Tag: failures

Sand and Spit

We’re home from vacation. Sigh. Unwillingly and unhappily. Sad emoji. I was born to be filthy rich, but my ancestors didn’t put in the effort required to fund my preferred lifestyle. I shouldn’t complain because we did get more than a week of wonderfulness, but I’m going to anyway. Not here, of course, because my whining is boring, so go ahead and read on. Also, I’ll have another post about the vacation because there is just too much to tackle in one post.

We took the Goldwing, but we haven’t become very adept at packing. This is only the third time we’ve attempted a motorcycle vacation and it shows. Mostly because The Viking is a cranky control freak.

Back in the bad old days, when we packed the fifth wheel for every holiday, we had completely separate tasks that rarely over-lapped. He had nothing to do with stocking the towels, clothes and condiments. I had nothing to do with filling propane bottles and checking tire pressures. The only time we had to confer was in regard to how many times we would be eating steak and bacon (every meal) and how much beer and Baileys I needed to buy (a lot). This motorcycle packing is an entirely different beast though. It turns out that I am in charge of gathering things and The Viking is in charge of complaining about the items I’ve gathered and packing those items into the bags.

I started my ‘gathering stuff’ a couple days in advance, all the items grouped into categories, sealed in Ziplocks and labelled appropriately. I put all my clothes into a large Ziplock bag and squeezed the air out of it so it took up less space, and wrote lists of what needed to be done before we left. I brought out the custom bags that fit perfectly in the trunk and side bags of the bike and thought I had everything under control.

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Just to be clear, I did not presume to put anything in a bag. I clearly remember last year’s debacle and simply laid out the bags and piles on the kitchen table so The Viking could mumble incantations and work the intricate magic involved in his packing system. I took up position on the opposite side of the table and waited for instructions.

“Beach Towels.”

“Yes Sir!” I handed them over respectfully with a snappy salute. I folded them wrong, apparently, and there was a heavy sigh and several seconds of head shaking while he re-folded them properly and put them in the bottom of a bag. With great exaggeration for instructional purposes.

“Laptop.”

I had put the power cords in the outside pocket of the laptop bag and that was a colossal blunder.

“You can’t put the cords with the laptop because any weight on top of it…” he mimics pushing down on the laptop, “will break it.” He continues mimicking the pushing and breaking for an entire 30 seconds. Okay, he has a point. I’ll give him that.

My vacuum-packed clothes were an issue for some unknown reason. It probably wasn’t magic enough. He mumbled something about it being too wide to fit and bashed the side bag skinny-full-ly several times to make his point. “See?! It won’t fit. You have to be very careful that you don’t make the bag too wide, or the side bag cover won’t close. See?!”

I nodded enthusiastically like I had learned something new, hoping he wouldn’t carry on for another 6 minutes on the intricacies of motorcycle packing. As he dumped my clothes…..

“You only need 5 pairs of underpants.” Counting them out and handing me the remainder.

“But we’re going to be gone for 10 days.”

“You’re lucky I’m allowing you 5! You can wash them in the sink. I’ve been taking motorcycle trips for 107 years and have never packed more than 3 pairs of underpants even for a 6-month trip. And I washed them out with only one cup (250ml) of water that I recycle to make myself some coffee with nothing more than a Bic lighter and tin foil. I’m sure you can make do.”

“Should I buy travel-size laundry soap?”

“What?!! Are you crazy?!! We’ll use sand and spit.”

He dismantled my entire Ziplock system, including the Ziplock containing all the chargers for all of our electronics. He gave a Ted Talk on how a Ziplock of something takes up too much room, but individual items can be put into nooks and crannies. He explained with examples, best practices and techniques. He did make one concession for Ziplocks and that was when it came to things that might leak, like shampoo. He also gave a short lecture on where things go depending on their squishiness – hard things go here, and soft things go there. At least that’s what I think he was explaining; I had stopped listening at sand and spit because my lady parts were shrieking.

I finally walked away and left him to his dark magic. He may VooDoo everything into the bags easier but just wait until he’s looking for his toothbrush and has to unpack every damned bag to find it. That goes for tablets and phone chargers, too. He should have made a detailed luggage map with the location of every item at a bare minimum, but what do I know?

I’m not saying that I could do a better job packing the bike, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be so cranky and explain-y.

It Could Happen to Anyone!

Sigh. I don’t usually screw up this bad. I’ve honed a combination of anxiety, chronic over-planning, and self-doubt to such an advanced level that it’s rare that I forget something of such importance. Sure, the occasional toothbrush or deodorant gets missed, but they aren’t really important in the grand scheme of vacations.

In my defense, we were leaving for vacation a day earlier than the original plan because The Viking decided, and that condensed my preparations from two days into one day. That’s important because my usual pre-vacation check, check, triple check, self-doubt, check, check, second self-doubt, and a final check was cut off after just two checks, and I only had one day to run all errands and chores. Also, The Viking usually fuels up the bike the day before we leave so we just get on the bike and go first thing in the morning, but this time he decided he should mess with our scientifically proven process of vacationing and would fuel up on the way out of the city. In other words, we were throwing all caution to the wind and recklessly hoping the Vacation Gods were in our favour. They weren’t.

The first sign of the colossal clusterfuckery headed my way happened at the gas station before we ever left the city. The Viking opened his wallet to pull out the credit card to stick into the pump….

“Where the fuck is the credit card?!!!”

During one of those errands the day before, I needed the credit card, so I just stuck the card in my wallet. Had I returned the card to his wallet immediately, he would have been none the wiser, but I hadn’t and that one little thing was nothing short of a sin of biblical proportions and, trust me on this, The Viking is extremely good at pinpointing sins of biblical proportions and exactly who is to blame for those sins of biblical proportions. And, since I didn’t need my wallet on the first day, it was buried in the depths of Jolene’s over-stuffed side bags. At that point, we both decided that it was easier to just pay with cash than scatter our belongings all over the parking lot of the gas station to find my wallet. We should have known better. This is what happens when we fly by the seat of our pants, with no method to our madness. And, had The Viking fueled up Jolene the day before, he would have caught my clusterfuck. But, he didn’t. Our fate was inescapable at that point.

So, we drove four and a half hours, blissfully ignorant. We pulled into the parking lot of our pre-booked hotel and dug out my wallet.

Time.

Stopped.

Blink. Blink.

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My wallet did not contain the credit card.

The Viking grabbed my wallet out of my hands and looked for himself. No credit card. He pulled his wallet out again and nope, no credit card.

Shit.

The Viking started a curse-y stream of mutterances of doom and the ending of all our hopes and dreams forever more, while I prepared for the biblical consequences of my clusterfuck. How could I have lost the credit card?! If it wasn’t in either wallet, then it had to be in my coat pocket or still sitting on the counter at the parts store.

The Vacation Gods must have decided to give us a small bit of luck though when the hotel desk person didn’t ask to see the credit card. We had booked and paid for the room on Expedia, but usually, we are asked for the card anyway. This time they didn’t, so at least we had a bed for the night.

Six o’clock the next morning, we loaded Jolene up again and drove four and a half hours back to Calgary in sub-arctic temperatures which The Viking had tried to avoid by leaving a day early!

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I ran for my coat and…no credit card!

I ran to the car and frisked it thoroughly…no credit card!!

I must have left it on the counter at the parts store. My head was ready to explode. I don’t lose things! How could I have lost THE CREDIT CARD of all things?! The Viking was pacing.

I reached for the phone to call the parts store, and there, on the top of The Viking’s computer tower, was the credit card. I almost cried. It took me only a second to realize that I must have been sidetracked on my way to put the credit card in The Viking’s wallet. A phone call? A customer? With the panic of changed plans and the parts run and talking with the house sitter and getting more cat food and finishing laundry and customers coming at the last minute…it could happen to anyone.

So, 8 hours of driving just to get back to where we started, and then another 8 hours to go where we wanted to go and where we had a hotel room waiting for us. A 12-hour driving day. And it was fucking cold until we got back to where we started that morning.

In a post-apocalyptic clusterfuck de-brief we decided that getting a second card for me to keep in my wallet at all times would protect his card from being pinched from his wallet and the $100.00 for that second card was more than worth it.

A Viking Cat-Ass-trophe

I’ve rubbed off on The Viking.  It happened slowly at first so I didn’t really give it much thought, but with the latest incident, I can’t ignore the evidence any longer.  He’s a Viking Klutz.

In the past few years, he’s had a couple of war wounds.  He banged his leg on a sharp something in the shop, left it to fester for a week, and then presented me with a Sweet-Baby-Jesus(!) oozing wound that required intensive pampering to heal.  He sliced his finger, again in the shop, that sent us to Emergency to have it stitched up before he bled to death.  And other less spectacular injuries that I don’t have time to list.

However, no previous incident can compare with his latest mishap.  It comes with a Red Alert Warning, too.

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Turn back now if you are squeamish about Bums.  Asses.  Derrieres.  Cracks-of-Dawns, or any other euphemism that applies to the muscles upon which you sit.

The day was the same as any other day around here.  The Viking went out to the shop, as per usual, and I was doing my own somethings in the house, as per usual.  From time to time, there were shouts and cursing seeping into the house from the shop, but I don’t even notice them anymore.  The Viking excels at verbalizing his frustrations, very often and at very high decibels, and I’ve developed almost total deafness for sounds coming from the shop.

There came a moment though, that got a tiny piece of my attention for a tiny amount of time.  It was just a second, a blip, a staccato peep, that I dismissed almost immediately even though the sound was not usually part of The Viking’s repertoire.  In my defense, I just thought he was extraordinarily annoyed with a something that required an extraordinary curse.  It was only later that I realized the significance of that blip.

Two hours later, I had reason to visit the shop and found a quiet Viking leaning to the left in his office chair.  “I really wrecked myself this time, babe.”

“Oh?  What happened?”

He lurched out of his chair to recreate the events that ‘wrecked’ him, just stopping short of actually suffering the injury again.  Apparently, he tripped over a trailer hitch and fell backwards.  The lock part of the hitch was sticking straight up and that’s what he landed on.  On his ass.  His right ass cheek, to be exact.  A centimeter (half inch give or take) to the left and he would have completely lost his virginity.*  He whipped his pants down so I could get a look, and it wasn’t pretty.  The offended spot had a shallow cut and the area around it was already turning black and purple and was becoming hard as a rock.

“Holy shit!!  Does it hurt?”  Well, of course it hurt!  He wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it if it didn’t.

Within an hour, half of his bum was purple.  Two hours later his entire right bum cheek was purple and spreading to the left cheek.

I couldn’t look away.  It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen!  I really wanted him to just stand in the kitchen, naked from the waist down so I could observe the exponential expansion of Bruise Willis and poke it often for ripeness.

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It was so wildly unbelievable that I had to share it.  I sent a picture to his brother in Denmark which got an immediate response of “What the fuck happened?!”  I sent a picture to my daughter which got a quick response of….

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Which made me go…..

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I’m not totally without a heart though.  It was obvious – from my close scrutiny and poking of Bruise Willis – that The Viking was going to need some way to sit down.  So, we jury-rigged a pillow and an ice pack.  The following day it was no better and probably even worse.  The whole thing was so massive I started to get a bit concerned.  Can you get a blood clot in your bum that could travel to your brain/lungs/heart?

“Maybe we should go to a medical clinic.” The Viking thought it was unnecessary but on the third day without any improvement, I forced the issue.

The Doctor was a young guy in his late twenties or early thirties and after a brief explanation from us, he told The Viking to drop his pants.  I think the guy thought we were over-reacting to a minor bruise, but he was thoroughly impressed.

“OH!  WOW!  How did you do that?”

Long story short: The Viking will live to fall another day, we shouldn’t be concerned about blood clots, and here’s a prescription for the pain.  However, Bruise Willis earned The Viking some pampering and a couple sick days off work.

And this brings us to the title of who is the biggest Klutz in the house.  I received two points – one for an infected tooth and another for my spectacular skid across the industrial carpet at the back door.  I also received a bonus point for doing it in front of a customer.  The Viking received three points – one for the oozing leg wound, one for the nearly amputated finger, and one point for Bruise Willis.  He also received two bonus points for style.

With 5 points for presentation and creativity, The Viking is now the Champion Klutz.  Long live the Klutz!

*I didn’t say that right then though because that I thought it might be too soon.

We Need A Permanent Paramedic Team Just For Me, Apparently!

I know I’m a Klutz.  I also know why I’m a klutz.  It’s mostly because I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing – a problem I assume most Over-Thinkers are familiar with.  I walk forward while looking backward, trip over threads, bread crumbs, dandelion fluff, or forget I’m carrying something in my right hand when I pick something up with my left hand.  The carnage is usually contained to spilled liquids or broken glass, but occasionally I do manage minor body injuries.  Having said that, I admit that what happened two days ago was monumental, even for me.  And I wasn’t even distracted.

I was finishing off the final touches to my year-end books when there was a knock at the door.  Usually, I just bellow for whoever it is to come in but I was feeling good for accomplishing the “Worst Task In The Modern World” and thought I would actually go open the door.  I twirled my office chair around in a sassy/breezy move and stood up enthusiastically with a welcoming smile already on my face.

My industrial, 3-meter long Door Mat* said, “Not today, Lady!  Ha HA!!” and lifted its edge just enough for my slipper to catch.

Time…slowed…down.

No way.  You aren’t doing this now, are you?  I thought we talked about being aware of your surroundings, taking that extra little second to lift your feet?  Have you forgotten already?

No, I haven’t forgotten exactly.  I was just so happy!  What’s the harm in a little sassiness and breeziness?  People do that all the time!  It’s not like I was tap dancing.

‘People’ can do sassiness and breeziness.  You cannot.  Ever.  And, just so you don’t forget, here is a little pain to make the lesson stick.

Again?!  Why are you always using Pain as your main Teaching Tool?  We aren’t cavemen anymore, you know.  And would it kill you to get my arms to take up some sort of defensive position so my face doesn’t take the brunt of your abuse?

No.  Your arms are stupid.  The best I can do is get your knees between your industrial Door Mat and your face.

My arms aren’t stupid.  They are traitorous bastards that only think of themselves and this isn’t the first time they have betrayed me.  And if my knees are the best you can do, I suppose I’m at your mercy, but I will be lodging a complaint about your incompetence.  Just so you know.

Oh!  You should also know that your centre of gravity is such that your knees can’t completely save you.  Your shoulder is going to ram into that shoe rack and your face is going to smear itself across the bottom third of the door.

Seriously?!  It’s 3 meters from here to the door.  I’m going to skid, aren’t I?

At least once.  Maybe more.  It depends on your knees, really.

I don’t suppose you would reconsider, would you?

Nope.

Fuck.

I started shouting with annoyance before I actually came to a complete stop and the second syllable was slightly incomprehensible because half of my face was squished against the door.

GEEZUS!!!

Before I could assess the damage, a small voice on the other side of the door said…..

“Um….are you okay?!”

“Yes!!  I’m fine!  Geezus!”  I had forgotten all about this guy in the 2 seconds it took me to crash – deafeningly I assume – into the door.

“Are you sure?  Do you want me to get someone?”

“NO!  I’m fine!  What do you even need?”

“Umm…I’m here to look at my sled.  Your husband is working on it.  He called me to come and look at what he found.”

Grunt.  “Go through that white door behind you.  He’s in there!”

“Okay.  You’re sure you don’t need any help?”

“NO!”  Why won’t he just leave already?  Gawd!

I pushed myself into a sitting position and took stock.  The shoulder took a good hit, as did my face – not a bruising kind of hit, just an annoying kind of hit – but the winner in this encounter was my left knee.  I pulled up my pant leg and saw the skin peeled off in two places.  Because of the skidding, I suppose.

Oooo…that looks painful.

It is.  And I’m not talking to you right now.

When The Viking came in the house an hour or so later I asked if the customer mentioned anything.  He said, no, why?  I pulled up my pant leg.

The slight scraping off of skin had, by now, turned into two huge, bloody scrapes that were irritated by my pants which was just as well because I was irritated, too.  I was slightly gratified that the amount of pain was equal to the wound itself because most of the time that doesn’t happen – it just hurts like hell but doesn’t even show a mark for a small amount of pity.

Typically, The Viking said, “What the fuck did you do?”

I pointed at the irrational Door Mat and then stomped on it for good measure.  “This Door Mat has to go!  It’s a death trap!”

To prove that I was definitely not a Sissy, I plastered a couple of band-aides on the scrapes and called it a day.

Fast forward to last night.  Those damned scrapes were killing me so I decided to take off the band-aides and have a look-see.

GEEZUS!!

They were actually getting infected and the band-aides were stuck to the scrapes so I ended up pulling even more skin off!

In case any of you are wondering…..The Viking is a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE nurse!  He started rubbing the scrapes with a vigor reminiscent of cleaning soap scum off a tub with a cotton pad only slightly moistened with peroxide.  I howled, he told me to clench my teeth, I turned gray and considered passing out, he called me a baby, I called him a dirty, miserable rat bastard, he grunted, I grabbed the bottle of peroxide and just poured it on the scrape which started foaming like crazy and he howled at the waste of perfectly good peroxide.

Fast forward to tonight.

I’m going to survive.  It was touch and go there for a while but apparently, The Viking’s cruel and unusual bedside treatments were as successful as they were painful.  Don’t tell him that though – he’ll become insufferable.

 

 

*It saves my floors from customers’ shoes.

 

Shit. Show.

It’s been a while since I posted anything so thought I should make an effort.  I’m not being lazy.  Honest.  I’m just trying to survive information overload.

The current task is learning how to get a store on eBay and listing 11,389,421 motorcycle parts The Viking has been hoarding for years, and that’s not nothing.  In fact, it’s terrifying.  I’m not famous for meticulous attention to detail which is exactly what is needed now.

I’ve created an Excel Database for every part with cross-references to the box where I’ve put it.  I also need to find a reasonable price for each item, take pictures of it, and then list it on Ebay.  It gets more complicated when I’m dealing with 14 billion Piston Rings because the Part Numbers are all very similar and it’s easy to Dyslexia my way into a colossal mess.  And guess how easy it is to differentiate one Piston Ring from another Piston Ring in a thousand pictures of Piston Rings?  It’s a nightmare.

It wouldn’t be too bad if I were working in a solitary little room with no interruptions but fat chance of that.  I’m answering phones, booking customer appointments, keeping customer names, phone numbers, machines, and work requests up-to-date, invoicing, planning meals, shopping for groceries, doing laundry, washing dishes, shouting at a cat (guess which one), entertaining The Viking when he comes into the house for a break, and cooking.  Guess how many of these things I’m doing well?  That’s right.  Nothing.  Except shouting at Izzie – after 5 years it’s an instinctive response that requires only a functioning subconsciousness.  Did I mention that Christmas is coming and I haven’t started baking or decorating?

And while I’m balancing all of that crap, Computer and Brother Printer have declared war on each other and all past treaties have been vacated.  I now need to restart Computer so he (yes, it’s a ‘he’) will ‘politely’ ask Brother Printer to make a small effort to do what he’s (yes, it’s a ‘he’, too) supposed to do.  Not to be left out of the fun Office 365, a staunch Anarchist, has taken advantage of the chaos and now requires a ‘Repair’ every time Computer restarts or Windows updates.

So yesterday, while I was up to my eyeballs in Piston Rings, a customer came to pay his bill and pick up his machine and a colossal shitshow ensued.  Three-quarters of my brain was dealing with Database while the rest of my brain tried to address a revision to his invoice and a reprint.  Sage (Simply Accounting) takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R to open and then when the revision was finished, Sage asked Computer to politely ask Brother Printer to print the new invoice but maybe he didn’t ask nicely enough because Brother Printer said “Is that you, Computer? Fuck off!  I’m OFFLINE!”

I apologize to Customer and tell him it will only take a minute to restart Computer.  I had to save and close Sage which takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R and Outlook (which contains all of our customers & scheduling) and Excel (which is Database) before I could initiate the restart.   Finger tapping.  Apologizing.  Heavy sighing.  Finally!  We are in business.  Except, Brother Printer was more pissed than I thought because he still wouldn’t print the invoice!

Customer says, “I’m in a hurry.”  Well, of course, he is!!  And, just to make the situation better, here comes Hot Flash because what kind of a clusterfuck is complete without a Hot Flash?!!

Okay, new plan.  Let me get Customer’s email address and I’ll send the invoice as soon as Brother Printer and Computer resume relations.  I try to open Outlook to enter his email address and Office 365 says “Fuck off!  You don’t own me!  UNKNOWN ERROR!”  Stove took the opportunity to inform me, loudly and condescendingly, that the cake in the oven was finished cooking.  BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.  And the patch of eczema on my right ass cheek started to itch.

I looked at the customer.  Blink.  And blink.  BEEP BEEP BEEP!  And blink.  Brain froze and Left Eyelid started to twitch.  The customer now needed three-quarters of my brain but Database, Piston Rings, Brother Printer and Office 365 refused to leave the Shit Show.  I was now operating with a three-quarter brain deficit.  BEEP BEEP BEEP.  DO NOT SCRATCH YOUR ASS!

“I….um….sorry…what?  Um…..”  Come on!  Say something!  Customer is looking at me in alarm.  “Um….sorry….”  For FUCKSAKE!!  Stop blinking at him!

I finally wrote his email on a piston ring box and shoved his credit card receipt at him.  He fled.

I scratched my eczema ass on the way to shut off Gawd-Damned Oven!  At that point, I decided it was in everyone’s best interest if I took a Time-Out for reflection and the pursuit of peace.  It’s too bad that the Boss frowns on Daytime Drinking because a couple of stiff drinks would really taste good.

 

Broken Moms and Dads

So, I’ve been wrestling with this post for days already and it’s driving me nuts.  I would just drop the whole thing and find something else to write about but there is an article that I want to share.  It came in my email and punched me in the face.  Hard.  And I’m pretty sure there are a lot of Moms and Dads that need to be punched in the face, too.

I don’t want to write a novel on why the article has impacted me, so pay attention because it’s going to be fast and dirty.

I married a child when I was 19 and then gave birth to two more children.  The marriage was shitty, the children weren’t, and as time went on the marriage became shittier and shittier until I almost killed my shitty self.  The only reason I didn’t was because I couldn’t leave my children alone in a shitty situation.  And then every time a shitty thing happened I ‘over-reacted’, ‘needed to take more pills’ or ‘needed to see a therapist again’.  I didn’t understand that the shitty-ness that led to my self-killing would become the shitty weapon that would be used against me forevermore.  I also didn’t know that all that shitty-ness could be passed on to the children like a virus until they became shitty, too.  I was staying in the shitshow for the children because how would I ever be able to support them without the shitshow, but what I actually did was enroll them in Shitty Bootcamp with one-on-one shitty tutoring.  And as the children grew into adults with superior shitty-ness skills, shitty drama happened more and more frequently with higher and higher shitty-ness levels until finally, during Christmas 2018, the shitty threshold was epic-ally breached and shitty-ness exploded and killed me.  The shitty event took only 15 shitty minutes and even I – by now an expert on shitty-ness – was awed by the level of shitty-ness one person can contain and willingly fling.

And that’s the shitty short version of the whole shitshow.  And, as you might imagine, I don’t do shitshows anymore because it killed me and made me want to literally self-kill again.

Thankfully, there’s a Viking for that…..

…..and he gave me several very good reasons why I shouldn’t self-kill and should stay with him forevermore because he’s not shitty.

And this brings me to the Elephant Journal.  I found it when I was still up to my neck in shitty-ness, trying to understand how my life turned into a complete shittery despite my best efforts.  If you have shitty-ness in your life, check out Elephant Journal where they will give you shit-free articles to make you feel better.

It was one of those shit-free articles that punched me in the face: To the Broken Mom who finds Strength for her Kids by Tiffany Timm.

Go ahead and read it.  I’ll wait.  It’s very short but full of love……

Ms. Timm understands shitty-ness, no?  And I’m here to share my shitty shitshow so you know that you aren’t alone in your shitshow.  I can’t trust my judgement anymore because, well, it was shitty, and never ask me advice about parenting because it’s total shit, too.  However, I am willing to dive into the shitty deep-end with you and wallow in shitty self-pity.  And then I’ll help you out of the shit and tell you that you’re awesome despite all the shit people say.  All the best people have survived shit and escaped all sorts of shitteries.  Including you.  And me.

So.  I see you, too.

My Headlights Are On!

Sunday morning, Furnace decided it was done keeping us warm.  No explanation for abandoning us in the middle of winter.  No notice.  Perhaps it was overwhelmed with the recent cold snap when it had to step up its game, or maybe it was totally out of patience with our lack of appreciation for all the hard work it does.  It wouldn’t even answer The Viking’s “What the fuck is your problem?”

After some cursing and swearing, it turned out that the Ignitor developed what can only be described as a Hernia.  On a Sunday.  When all Heating/Cooling Professionals and Parts Suppliers are taking a day off for obviously selfish reasons.

The Viking had turned the heat up to 20°C when he got up in the morning, but he was still freezing at noon.  “It’s fucking freezing in here!!”

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That’s when I noticed that his headlights were on!  So I checked my headlights and yup! they were on too. The high beams!  That’s a collection of four headlights where 3 of the 4 agreed that it was freezing in the house.  That 4th one* has always been a petty bastard and thought ‘freezing’ was a little dramatic and insisted it was only ‘frigid’.

I hollered at The Viking, “Geezus!  It’s only 16.5°C in here!  It’s no wonder our collection of headlights are on.”

The Viking sprang into action…..okay, it was more trudging than springing but still, he went to have a conversation with Furnace who, it turned out, had no intention of cooperating.  There was poking and prodding and muttered incantations and twice a, “Izzie!  Get the fuck off my neck!”

Having exhausted all avenues to repair Furnace’s hernia, The Viking began constructing a detailed Survival Plan for the night because the only way to get him to call an actual Repair Person is to hook up booster cables to his left headlight and the car to the right headlight (or is it the other way around?  I can never remember) and zap him into reasonableness.

I took a moment to have a discussion with Furnace, explaining that I was very disappointed in its commitment, performance and lack of determination.  It didn’t change anything, but I felt better for firmly voicing my feelings.  We turned on the electric fireplace in the living room and The Viking fetched a space heater from the shed.

In the meantime, I turned my heated mattress cover to the ‘Fry’ setting and made a sad face at The Viking because he doesn’t have one.  The reason he doesn’t have one is that he can feel the wires, through the padding and sheet, and it irritates his delicate ass skin.  This, from the guy who routinely tapes gaping wounds closed with Duct Tape.  Who knew the original version of The Princess and the Pea was actually a Viking and a wire?

Rather than brave the bedroom that might get a bit cold overnight, he took his pillow and duvet and built a nest on the sofa, close to the fireplace.

I slept great.  The Viking?  Not so much.  Amazingly, the fireplace and space heater kept the house at about 17°C all night long.

I set off first thing in the morning to pick up an Ignitor and The Viking had Furnace up and running again before noon.  Of course, you don’t let the entire household down in the middle of winter and think there won’t be some name-calling, Furnace.  And you got off easy if you ask me.

And, thankfully, our collection of Headlights have calmed down.  It gets awkward with customers when my High Beams could poke out an eye.

*Unsurprisingly, it is my left headlight.

A Bubble of Slightly Hysterical Laughter

I woke up January 2nd to success – I survived the holiday season.  I wasn’t very confident going in, expecting the worst, but it turned out much better than I could have hoped.  Don’t get me wrong, it was grim, but it could have been worse.

This past year has been nothing less than a nightmare for me.  A year in which I was forced to confront my demons, to look at myself with brutal clarity and make decisions I never thought I would have to make or could make.  At first, I was stuck; I didn’t know if I could move forward or if I even wanted too.  There were times I just wanted to quit, when the sum of my past failures were too heavy to carry and the weight of future failures too much to contemplate.  To be completely honest, had there been a handgun in the house I would have used it.  Without a doubt.

With the absence of a handgun, I had to consider my options.  I was caught up in a vicious mantra of “How the FUCK did I get here when this is the exact opposite of what I set out to do?”  Is this what the world’s worst case of Cognitive Dissonance feels like?  I’ve spent more than a decade admitting I’ve made mistakes and trying to correct them, hoping to build bridges to better relationships but the sum of every action, every word has put me right here in a pile of shit.  And I own it all.  Every tiny thing.  It’s mine and I play with it constantly, picking at every detail wondering if I should have handled each thing differently and if I had, would it have turned out better?  If I could go back to 1982, I would avoid life at all costs.

I suspected three years ago that I had utterly failed in the one goal I ever gave myself and I spent the following 8 months in counselling.  It wasn’t until Christmas 2018 though that I knew in my bones everything I had done in the last 35 years had been a colossal failure.  I knew it because the judgement was handed down by a Howitzer who took no prisoners and the sentence was more horrible than I could ever have imagined.  It was very apparent that the goal was to cause the most amount of pain in the most vicious way possible and it was a total success.  I didn’t catch all the issues during the firestorm; they came so fast and so loud it was impossible to comprehend them all.  What I did manage to understand left me confused and shocked.

I called them the following morning anyway, despite The Viking’s livid disagreement, to apologize for the things I thought were the major issues.   At that point, I knew I was done, but I was determined to go with my dignity, if nothing else, intact.  Then, I crawled into my cave and sobbed for the next two weeks.

I might have stayed in that cave for the remainder of my life, but two women* came to my rescue.  I love these beautiful people almost as much as I love The Viking.  They have their own harrowing stories of pain and utter despair, but they are still standing with grace and love and I refuse to do less.  They deserve what support and love I can give them as they have done for me.

Between sobbing events and sometimes during sobbing events, I desperately searched the internet for answers.  How do I survive this?  How could I have failed so epically?  Guess what I found?  I’m a Co-Dependent groomed from childhood to spend my entire life apologizing for my existence.  I also found hundreds and hundreds of parents, in the same position and as devastated as I am, searching for help and support.  The sheer magnitude of pain is staggering.  There isn’t a lot of support out there and most people are too ashamed to talk about it even if there was more support.  I debated whether to post this or not; ultimately, I decided that posting it can’t make my situation any worse than it already is, and perhaps others will tell me their stories.

There was a brief opportunity, a few months ago, that had the potential to resolve the problem, that maybe the words spoken in the heat of the moment would be withdrawn.  Unfortunately, the sentence was firm and implacable.  So I said things I wish I hadn’t, but I hated going down without the slightest resistance.  And now, I feel guilty and ashamed.

However, after exhaustive self-reflection something occurred to me and it’s at this point that it gets better.  The thing about accepting that I failed is that I can decide to accept that I failed.  It is what it is.  Once I accepted that I failed in the past, it only stands to reason that future efforts will have the same results because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, what else to try or how to fix it all.  I’m completely out of resources.

So, I leaned into it, absorbed every fault and flaw and failure and when I was done this is what I found:

When you are this low, you can’t possibly do worse.

When you’ve lost everything there’s nothing left to lose.

Nothing I ever do for the rest of my life could possibly end as bad as this.

No fear can be scarier than what I’ve already faced.

No pain can ever come close to what I live with now.

No shame can be greater than the shame I am already carrying.

Once you’re broken you’re broken, what more can happen?

If you think about it though, that’s freedom   

The worse thing that could possibly happen has already happened and since I’ve survived it the rest of life can only be better than here.  Failure isn’t a permanent condition and it doesn’t have to define who I am or my worth.  And I do have worth, it’s just not here.  So, I laid it all down.  Every hope, every option, every strategy.  I admitted defeat.  After all, I can’t blame them because they are what I created.  The end of the dream that turned into a battle; a dream that I probably shouldn’t have started to begin with.

And that’s where I found redemption

Suddenly, the vise around my chest collapsed and my shoulders relaxed.  My mind stilled for a long moment and the cloud over my head disappeared.  There was a bubble of slightly hysterical laughter in my stomach.  I felt like I had been hanging from a cliff by the tips of my fingers and suddenly just let go.  Relief was instantaneous.  If the fall kills me, so be it, there are worse things in life than a quick death and at least I’m not still hanging on like a pathetic supplicant hoping someone will offer me a hand.  Instead, I’m free.

Who would have thought that giving in to the despair and admitting defeat would ultimately save me?  I’m still dealing with suicidal thoughts and I unexpectedly sob at random times when my losses catch me unaware.

I’ve learned that love isn’t guaranteed to be where you think it should, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist anywhere else.  And my love may not be appreciated one place but in another place it may be cherished.  We don’t need to be perfect, we just need to be kind and sometimes the biggest kindness is to walk away, for yourself, but also for those you’ve been struggling with.  The peace you feel may be just as sweet for those you have left behind.

If you’ve been through this hell, I’d love to hear from you.  Misery loves company but comfort can best be found in numbers.

With Love from Me to You

 

*I’m talking about you Annette and Johanna – you wonderful, bright stars.

That’s No Way To Treat Girl Guides!

Dear Dare Foods Canada Ltd.,

Let me say, to begin, that I appreciate your work with Girl Guides of Canada.  Any corporation that gives back to communities and supports organizations for children should receive praise.

So, just for you, WooHoo!!  Great job!

But then yesterday a young Girl Guide rang our door bell and asked if I would like to buy a box of cookies for $5.00.  She didn’t seem overly enthusiastic in her sales pitch, but I really want to support youth programs so ignored her lack of animation.  I gave her the money and received the cookies which I placed on the kitchen table.  With perfect timing, The Viking (my husband) showed up, almost like he has a sixth sense that zeroes in on cookies like a Surface to Air Missile.  He smiled hugely.  “Cookies!!”

We each took a cookie – chocolate for me, of course, and vanilla for him, because he’s just that kind of a husband who gives his wife chocolate – and took a nibble.

Sweet Baby Geezus!!*

 

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What in the whole wide world IS this crap?!*

We both ran to the sink and started spitting out whatever this horrendous concoction was supposed to be.  Thank Gawd for double kitchen sinks – we would have been in a real pickle if we only had a single sink.  I’ll just leave you with that image.

DARE FOODS…….you can’t call that a cookie!  It tastes like you mashed cardboard and sugar together then packaged it.  It’s horrible!  Now I know why that poor girl was so unenthusiastic!  What kind of a company gives a youth organization terrible food and then expect them to raise money?  As I’ve already stated, I want to support youth programs, but if we can’t eat what they are selling, what’s the point?  Sure I could buy the cookies and then throw them in the garbage, but we have world hunger and environmental responsibility to consider.

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When you are providing garbage, you can’t really claim you’re supporting communities and youth programs, now can you?  You are more of a hindrance than a help, methinks.  Once upon a time, Girl Guide Cookies were great, but the Yumminess has been in serious decline for many years.  And you can’t claim you aren’t making enough profit and have to squeeze additional revenue from fundraising causes because I checked.  You’re making MILLIONS in revenue every year.

In the age of Truffle Oil, Tapas and Amuse-bouche, I’m sure you can come up with something edible for the girls to sell.  It’s like you aren’t even trying.

It’s great that the cookies are peanut free and have no artificial colors or flavours, but maybe a bit of flavour could have been left in them?  Any kind of flavour?  How about Caramel?  Caramel cookies are delicious!  Look how easy that is.  It took me, literally, 12 seconds to think of a better cookie for Girl Guides of Canada to sell.  You’re welcome.

Now, I realize I’ve been a little hard on you, but I don’t want you to feel like a total failure.  The packaging isn’t too bad, and the nutritional information is easy to read, and the pictures of girls are cute.  You see what I did here?  Yes, The Sandwich Method.  Good feedback, bad feedback and good feedback again.  You can take this directly to your next shareholder meeting with complete confidence and I’ve done 50% of your new product development.

It’s too late to help the Girl Guide’s fundraising this year, so you should just hand out some cheques to make up for your terrible product.  Next year, though, is the perfect time to roll out some delicious new cookies.

You can do it, Dare!  I know you can!

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Sincerely,

Mrs. Completely

*I’ve skipped the profanities in case your company is easily offended.

Annual Health Review

I had an annual ‘Health Review’ today.  I’m not a fan.  I’m not sure why – there is nothing truly horrible about them but somehow I feel the same way about Health Reviews that I feel about any other sort of review.  Like the ‘Let’s review what you should have done under the circumstances’ or the ‘Let’s review why this didn’t work’ or ‘Let’s review your underwhelming performance at lawn mowing’*.

No one wants to give you a review if you’ve been great at something.  No one ever said, ‘Let’s review how you won that Gold Medal at the Olympics’ or ‘Let’s review how you delivered that baby in the back seat of your taxi’.  They don’t review that at all!  They give you a medal or an award or name a street after you.

At my age, a Health Review begins before I ever make it to my Doctor’s Examining Table.  They send me to be drained of blood, to pee in a small jug and this year a new kind of fuckery called a Stool Sample. And, to make it as inconvenient as possible, you have to go to the Lab to get the kit to get your stool sample so you can bring it back to them when you arrive for the other tests.  And if you don’t want to sit in the waiting room for 23 hours you have to make an appointment, so you only have to wait 12 hours in the waiting room.

This year they made me recite my full name and birth date before they would drain my blood.  I asked if this was a trick or something?  What if I get the answers wrong?  Will you not drain my blood and accept my warm jug of urine?  Apparently, it helps them make sure my body fluids aren’t confused with anyone else’s body fluids but what if that other person’s body fluids pass more reviews?  That would be to my advantage, wouldn’t it?

The Blood Drainer wasn’t amused.  She took all my blood and told me my Doctor (Janna) would be ‘in touch’, but that was a complete fabrication because my Doctor never calls me.  The admirable Natalie, of Front Desk Fame, calls me and tells me when to present myself at the clinic a week or two hence.  I didn’t bother to explain this to The Drainer though because I may have already annoyed her.

As it turned out Natalie called me the following day to say Janna wanted to see me.  Stat.  Thank Gawd I didn’t annoy The Drainer as much as I could have because Natalie sent me for more drainage.

Long story short….Janna started throwing around words like ‘Sugar’ and ‘Diabetes’.  She sent me to see another Doctor (Buki) who sent me for more drainage.  Now I have two Doctors who will, in all likelihood, give me more ‘reviews’.  And Janna demanded my presence today for the regular Health Review that I’ve been dodging for 3 years, because I am more than just my Back and my Diabetes.  Apparently.

After the preliminaries of weight and height, she reviewed my tests, said my blood pressure and cholesterol were great, my heart was a machine and my lungs were stellar.

Me:  Yes, but what about my stool sample?  Did they find anything really interesting in it?  Like a tooth or a gold nugget?

Her:  No, but if there had been any gold in it the Lab Technician would have kept it.

Me:  That’s probably what happened – that Technician looked shifty to me.

Once I was on the table, she went straight to work in the murky depths beneath the sheet.  She’s chatting away about vacations and stuff, but suddenly stops and says….

“Huh.  Your vagina goes to the right and it’s tipped back.  That’s a bit challenging.”

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I’m not sure what I should have said to this.  Several ideas popped into mind:

  • Maybe it’s Strategic Evasion Maneuvers. I almost fell this morning, maybe it was my vagina making a hard right turn.
  • Maybe it’s shy. It’s not like it gets out to socialize very often.  It’s more like an introvert really.  Or….
  • Maybe it’s just a willful and contrary orifice determined to get a bad review.

Whatever the case, after a moment of rummaging she said, “Oh!  There it is!”

When I told The Viking about my vagina, he didn’t seem surprised at all.  He must have known it all along but deliberately kept that fact to himself.  Next time I have a Health Review, I’ll be asking him the state of my vagina so I don’t have any more surprises.  He’s more familiar with it than I am, after all.

So.  To review:  My heart, lungs, blood pressure and cholesterol are fantastic, but I don’t get an award.  My pancreas got a terrible review and is now a subject of ridicule and Organ Bullying.  And my Mammogram gave the boobs an A+.

Still no award though.

 

*I deliberately mowed the lawn terribly because my Mom said, “Don’t do any chore for your husband unless you want to do it forever”.  So, when Stanley asked me to mow the lawn I mowed the lawn….kind of like a crop circle before crop circles became popular.  Now that I think about it though, I should have received some sort of award or recognition for the idea of crop circles because it would have countered the resulting ‘review’ of my lawn mowing skills.