one will remember my Corpse Legs by next week anyway.  Or will they?

Pre-booking my next Anxiety Attack now.

* Especially you, Catherine – the card was perfect!  Cherie did excellent!  Give him a hug for us.

R.I.P DAD

My Father passed away August 23, 2019 and we laid him to rest on August 30, 2019 – he was 81 years old.  The funeral was stiff and religious and everything that He wasn’t.  I give my sisters and I a bit of grace because we’ve never planned a funeral before and the only Funeral Home in town gave less than stellar services.

The largest complaint I have about the service, aside from all the praying, was the Eulogy.

Written by me.

In a sweating panic of fear and confusion.

I had 6 tabs open on Google with examples and instructions for writing the perfect Eulogy and it didn’t help in the slightest.  I spent 5 hours banging my head on the keyboard, swearing liberally and snapping at The Viking every time he walked in the door.  I sent a frantic, curse-y, all-caps Messenger post to my sisters vowing off even going to the funeral.  I was utterly humiliated by the end result because it did no justice to my Father.

The largest obstacle, for me, was the person who would be reading the Eulogy – a devout, religious man who “wouldn’t say ‘Shit’ even if he had a mouthful of it”*.  He is a perfectly wonderful man but my Father was the antithesis of a devout and religious man.   I have very few humorous stories of Dad that don’t involve sex or bodily functions and those are exactly the type of stories that could cause a devout and religious man to pass out at the podium.

I don’t know why Dad specifically requested this man to give the Eulogy.  Perhaps he couldn’t think of anyone else?  Who knows?  I also don’t know if I should have been the one to write the Eulogy because it’s more than just a little obvious that no religious, devout man would happily read anything I’ve written, especially in front of a full house of mourners.  There was a single horrifying suggestion that I stand up in front of all those people and give the Eulogy, but the only way that was going to happen was if someone bodily dragged me, kicking and screaming and summoning demons, to the front of the room and physically tied me to the podium.  Watching me try to talk to more than 3 people at a time is like watching an explosive train derailment in slow and graphic detail.  No one should be subjected to that, and, frankly, I deserve points for recognizing that fact.

To make up for the ‘Worst Eulogy in the History of the World’, I’ve decided to post what I would rather have written.  So, here goes….

Dad was the only son of an only son, born in New Mexico, USA on May 9, 1938.  He grew up being the centre of attention until his young life fell apart.  His father died when Dad was 9 years old and his mother died when he was 11 years old.  An Aunt from Canada brought him to Alberta when he was 12.

Not one to dwell on tragedy, Dad decided his main occupation was to enjoy life and either amuse or disturb anyone and everyone around him.  If he hasn’t offended you at some point in time, you probably didn’t know him.  He was always telling you “where the bear shit in the buckwheat” and “don’t eat that Harry, that’s Horseshit!”  He loved to “poke you with a sharp stick” then sit back and see what happened.

There was always a joke on deck; a gross one if he were sharing it with men, and only slightly less gross if he were sharing it with ladies.  And every once in a while he left someone bleeding in his wake as he pursued the next laugh.  He didn’t deliberately try to hurt people, it just happened while his sails were full and he was performing for his peeps.

Dad had another side to him, though.  He was the man who plastered mud on a bee sting and straightened the handlebar on my bike.  When a neighbourhood bully smacked a big rock with a bat and it hit me in the stomach, Dad hauled me to the kid’s father, pulled my shirt up and showed the damage.  The result was never in question once Dad was involved.

He taught us all to change a tire, check the oil and add fluids to our vehicles.  We all learned to drive in a red Ford Courier truck – no power steering, no power brakes, a 4-speed manual transmission.  We learned how to saddle a horse and ride.  How to chop wood and build a campfire.  We all learned to work hard and to take pride in everything we do.  He was MacGyver and John Wayne rolled into one – he could do and/or fix anything.  I asked him once if he minded having 4 girls and no son.  Without a thought, he said “There isn’t a single thing that a girl can’t do, that a boy can, except pee standing up.”  Of course, we all know that girls can pee standing up too, but we are definitely less accurate.  He made his point though.

When Dad walked into a room, everyone knew he was there; he wasn’t a man to be ignored.  Not for long, at any rate.  He was hard-headed and stubborn as a rock.  He rubbed people the wrong way many times and offended others and blustered his way through delicate situations like a Sherman Tank.  If there was a chance to ‘torment’ you, rest assured he would find it.  If you happened to disagree with him, his eyes would spark and snap and he would carefully and quietly tell you exactly how and why you were wrong and that was the end of that.

He was also the man who listened to an excuse and told you to find your ‘sympathy’ between ‘shit’ and ‘syphilis’ in the dictionary.   He was the guy who explained what an Orgy was when I was 8 years old and saw the word scratched on the bathroom wall at school:

“You know that thing under the bridge in the story Three Billy Goats Gruff?  Well that was an Ogre and when it’s just one Ogre, it’s called an Ogre.  But when you have more than one, like two or three of them, they are called an Orgy.  And do you know what more than three Ogres are called?  An Orgasm!”  

Truth.  Seriously.

It was always ‘colder than a well-digger’s ass’ or a ‘witch’s tit’ depending on his mood and things always worked ‘slick as goose shit in a tin horn’ whatever that meant.  He sang songs like:

She was a great big fat girl twice the size of me

And you ought to see her when she squats to pee

She has hair on her snatch like the branches on a tree

Oh Nellie put your belly next to me**

Or….

I love to go swimming with bow-legged women and swim between their legs

There were plenty more of them, too.  At a family reunion about 10 years ago, my sisters and I realized that we only knew the naughty version of nearly every campfire song ever written.  We opted out of the sing-along in favour of another activity, obviously.

Dad loved life and loved people and loved a good joke.  He was happiest in the middle of a crowded room, bull-shitting and swapping stories.  And, he was the best story-teller I’ve ever met and I’ve met my share of story-tellers.  He was honest and hard-working and always ready to lend a hand, as long as you understood who would now be in charge.  He was a Construction Foreman in the Oil Patch after all, and he knew how to get things done.

The last couple of years were difficult for Dad.  Cancer didn’t care how tough he was or how angry he got.  It wouldn’t be bullied or intimidated or ignored.  He never gave in to despair though, and he didn’t go without a helluva fight.

He was the rock in the family, steady and dependable and always there if we needed him.

And we loved him.  Rest in Peace, Dad.

He leaves his wife, Lois, 4 Daughters, 10 Grandchildren and 6 Great Grandchildren.  The world is a poorer place without him.

 

*Another of Dad’s favorite sayings.

**Honestly.  Can you see a devout and religious man reciting this?

Knock, Knock!

We did something daring.  That’s right.  We dared.  And, it was glorious!

We have a Honda Goldwing – a great old girl that has seen better days but when The Viking blows in her exhaust and whispers sexy things to her injectors it’s like she’s 10 again.*  He dusted her off and fueled her up and we went through the mountains to Cranbrook, British Columbia.

We’ve never dared to ride for so long before because my Spine gets cranky about its missing disc and potholes.  However, you never get adventure from sitting on the sofa, so I packed some hefty pain meds and we hit the road.   I stuck earphones in and turned up my music.  While The Viking was driving like a Boss, I was conducting orchestras, doing drum solos and singing opera – happy as a clam.

We don’t have the fancy helmet to helmet communication because I prefer my solitary time.  However, I have created a complex method of communicating with The Viking, just in case I have something important to say that can’t wait until we stop for a stretch:  I knock on his helmet with my knuckles.  I would knock on his helmet with a pretty Scepter but apparently he doesn’t think I’m Queenly enough for one.  Whatever.  So, I knock on his helmet and he turns his head and I yell my important information at him.  It’s almost perfect.

Knock, Knock

The Viking turns his head.

I’VE BEEN HIT!!  A GIANT BUG JUST CRIPPLED MY RIGHT KNEE!

Shrug.

He’s obviously not concerned enough to pull over for triage.

Knock, Knock

Head turns.

WHY IS MY NOSE ALWAYS ITCHY WHEN I RIDE THIS BIKE?!

Shrug.

I spend more time with my finger scrubbing my nose than actually looking at the scenery.

Knock, Knock

Head turns.

I CAN’T CHEW MY GUM BECAUSE THE HELMET IS TOO TIGHT!

Shrug.

Seriously!  Do motorcyclists never chew gum?  Helmets should have cheek pouches. OR…..the back of his jacket should have a TicTac pocket.

Knock, Knock

Head turns.

I HAVE TO PEE!

Makes several hand signals that I believe meant that I’d just have to hold it until we reached the next gas station OR it could have meant that he’d stop if I wanted to squat in the ditch.

I decided to wait for a gas station.

Knock, Knock

Head turns.

MY BACK IS ITCHY AND IT’S DRIVING ME NUTS!!

Shrug.

I tried to keep my squirming to a minimum.

Knock, Knock

Head turns.

I ALMOST LOST MY PHONE WHEN I WANTED TO CHANGE PLAYLISTS!

Muffled curses and lewd hand gestures.

If he had a pocket on the back of his jacket to hold my phone, this wouldn’t be an issue, you know.

We had a wonderful trip though.  The weather was perfect, the hotel was clean and dinner out was lovely.  We should do this again.

As soon as I get finished sewing an organizing system to the back of The Viking’s leather jacket.

*He’s very good at whispering sexy things to old girls.  Trust me.  I know.

What Happens in the Blanket Fort, Stays in the Blanket Fort

Some days are hard.  Some hard days are more than a day, sometimes they’re a week or even a month.

We’re all in the same boat – maybe at different times, but that boat has seats for all of us.  For some reason though, we don’t want to impose our momentary weakness on anyone else.  We hold that shit on the inside while pretending we are fabulous on the outside.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that I’ve seen different friends struggling at different times in the past few months.  They’re sad or overwhelmed or afraid but determined to vent just a little bit and then they’ll be fine.  No Pity Party necessary.   I feel for them because I’ve been there, but what the hell are they talking about?!

What’s wrong with a Pity Party?  They are AWESOME!  And it’s not healthy to keep all that crap bottled up, sticking it in a box in the back of your mind where it gives you nightmares and starts to eat away at other brain things.

Have a damned Pity Party already!

via GIPHY

Build a blanket fort.  Seriously.  And fill it with pillows, booze, junk food, headphones, Kleenex, music and your own sorry behind.  Make a cheezy sign with crayons and pin it to the blanket with a safety pin: “I’m unavailable to take any calls at the moment.  Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m done with my Pity Party.”

Go ahead……bawl like a child until you’re drowning in snot.

Shout at the heavens and curse the Gawds.

Blame all your problems on that ex-friend who screwed you over.

Eat chocolate until your face is smeared and your eyes turn brown.

Be a flamboyant Drama Queen/King.

Throw chip bags and chocolate bar wrappers and snotty Kleenex out every opening in the blanket fort until the perimeter is heaped high with it all.

Kick your feet and pound your fists.

Swear with abandon.

Listen to trash metal with your headphones on and sing at the top of your lungs.

Own the hell out of your Pity Party because you deserve it!

Tomorrow, crawl out of your tent, have a shower and return to adulting without any explanation.

Because what happens in the Blanket Fort, stays in the Blanket Fort.

Where’s A Coyote When You Really Need One?

I like birds – they’re pretty and sing-song-y and generally don’t get in my way – meaning, I haven’t tripped over one.  Yet.  There’s still plenty of life in me so there’s a reasonable probability that at some point in the future I will trip over one or two and I can only hope the birds in question don’t hold grudges and/or can’t run very fast.

Anyway, I like birds, but to be honest, I’ve never spent a good deal of time minutely examining my thoughts and feelings about them.  Until this morning, that is.  At 6:30am I was given the perfect opportunity to delve deeply into my opinions and emotions about birds and come up with a definite conclusion:  I like birds – except Magpies.  I fucking hate Magpies!

The specific Magpie who became the object of my early-morning cursing was the one sitting under our bedroom window squawking and chatting with one of the cats.  It was, most likely, Teddy because he seems to have some kind of dysfunctional relationship with it that may or may not include racial slurs, name-calling and cursing.  It follows Teddy around, shrieking at him, then Teddy answers it in Cat and it shrieks again and Teddy answers again.  We’re quite surprised because Teddy….

isn’t the cat around here that’s famous for shouting and swearing – that honour goes to Izzie, The Queen of Mean herself.

Teddy is a sweet, chill guy who channels Joey Tribiani.

via GIPHY

I suppose I could be wrong about the content of their conversations.  Maybe it’s a weird friendship between a Low Talker and a Shouter.  Maybe they are conversing over the state of the local economy and how the influence of weather patterns could disrupt the flow of goods and services to the most vulnerable in society.  Maybe they are plotting and planning a coup in the Squirrel Community.  Maybe that bloody bird has a miserable sibling, too.  Maybe they are comparing notes and strategies for coping.  Who the fuck knows and, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter.

These two-way conversations go on several times a day for such a ridiculously long time that even the neighbours are starting to notice.  I’ve tried on several occasions to capture this phenomenon but that damned Magpie is as shifty as it is loud, and Teddy has the innocent act down pat.

At 6:30 this morning, I was having visions of pulling every single feather out of that gawd-damned bird until it was naked as the day it was hatched.  I had a lengthy intervention with Teddy, explaining that he needs to find a friend that doesn’t drive me to the serious contemplation of murder.  He listened very carefully, then went outside and found that bird again!  Probably to tattle on me for racism or something.  Will my car be covered in Magpie Poop now?

Under normal circumstances, I would never try to dictate who a person has as a friend because friendship comes in many different forms.  Cat and bird friendships should be encouraged in the hope of interspecies peace.  But a Magpie?  Really?  Teddy couldn’t find any other bird in the neighbourhood to befriend?  One that was less offensive and less loud?  A Finch?  A Sparrow?  How about a Hummingbird?  Hummingbirds are nothing short of awesome!  Nope!  It had to be a damned Magpie!  I would suspect passive/aggressive behavior if it were Izzie because she would totally do that, but Teddy has neither the smarts nor the personality to pull it off.

Since I apparently have little influence on Teddy’s choice of companions, I’ll just have to come up with a name for my nemesis.  A little help would be greatly appreciated, people.

In the meantime, it’s my kind of luck that someone will write a children’s book about this, ending it with the sweet cat and the pretty bird living happily ever after and I’ll look like the asshole.

Where is a coyote when you desperately need one?