How many people does it take to change a light fixture?

I was worried it was going to turn into a three-day job.  That’s what all the Mr. Fixit jobs at our house somehow turn into, because well. …we’re not handy, or mechanically inclined in the least.

Our kitchen light had been going off all by itself for the past two weeks.  Barring the presence of a haunting, I deduced that a technical problem was ensuing.  Although I was somewhat enjoying the fact that it wasn’t as bright as an operating room in the kitchen at 6:00 a.m., trying to make dinner by the romantic fan hood light was becoming a problem.  God only knows what was going into the soup.

So, it came as no surprise when I announced to my husband that there appeared to be a problem with the main light in the kitchen that required fixing before Daylight Savings Time came to an official end.  A two man job…a three-hour tour ….a trip to the hospital…I envisioned it all.

Ken brought the ladder came up from the garage and it was suddenly up to me to determine which breaker was going to cut the power to the overhead light.  Not wanting to be accused of killing my husband for the insurance money, I shut down every power supply in the room.

Ken took the current fixture down…reconnected it and was barely off the ladder when it stopped working again.  Seems that any little movement to the fixture, even one required to re-point the lights rendered it lifeless.  After almost a decade, the fixture had given up the ghost.  “Crappy materials they make these things out of” he grumbled.  That it had worked for almost ten happy years seemed a moot point to him now.

With visions of an electrical fire dancing in my head, we kept the kitchen lights off and dashed to the lighting store to examine the array of fixtures.  When we returned home with something we thought would work on the sloped ceiling, something very much like the current fixture only darker, out came the ladder once more. Off went the breakers.

Ken was no sooner up the ladder than the swearing began.  “Help me!” he cried, in a pleading tone.  I thought I was helping; I was carefully reading the tedious instructions. 

But, I scurried up the bad side of the ladder anyway …not the side with the nice wide evenly spaced steps.  Oh no.  On my side the “rungs” were razor thin with a 2.5 feet gap between them.  I hoisted myself up, one foot on the horrible metal step, one foot planted firmly on the counter, holding the lighting fixture with one hand and a death grip on the ladder with the other, trying not to fall into the sink.

I’m not sure what it is about a 4-foot ladder than strikes fear in my heart.  I can dance on top of the CN Tower without a care in the world, but a 4-foot ladder?  May as well be on the top of Mt. Everest swaying in the wind. I glance around the kitchen wondering what it would be like to be that tall, in an effort to divert my mind from how horribly uncomfortable I was.

He was swearing and screwing as fast as he could, but all I could think of was, “how much longer do I need to hold this thing?”  All he could talk about were the crazy people who take obvious pleasure in building devices where every screw head requires a different screwdriver.  THAT explains our current screwdriver collection numbering over 50 strong.

At last, the screwing and swearing was over and the fixture was up.  Good to know that something had been erected.  The only problem now was the plate thingy covering the inside of the fixture seemed to be dangling.  Problem.

I flipped the breaker to see how successful we had been.  The light came on.  However, it was quickly determined that we needed to install the actual mounting plate that came with THIS fixture which was obviously much shorter.

And so, after much grumbling, in the space of an hour we erected our new kitchen light fixture not only once, but twice.  And I’m happy to say that the lights are once again coming on at our house, even if nobody’s home.

Now all we need to do is change the light in the TV room to match it.  Aarrggh.

Just call me Barnacle Bill

So the fun thing about reaching middle age is that you begin to discover all kinds of strange and unusual spots on your body that you’ve never noticed before.  Barnacles and blemishes of all descriptions.  Redness, flakiness, itching. 

And so, with the omnipresent threat of cancer everywhere, you ponder running to the nearest walk-in clinic to risk looking like a hypochondriac just to make sure.

My thoughts run amuck recalling that my father had this exact kind of spot on his forehead in almost the identical location.  His turned out to be skin cancer.  What if the weird red spot on my forehead burrows a hole into my brain and I get brain cancer?

Alright…perhaps a tad overly dramatic, but the question remains; should I risk getting an infectious disease at the start of cold and flu season simply by sitting in a germ infested medical clinic for hours on end, to wait for a certified doctor to look at my forehead only to declare, “nothing to worry about.”

I decide that I have nothing better to do with my Saturday and head over to the walk in clinic.  I pray for a slow day and pack a headscarf to protect myself from the germs being sneezed all over the waiting room. 

The waiting room is full but eerily quiet.  I’m left to ponder the array of ailments that lie within it.

Finally, my turn arrives.  I feel mildly embarrassed to even be taking up precious medical resources.

It’s official.  Some kind of keratosis that I’m apparently prone to, being fair skinned and all, but nothing to worry about at this stage.  We decide to burn it off with liquid nitrogen just to be on the safe side.

Barnacles be gone.  Now leave me alone and let’s hope I don’t come down with the flu in about 10 days time.

It's crunch time

After having witnessed my very soft belly spilling over the top of my jeans for the past two years or so, I have decided that enough is enough.  It’s time to get down on the floor and do what I’ve been avoiding for too long.  I’ve got to toughen up the abdominals and get this baby back under control.  I need abs of steel.

I stopped doing crunches when my middle-aged neck started “going out”, which is code for deteriorating.  Having never had a back/neck/spine problem my entire life, one fine day about 2 years ago I woke up in excruciating pain emanating from my neck.  I wondered aloud later in a doctor’s office if the extreme forces of zip lining had caused the problem?  No, the doctor assured me.  This had probably been coming for some time. I chalked it up to too many years of looking both ways before crossing the street (damn that Elmer the Safety Elephant!) and quickly changed purses to stop exerting even more pressure onto my delicate bones.

And so, my giggly little tummy, which has become quite cute, has been getting rounder and softer with each passing year.  It’s time to flatten the Pillsbury doughboy once and for all.

In the past when I’ve attempted to restart the crunch program, I’ve joined a class.  A word of warning to the uninitiated:  NEVER begin with a class.  You have to run before you can walk.  Your body is not up for 25+ minutes of intense abdominal workout, no matter what your brain thinks.  You’ll be dead before the first ten minutes have passed, so save yourself the pain and start slowly.  Work up to three sets.  Forget reverse crunches for now.  Just try to get the ball rolling without giving up.  THAT’s my mantra. Small changes consistently over time; that’s the new reality for those who don’t wish to be hospitalized.

Will I be bikini ready in time for my cruise?  I won’t be ‘bikini ready” for the rest of my life, despite Demi Moore’s accomplishment in the Charlie’s Angels redo.  Oh, unless someone wants to pay me $1 million dollars for the result.  I’m open to offers.

I’m expecting my back to feel better as I get the strength to stand up taller.  That alone, should provide the motivation.  Shrinkage is always a problem and I can ill afford to lose any ability to reach the second shelf of my cupboard.  Nor can I get any physically closer to the gas pedal in my car.  Nope.  What I need is to stand taller and abdominal strengthening is way better than donning heals and screwing up my back.

Indecision

I don’t know if it’s because I’m riding the hormone express roller coaster, or because I empathize with those occupying Wall Street, but I’m hard pressed lately to feel good about spending money, especially on things I know I can do without.

Take yesterday for example.  I’ve been trying to decide whether to purchase an e-book reader.  On the surface of it, I like the idea.  I love to read and being able to take not just one book with me on vacation, but four, appeals to me.

But the very idea of spending money on a gadget, that does what exactly…allows me to never have to set foot in a library or book store again and saves me a few bucks on books?  For this, I have to compare and contrast a variety of products that change monthly and decide how much money I’m willing to spend on this single use device.  Or, should I give it all up for door number three and purchase something like an iPad for even more money?

Why not just head on over to my new multi-million dollar library and sign something out?  Easier for sure and less guilt inducing.

I’m going on a cruise at the end of this year to celebrate my birthday.  Yeah for me.  Two things occurred simultaneously last week that took me aback.  The first was that good old Sesame Street is introducing a new character on the show who’s experiencing poverty and doesn’t have enough to eat.  Seems that too many American kids today are in this unfortunate boat and Sesame Street decided that it was too large to ignore and wanted to address this problem.  Good for them.

At the same time, I needed to book a hotel in Florida pre and post cruise.  I wasn’t able to get one for less than $200 a night at that time of year (thank you Christmas gouging).  I’m going to spend $200 a NIGHT to house myself in comfort while kids in that state, and in fact the entire country, are going hungry?  In one of the richest countries in the world, no less? Holy smokes. Makes one pause for sure.  I can only hope that my addition to their uncertain economy helps.

It just seems to me that all of us would feel better about spending money if we all had some to spend.  It’s my hope that the Occupy Wall Street folks stay right there until Election Day in November 2012 and that this movement gains traction worldwide.  So many need to hear their message and particularly those in decision-making roles.

Not so scary Halloween memories

Halloween was always a good time at my house.

I have so many Halloween memories growing up.  Not that I remember many of the costumes that I wore…far from it.  It was more the preparation that stays with me.

I vividly remember being in Kindergarten and walking as a class, not to the pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin, but to the local Esso station. They were piled up as far as the eye could see on some kind of cart and after our long journey to get there, took serious contemplation as to which one to choose.

Back in those days, that was quite a hike for a little person.  The walk from our school to Shepherd Avenue was a good 3 blocks or more…BIG blocks that used to be forested.  We walked in two’s Noah’s Arc style holding hands on a journey that must have taken at least a morning where we picked out the largest pumpkin available and then spent the afternoon scraping it out and carving it, not to mention roasting the seeds. 

I could hardly wait to receive my Unicef box at school.  Being the overachiever that I was, and wanting nothing to distract me from my candy mission on Halloween night, I collected my pennies for Unicef after school but before the witching hour.  Most of my neighbours understood this.   When new neighbours moved in, they did not and insisted that they would not fill my Unicef box before Halloween evening.  Whatever.  I was always so proud when it was full.

Dinner on Halloween night was always the same at my house…macaroni and cheese.  Happily, not Kraft dinner, but real macaroni with real cheese.  That was as fast as food came in those days.

My brother always managed to fill almost an entire pillowcase with candy.  He covered more streets than I ever could.  When we brought home the loot, our mother would check it over carefully before we were allowed to have any.  Sneaking it enroute was forbidden and would only lessen the comparison with my brother at the end.  It was kept in a bowl on top of the fridge and was doled out for weeks; one year damn near to Christmas.

My favourite candy was always the Rockets.  Little convex discs of sugar that looked like pills nicely wrapped in clear cellophane packages.  The purple ones were (and still are) the best.  Even if I see them today in a corner store, I’m tempted to purchase them.  That they’re still produced today is some kind of miracle.  God knows Rockets (and Sweet Tarts) were responsible for more dental work in my childhood than anyone could imagine.

Caramels were always great and those yummy little chocolate bars. If we ever scored a little bag of chips, you’d think we’d died and gone to Heaven…chips were a rarity in our house.

Halloween then was always about the ritual of deciding on the costume.  The weeks of planning that went into it.  The discussion with friends.  The one costume I remember was the year my brother was an astronaut.  It was the 70’s and space (the final frontier) was all the rage having just landed on the Moon.  The authenticity was striking.

Living in the suburbs, we never did anything crazy at Halloween…just garden variety trick or treating.  But we would always hear stories of Halloween in the country from my mother where pushing over outhouses and covering stuff with toilet paper was all the rage.  Actually, they didn’t need Halloween in the country to scare the crap out of them.  The creepy house they lived in was sufficient with its root cellar and parlour that was straight out of a horror film.

Happy Halloween kiddies!  Enjoy your costumes and especially your Rockets while they last.  And don’t go into the root cellar if you know what’s good for you!  Bwwaaahaahaaa.

What's that smell?

I’m not sure who’s crazier in my house; my husband or my cat, but there’s a showdown brewing in crazyland.

In this corner, our somewhat nutty cat, Casino.  He seemed fairly normal in the photos and even kinda cute for the first year that we had him.  Little did we suspect that he had some kind of “problem” around his litter box.  I’m not sure if he has performance anxiety or doesn’t like people looking at him while he pees, but if anyone knows of a good cat psychologist, I’m all ears.

He used to use the bathtub for his “business” on occasion, but now he’s taken to peeing on our hardwood floor by the front door.  Not because his practically gold-leaf lined litter box isn’t clean.  It’s pristine.  All right, it’s not actually gold leaf, but at $20/box which only lasts for 2 fills, it’s the most expensive litter money can buy.

And before you tell me about my cat’s “medical problem”, let me assure you that he is quite capable of using his litter box properly and mostly did until fairly recently, when the good weather arrived.  We’ve done everything from praise him for using his box, to literally putting him in his box and “encouraging” him like his Mama never did.

The reason he pees on our hardwood floor is to register his disdain at not being allowed to be an outside cat, although frankly if he were to run away and join the circus now, I wouldn’t object.  In fact, I’d even offer him a ride because my days of starting off each and every morning cleaning up cat pee are numbered.  Cute can only get you so far.

In the other corner is my slightly nutty husband.  The same husband who laid the hardwood floor with his own blood, sweat and tears.  That’s tears, not pee.  He’s now taken to laying down a piece of vinyl the entire area of the hardwood for the cat to pee on in all his glory.  He hasn’t quite reconciled how either a) we will get the front door opened and closed with this arrangement or b) how HE will clean up the cat pee from the vinyl.

To date, we haven’t let him be an outside cat because of the neighbourhood elders complaining about cats defecating in their gardens.  Nor would we like him to be a meal for a roving raccoon.  But the aroma of “Eau du toilette” in my front hall may change my mind on this. 

As late night host Craig Ferguson says, “I look forward to your letters.”

Where the rubber meets the spa

Heated car seats are the best invention since sliced bread.

The fact that they begin to work their magic before I’ve even left the gate of our complex on a damp fall morning warms my cockles and fills me with joy.

I’ve given up being radiated through a sunroof to be warm within Vancouver’s mist from the bottom up and I have no regrets.  Heated seats were the number one request for my latest vehicle.

I once gave my equally heat challenged girlfriend a ride home in my Ford Fiesta.  As soon as we sat down, I had the seat warmers engaged, the satellite radio tuned into the spa channel (yes there really is such a thing!) and my sexy interior disco lights turned to a warm purple glow. 

“This is just like being in a spa!” my guest declared before she even knew what was happening.  And I couldn’t agree more.  Driving this way makes being stuck in traffic a pleasure.

I’m not sure why I don’t fall asleep with all this relaxation going on.  Probably because I know that I could die at any moment should the various drivers around me care to do something crazy, like run a red light.  Tends to keep me on my toes and makes it all the more necessary to have the cleansing spirit of the spa with me at all times to keep my blood pressure in check.

It recently got me thinking…what other cool spa-like features could be installed into new cars?

How about a back massager built into the seats? Are you listening Ford Canada?  And don’t think that they should only be in the high-end models. Road rage would be a thing of the past if they were built into all the cars.  People would LOOK for traffic jams to get into. 

With cars being able to park themselves, why not have an autopilot that can drive the car for me after I’ve been to an actual spa when I’m too comatose to drive?  That would be handy. 

Perhaps the car could brew a nice soothing cup of tea or coffee while I drive.  It could be under the radio.  Like some of the new coffee makers today, I would just place my cup under the spout and press a button.  The heat could be borrowed from the seat warmers and the water could come from the air conditioning.  All I’d need to do is load a little capsule full of tea or coffee and voila.

As a thank you, I’m hoping that Ford Canada will send me a pair of nice fuzzy spa slippers that have the word “FORD” emblazoned on them.  That and give me 15% of the action every time a customer chooses the “spa” package.

What snazzy features would YOU build into a car?

Birds fly south, why can't I?

I would make a great cave woman.  I rise with the sun, I go to bed pretty soon after dark, which makes it all the more alarming that summer is pretty much over.  

My hanging baskets have seen better days and yet I can’t bring myself to disassemble them.  My patio umbrella needs to be cleaned and officially put away, yet I can’t stand the thought of doing it.

I could blame the very bad summer that we had again this year in Vancouver, but that would be wrong.  Truth be told, I go through this every year at this time and every year, I’m surprised that it’s happening again.  You’d think I figure it out by now.

It’s not that I don’t like fall.  I love the crispness in the air and the sight of the leaves turning colour.  But I hate the idea of putting the heat on, having to wear shoes or layers and layers of clothing. 

I hate the darkness that surrounds us here, particularly in Vancouver where even when it’s not raining, the constant cloud cover makes it darker.  Soon streetlights will be coming on at 3:00 in the afternoon; a time of year when I think I suddenly have a night job.

Ideally, I would be on an airplane come October 30^th every year, heading to the southern hemisphere to feel the renewal of spring and light and sun.  I promise to be careful and wear lots of sunscreen if ever granted this annual wish.  Should I get to experience an entire year of summer, I assure you my mental health will be stronger, my caloric excesses will be smaller and I will definitely be more pleasant.

I’m the kind of woman who literally swoons at the sight of palm trees, not only for their beauty, but for what they represent.  Sunshine, beaches, warm breezes and more.  If we were smarter, we’d have planted a whole heap of them in Vancouver just to make us feel better.

Goodbye summer, my old dear friend.  Please visit early and often next year.  I can take the heat.