The Annual Erection

It’s that time again.  Soft music is playing.  The fireplace is lit.  Romance, of sorts, is in the air.  It’s time for the annual erection of the Christmas tree.  Ahem. We have other more regular erections, thank you for asking. But this one is HUGE!

You know the warning on the Viagra that says something like, “if you have an erection lasting more than 4 hours, call a doctor.”  Last year’s erection of our tree took us 8 Godforsaken hours.  I should have called paramedics.  Maybe they could have helped us with the lights.

After spending 13 lucky Christmas’ together now, Ken and I have finally come up with some ground rules.  We both haul the tree and all the many boxes of decorations up the stairs.  We both build the tree, help fluff the branches and work endlessly to straighten it.  I test the lights, but then I sit down while Ken insists on putting enough lights on the tree to power a small city.  If you’ve noticed a brown out in your region, now you know why.  In the time that it takes him to place the hundreds of lights on the tree, I can have a relaxing lunch, a day at the spa….a night out.

For years, we’ve almost come to blows over the lights.  I like a good glow as much as the next gal, but I was convinced that our tree could be seen from Outer Space.  I trust that all those aboard the International Space Station were marveling at our tree with every orbit.  My concern wasn’t that Martians were going to find our house; I would welcome them with open arms, a Vulcan V hand-signal and a cheery “Na-nou”.  I was frankly more concerned about the fire hazard, never mind the electric bill.

Our tree is down a string this year because half the bulbs have gone out, thanks to good old Chinese quality manufacturing.  I think it’s perfect.  I’m sure Ken disagrees and will soon be off to Canadian Tire to clear the shelves.  In the meantime, our Bat Signal has dimmed, but our tree is erect. 

Honesty is such a lonely word

One of the problems with careening towards menopause is that your urge to tell people exactly what you think of them is at an all time high.  I’m well into the red zone on this front.  Not since puberty have I wanted to tell people so badly, exactly what I think of them and their little schemes, and this is not necessarily a Martha Stewart good thing.

In fact, it’s probably the worst idea ever.  Trust me, if I have an overwhelming urge to scream honesty at you, you likely don’t want to hear it and I’ve been choking on it for so long, that I’m afraid you will see it scrawled across my forehead like a CNN news feed.  I can’t help but feel the need to fasten black electrical tape across my forehead, just like I do on the bottom of my television to prevent seeing the dreaded scroll.  OK, I don’t actually do that.  Yet.

I live in fear that the dyke will not hold much longer.  What is it about Mentalpause that causes the need for such overwhelming honesty?  Is estrogen really the only thing between me and a drama worthy of an Oscar nomination?  No wonder women take supplements. WWIII we do not need.   Or do we?

This transition is about reflecting on your life and your relationships and feeling the need to make a giant list of who’s in and who’s out.  As Oprah Winfrey would say; this I know for sure ….some people are about to get the boot.  It’s simply a matter of timing.

I used to wonder deeply, really try to understand, where people were coming from.  I don’t care anymore.  Come from wherever you like; just take the first door out. You’d think in a country as large as Canada, that we could somehow remove ourselves from the truly small people that are all around us.  I think I’m going have to buy me an island and Zen out for a while to ponder my list.

Whose about to get the boot?  Small-minded individuals who care only about themselves.  The greedy.  Those who impede the success of others. Liars.  People who believe that manipulation and scheming are the way to go.  Those who get a kick out of the misfortune of others.  People who ride other’s coattails.  Abusers.  Bullys. 

Notice that the merely stupid are NOT on this list.  Those making a u-turn over 3 lanes, those who cannot organize a two-car parade, they can’t help themselves and, God knows, we’ve all done stupid.

What I’m talking about here are those with egos big enough to fill sport’s stadiums who have so little sense of self-worth, that they need to prop themselves up by tearing others down.  They’ve been doing it for so long, it’s the only life they know.  Trust me, they won’t recognize themselves on this list.  THOSE are the folks that I need to disassociate myself from.

Freedom from the tyranny of the clock

I’m not a fan of November in Canada.  The days are grey and ugly and it seems that there’s very little in the way of good cheer.  But I think that I may have finally found a way to cope, short of getting on an airplane and flying to the sun that I know is out there somewhere.

Having taken this week off and staying put, I’m here to tell you that this has been the best idea I’ve had in a while.  No airport craziness and I get to sleep in my own bed.

The sheer luxury of hearing snow in the forecast and instead of crawling out of my deliciously warm and snuggly bed to fight my way through traffic chaos, I simply pull up the covers and roll over.  I’ve even been known to restart the electric blanket, just to seal the deal.  The cat is as blissed-out as I am.

The mere idea of sipping a perfectly brewed cup of coffee while watching horrible traffic reports knowing that I don’t actually NEED to be anywhere gives me such joy, tears well up in my eyes.

Not having to wake up to an alarm makes me practically giddy.  We had a power failure this week and our radio came on at 12 midnight because while I remembered to reset the clock, I forgot to reset the alarm.  I couldn’t get back to sleep and ended up awake most of the night.  Normally, that would concern me.  Instead, I went back to sleep at 6:00 a.m. when I should have been waking up.  Sheer happiness.

Breakfast out.  Having time to cook. The quiet.  Playing six games of Scrabble on my computer in a row.  Endlessly surfing the web.  Long lunches with friends.  Afternoon naps with the cat.  Priceless.

It’s the puttering that I love.  Endless hours of puttering around the house, finally getting to jobs almost forgotten, reveling in their final achievement.  Not that anyone else would care.

This week has been about having the luxury of time.  It's what I imagine retirement to be like.  Time to do whatever needs to be done, or not and the freedom to choose.  Aaahhhhh.  So rare in this cockamamie, windswept vortex called life.

Why are we all rushing around like maniacs? What the hell is so important?  This is the only reason that I play the lottery.  So that I can live in peace and quiet without all the rushing and not be any worse off for it.  In fact, if I do it more often, my life will truly be better. 

Next year, I’ll consider taking all of November off.  Fight it out amongst yourselves; I’ll be home under the covers remembering my best idea ever.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Or not.

Snow is a four-letter word in this town.  Nothing can strike more fear into the heart of a Vancouver commuter than the word SNOW and the media knows it.

That’s why they don’t just forecast or predict it, they WARN US about its impending arrival.  Snow alerts, snow advisories and, of course, the ominous snow warnings are implied, mentioned and even yelled from the media rooftops.  The Snow is Coming, the Snow is Coming….something along the lines of the apocalypse. 

This would be OK if the snow were reliably predicted.  It seems that most of the time, it somehow arrives unexpectedly like federal funding for a megaproject.  Somehow, despite all the satellites, weather stations and weathermen holding up their fingers to the wind, it often snows when rain was expected.  “We didn’t see that temperature drop coming.”  Uh huh.  Temperatures dropping during Canadian winters are really rare!

We simply can’t deal with it in Vancouver and that means we can’t drive in it, but mostly we seem vastly underserved in the clearing department.  Despite the tax load that we carry, we seem unable to ever have enough salting/sanding/clearing ability.  We also seem loath to borrow equipment from others all around us.  Instead, we hide inside and refuse to come out.

In Toronto, even if it snows, you’re expected to come to work.  Even if it snows and the temperature remains at minus 40 for weeks. Not so much in Vancouver where even if you only have to travel a few treacherous blocks, it is almost frowned upon to leave your house.  People express deep concern over your bravery if you actually venture out, like you were trying to be a hero.  God forbid you should have something important to do…. like work.

That brings me to the endless debate over the need for snow tires in this climate.  Many believe that All-Season radials will do the job in a Vancouver snow, given the fact that temperatures rarely fall below -2 at best.

Others have taken the opportunity to trumpet the media hysteria and declare that even in Vancouver, it should be mandatory for all to have snow tires on their vehicles at great expense.  All the better to avoid the 85% of other drivers who haven’t a clue as to how to climb a slight grade in 2 cm of white stuff.

I feel badly for the poor bus drivers in this town who not only have to wield huge articulated busses down streets that are coated with snow and possibly black ice, but they also have to avoid the majority of drivers who haven’t a clue as to what to do and seem intent on driving 20 km when a single centimeter has fallen.  Like we don’t have enough gridlock already.

The kids from places like Calgary and Winnipeg double over in laughter at Vancouverites dealing with snow.  In places where snow blowers are mandatory because mere mortals can’t shovel that high, the rest of the country guffaws at our unease, and I don’t blame them.

On the plus side, if it does snow hard enough and often enough, the city does take on a more peaceful and much brighter air to it.  It’s quieter (no heavy trucks on the road clearing much of anything save Highway #1.  I think it’s called that because it’s the one and only road that actually receives any attention.)

Not being able to deal with snow seems so…un-Canadian to me.  Seriously people…learn how to correct a skid.  Keep some kind of kitty litter in your car, should you need traction on the road.  If you’re that scared of the snow, use the kitty litter to poop in.  It beats using your pants.

Unattainable goals

It hasn’t happened yet, but I have good reason to be hopeful.  Being the goal setter that I am, I actually made it a goal this year to skip at least one period.  Not that I could do anything concrete to achieve this (other than pray), but I made it a goal nonetheless.  I put it out into the universe, that I, Kim Heron, officially wish to stop having periods. Period.

Yep, I’m officially “on record” as not wishing to become pregnant. No tears are being shed for Motherhood here.  Let’s get this messy and horrible business over with, once and for all.  From now on, if I’m going to have a wild mood swing, I’d like it to happen sans blood.

According to the book, “Is it hot in here? Or is it me?  The Complete Guide to Menopause”; my official menopause Bible, it seems that within the perimenopause stage that I’m in, one’s cycle actually shortens up to around 21 days before it lengthens out and periods cease altogether. 

Just for kicks a month or two ago, I decided to check out how long my periods have been in this shortened phase…thinking that it had been at least a few months.  I recoiled in horror when I discovered that my periods have been happening every three weeks for the past two years!  Holy crap!  No wonder I’m cranky!

This was a plateau that I wanted to get off of already, even if I had to jump.  “Please, please God, I don’t want to be the only 85 year old woman in the retirement home still making monthly trips to the drugstore for supplies!” was my new whining mantra.

And have you been down THAT drugstore aisle lately?  There are more supplies than ever.  Shapes, styles, COLOURS!  Really, colours?  For the more fashionable among us (and you know who you are), your tampon can be wrapped in fushia or lime green, depending on your mood.  How come they never wrap them in black? Perhaps with a scull and crossbones emblazoned on the wrapper. THAT’s generally my mood at that time of the month. Light days, medium days.  I’m always on the lookout for “God I hope I’m not hemorrhaging to death” days. My guess is that’s in the hospital aisle.

Two years and counting.  Losing hope. Stocking up on supplies.  At this rate, by the time I end up ceasing to purchase tampons, I’ll probably need adult diapers.  Do they come in Fuchsia? 

Make mine a double

God love my friend Linda.  There is no more fun loving, compassionate and truly funny woman roaming the Earth.  And I thought she was of sound mind, until the day that she told me about her recent colonoscopy.

Keep in mind, that this story was being told by a woman, who when coming of age in the 70’s, had embraced her inner hippie and for a time lived alone in the woods in a log cabin.  Where she had a baby.  Without drugs of any kind.

This is where I get off the boat, but hey everyone was doing it.  Why shouldn’t Linda?  Cool.  I crossed my legs, swallowed hard and tried not to think about it.

The thing you should know about colonoscopies is that they require someone to take you home because they give you some of the best drugs that money can buy to make you positively loopy.  Well, you’d have to be wouldn’t you, to let someone stick a camera up your ass?  Yep, you’d pretty much need to be three sheets to the wind, which is exactly where my friend Linda went wrong.

It seemed that her ride couldn’t be there to drive her home. A person possessing all her mental faculties might have tried the ‘phone a friend” route and called someone else.  At least put the procedure off for a day or two to think about it. Not Linda.  Expedient to the core, she had a colonoscopy without drugs.  Did I say had?  I meant survived.

Trying to justify her position, Linda recounted that the nurse at the colonoscopy clinic told her that 90% of people who have colonoscopies, do so without drugs.  The nurse lies.  No one in their right mind would let someone come at them with a 20-foot long tube with a camera and a snippy thing on the end of it without benefit of a mind-altering substance.  Or even a shot of whisky.  Or a bullet to bite on.  Poor Linda had none of the above.

Linda soldiered on.  Let’s just say that the look on Linda’s face while describing this procedure minus drugs was unbearable enough.  I’m clenching right now just thinking about it.

A word to the wise. Take the drugs.  Take every drug in the whole dang cabinet.  You don’t want to be able to stand upright at the end of it, and not because of the scope. 

Maybe there’s a new business idea here in delivering loopy baby-boomers home in a limo after the ultimate clean out and lookie loo.  If you want me, I’ll be busy getting my limousine license and thinking up a suitable name.  BIG business is about to ensue.

Stupid is as stupid does

Honestly, I’m becoming a new kind of stupid as this menopause thing progresses.  I don’t call it Mentalpause for nothing.

On a typical day when leaving the office, I almost need a Sherpa to help me carry all the crap to the car.  As I had my usual armful with me, I was almost half way home before I realized that I didn’t have my PURSE!

Had I not required lip balm on my drive home, I would have been ALL the way home before I realized it.  At almost every traffic light I came to, I pawed at the space behind my seat where my purse normally resides.  Finally, I actually pulled over and got out of the vehicle to look thoroughly for said purse, only to confirm my gnawing suspicion.

No purse equals no wallet, no phone and no passkey to get me back into my office.  It certainly would make it difficult to pay for my hair appointment the next evening without my wallet but the most alarming thing of all was that I really didn’t know where it was. Could it have been sitting innocently on the parking garage floor patiently waiting to be loaded?  Was it in the bathroom? Or was it in my office?  I could clearly picture it in all three places; two of them public where someone could have walked away with my entire life in their hands.

Now it was a race against time to get back to the office before it locked down completely at 6:00 p.m. Why is it that anytime you actually need to be somewhere by a specific time that all lights immediately turn red, your lane is always the slow lane and people just seem to toddle along?  Here I was driving without a license, so I didn't want to do anything too stupid to add insult to injury.

Without my passkey, the question was, where could I try first without being locked out?  I couldn’t even be absolutely certain that I could get out of the underground garage without it, so I planned to begin my search in the bathroom.

Sure enough, I didn’t make it to the building in time.  The little red light on the security pad mocked me. Loser. Loser. Loser.  So I waited at the front door for someone to come out while trying not to look too shady, formulating Plan B in my mind. 

Plan B involved going to a colleague’s nearby house, interrupting what I prayed would be their dinner and explaining my problem to a sympathetic audience.  Perhaps they would even take pity on me and invite me in for a glass of wine. However, the chances of finding my colleague at home and not out at one of her daughter’s soccer, volleyball, ping pong, field hockey or evening golf games would be slim.

Soon enough someone exited the building and I ducked in.  I immediately searched the bathroom; to no avail.  My office was next.  There it was, happily tucked inside my desk.  I heaved a sigh of relief.

This is what concerns me about Mentalpause.  My brain can no longer be relied upon to remember the simplest of duties; like taking your own purse home and not doing something odd like leaving it in the bathroom, in the parking garage or even on the top of the car and then driving away.  That I can’t remember names is bad enough.  That I can’t remember to take my personal belongings with me is alarming.  God only knows what’s next.

A simple thanks

As soon as Halloween ends, the fundraising for The Royal Canadian Legion begins with the Poppy Campaign hitting the streets.

I think of buying a poppy as an annual thank you to those who gave their lives so that I can have freedom; freedom that I’ve enjoyed my entire life.  So I like to purchase my poppy from one of the dwindling number of actual World War II veterans, so that I can say my thanks in person.   Of course, with every passing year, that gets harder and harder to do. 

I have to remember that sadly, not all veterans are over 80.  Many soldiers much younger have come home, equally devastated, from the likes of Afghanistan.  Their lives in turmoil, perhaps even more so because not all Canadians understand the mission.  The only time there seems to be a big homecoming for them is when they come home in a box, and some kind of honour is bestowed upon them in Trenton, Ontario when they land back on Canadian soil.

At recent WE DAY celebrations in Vancouver, a young African man named Michel Chikwaine spoke to an audience of high school kids about being forced to become a child soldier.  I was intrigued about his story, so I looked him up on the Internet.  After all of the horror that he had been through, he finally somehow made it to Canada and makes Ottawa his home.  The first thing he commented on was the lack of bullets flying all over the place and the quietude that is peace. 

We take it for granted that Canada is; and hopefully always will be, a peaceful place.  We don’t duck at loud noises and when a bullet does go off, it gets reported as news.  Those who come here hoping to change that by bringing violence with them as a way of life will not be tolerated, and that is as it should be.

This year, for the first time ever, the Poppy Campaign is going high tech as people may text to donate via their mobile phones.  I still prefer the traditional method of giving, but to each his own.  I applaud their efforts to target a younger generation used to giving via technology.

As Remembrance Day edges ever closer, please give thanks in your own way to all our brave soldiers and their families who have also known hardship.  The hardship of not knowing if your loved one will come home in one piece, the hardship of their children growing up without them, either because of the long absences or because they don’t make it home. 

Thank you to all who make my life peaceful.  Please know your sacrifices have not been forgotten.

And they call it Bunny Love

I’m in love with Sid the Bunny on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Sid is a very cute white bunny puppet that Craig Ferguson voices in a high-pitched, effeminate voice.  Except as cute as he is, and he’s REALLY cute, he swears like a trucker, which I find hysterical.  Cute on the outside, naughty on the inside; the way life was meant to be.

I secretly pray before every show that he’ll make an appearance and when he does, I am suitably entertained.  Frankly, he could host the show and I would be thrilled.

I’m not sure what it is about cute little bunny puppets.  They mesmerized me as a child and clearly, they still do.

My previous bunny experience happened on Captain Kangaroo, a show I loved as a child.  Mr. Rabbit didn’t speak and he liked to steal carrots, which was a bit naughty.  But somehow when interacting with Captain Kangaroo, in the course of every show, Mr. Rabbit would make ping pong balls rain down on the Captain’s head, causing no end to glee at my house.

It was a nice, gentle way to stick it to every adult that ruled my life in a non-threatening, silly sort of way.  Sid accomplishes that today.  I really must enter into therapy.

Check out Sid for yourself and see what you think.

Video of Sid the Bunny