Gee whiz….hub…

Gee whiz….hubby has been replacing the old flooring at our bungalow, so he has a lot of cut pieces left. One particular one is about a foot wide and four feet long.

He puts it on my teak dining room table as a placemat for himself. He says it’s because I always get after him about spilling things on the runner on the table.

“Do you know how stupid that looks?”

“Who cares? Only you and I live here.”

“Exactly…..I live here! And I hate it.”

“Well, I live here too and I love it. You can take it off when company comes.”

I take it off every time I see it and place it on one of the chairs so it’s hidden out of sight because if I leave it there he’ll get used to it and take it out when other people come over and he won’t give two figs.

This is how eccentric middle-aged men become eccentric old cranks. And this is why women married to them pull their hair out.

Encore!

Okay, I think I may be a little too involved in my children’s lives. My youngest, now 25, will always be the baby in the family, I don’t care how old she gets.

I had a dream last night that she was up on a stage and there were hundreds of people in the audience. She was telling a story or a joke or something I thought was amazingly clever and when she finished no one clapped. No one.

I stood up at the back of the room and clapped and clapped and clapped. I clapped so hard I woke myself up, along with my husband. It was five in the morning.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m clapping for Sarah.”

“What happened? When did she call? You never tell me when she calls.”

“She didn’t call. The sun’s not up yet. I had a dream that no one was clapping for her so I did.”

“You are a lunatic.”

I know. Most mothers are.

Bah Humbug

Being the enviromentalist that I am, on top of being the laziest person in the world, I put all my gifts in bags this year; pretty bags I’ve received over several Christmas’s. There’s not a thing wrong with them, except that the gift tags are from people who are now dead but I can scribble over that.

When I decide to do this task, it’s knowing that family members might barge in at any moment, so I’m in a hurry.  I realize too late that I have no tissue paper to stuff in the bags to hide what lies beneath. I resort to Kleenex and paper towels. Finally another miserable chore done before Christmas.

I ruin everything by mentioning I’ve put everyone’s gift in bags this year. They all look at me in horror.

“BAGS?? That’s no fun!!!”

“That stinks.”

“Where’s the challenge in that?”

Lordy. I have a mutiny, like the time I said maybe I’d have a ham for Christmas. (What was I thinking?). When this news got back to the kids in Halifax, I received phone calls.

 ”NEVER. TURKEY OR YOUR LIFE!”  

Or the time I said I wasn’t going to make stuffing. (What was I thinking?)

“NEVER. STUFFING OR YOUR LIFE.”

Once I said I wasn’t going to bake for Christmas. That went well.

“Look,” I say. “I’m saving a tree by using bags. The gifts aren’t that great anyway.”

“Why not use brown paper then or newspaper? Why bags?”

“Have you ever wrapped white socks using newspaper?”

No one cares. They only care that I wrap the gifts like I’ve always wrapped the gifts in the past. With cheap Walmart paper and coloured ribbon. They don’t like the store-bought bows. It’s like the more effort I put into it, the better they like it.

Then my artsy-fartsy daughter comes home with her gifts all wrapped in brown paper tied with raffia, and in that raffia are cinnamon sticks and ivy sprigs and pine cones. I have to admit they do look fabulous.

My nieces give me a hard time about my gift wrapping when I send their Christmas parcel. “Auntie Lelly….all your paper is ripped and the tape doesn’t stick.” I sent their gifts wrapped in duct tape the next Christmas.

So alright….I admit I’m not crafty. I hate crafts as a matter of fact. But because I’m a sap, I’m going to undo all the bags and wrap up the gifts using Christmas paper.

Mothers + guilt = work, work, work.

Ho ho ho.

Amazing things….

1. Going to bed and turning off the light. Two minutes later your pussycat jumps up on the bed and drops his favourite toy rabbit at your feet. Then he walks up your leg and hip and settles himself down for the night against your heart.

2. Having your 24 year old daughter home for two weeks and hearing her giggle at something silly and yell, “Mom, come here!”

3. Talking on the telephone with your 30 year old son about the state of the world.

4. Having a new toaster.

5. Going to the movies in the afternoon.

6. Having hubby say, “Do you need anything in town?”

7. Gossiping with an old friend.

8. Seeing red maple leaves.

9. Having a scalding hot shower.

10. Knowing there are leftovers for supper.

And all of this happened in the last twenty-four hours. I’m a lucky girl.

Twitter is for the birds

I can’t understand Twitter. I don’t know how to read it. There’s nothing

but & signs and #signs and abc.ca/q/blog/2011/09/23/ or http:

//pw/;u/6DgS6….”in your face…”, “what does Lady GaGa leave in

her purse”. “Stay tuned,” “Tune in”, “Coming soon!” //!@$##$#^%

$^&*^^$@##@%%&% ”That goes for y’or mama too!”

Geez Louise. I can’t for the life of me figure out why people like this

past time. I can write a book but I can’t do 140 characters and make

it sound interesting or riveting. My life is a bore. I go to no premiers,

no red carpet events, or the opera. I barely go out to dinner. They

tell me I’ll need this Twitter business when the next book comes

out, so I can let people know the latest on where I’ll be. Trouble is

everyone I know doesn’t go on Twitter, so they won’t know a darn

thing. In the meantime, you’ll find me squinting at the mall trying

to look like I understand nyti.ms/qGMvt2/ow./ly/6D3jC.

Over and out. 

Or as they say in Twitterish !@#$ ^&* ()_+ god damn mutter mutter mutter…

There was a little girl….who had a little….

Does anyone else have a problem with their hair in the summer? My curly hair is a mop most of the time, but add the soft water at the cottage, the bright sun (what little we had) and swimming in salt water and I’m looking like a freak.

When your hair is curly and it turns gray, it’s like having a big mess of pubic hair on your head. Cement has more lustre and shine. My hairdresser says that’s because curly hair is porous, or maybe she said something else. I never listen to the poor woman and she knows it.

She’s attempted for years now to get me interested in doing something with my hair, but that involves time and effort. There is no way I am going to struggle with trying to make my hair smooth. Every wedding I have ever attended, including my own,  the hairdresser flat irons my curls and I say it looks great and leave them a tip before I run out of the salon screaming and head for the nearest shower. 

Soft water makes your hair fall down and refuse to get up. So the top part of my scalp looks like the fur on my neighbour’s cocker spaniel and the sides are like Krusty the Clown.

Sometimes I think I should wear a wig. They look very life like these days, but since I leave my debit card stuck in cash machines and have actually exited the grocery store without my groceries, the chances of me remembering to put on my fake hair are slim to none.

I wish bathing caps were back in fashion. I’d rather have daisies on my head than a brillo pad.

The name game…ugg.

The first draft of my sixth novel is finished. Number seven is being mulled over as we speak. And I am running out of names.

I have so many characters rattling around in my head, I get them mixed up or I forget what book they’re in. So when I start to think of a characters name for a new story, I have to nix all the names I previously used, as well as my families names, my friends and enemies and even the names of my neighbours because it doesn’t matter what I choose, if your name happens to be the same, I’ll hear about it.

Just today, a rabid fan pleaded with me not to use his name. “Please don’t use the name BLAIR! Please. I beg you.” He must have said the name BLAIR five times. Alternatively, I have another huge fan, TOM, who insisted I name a character after him. So I did. TOM was Augusta’s husband who had a heart attack on the lawn and died. (Hit & Mrs.) And he had the nerve to complain that he didn’t have a speaking role!

Remember Donalda in Relative Happiness? She was a pill. I have the sweetest neighbour in the world and I totally forgot her name was Donalda. She mentioned it as I signed her book and I felt a little silly.

But if the name isn’t right, the character doesn’t come alive for me. And once the character is named, I can never change that name. (I had to once….the publishers didn’t want Bay who lived in Glace Bay, (even though my grandfather’s sister was Bay from Glace Bay), so I had to change it to Beth (Relative Happiness). I was determined to use it though, hence, Bay of Her Mother’s Daughter.

Elsie in Shoot Me was just an abbreviation at first because I couldn’t think of a name. I wrote L.C. for the first two pages…after myself….and L.C. quickly became Elsie.

So now I’m on the hunt again. I need three female names….two born in the thirties and one in the fifties. I looked up popular names for those years. Funnily enough the most popular girl’s names for both decades was Mary, Mary quite contrary.

I’ve even used the names of every pet I ever had growing up, for the dogs and cats in my books.

All this is to say that naming characters for a novel is a tricky business, so don’t be offended if I have to use your name or I can’t use your name.

It has to feel…write.

p.s. I will accept requests for problem people in your life. You tell me their names and I’ll kill them off, pronto. Or throw them under a bus. Something dastardly.

Daniel….a.k.a……Lesley

Lesley is travelling tonight on a plane

I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain..ai…ain

Oh, and I can see Lesley waving goodbye

God, it looks like Lesley,

Must be the box office in the sky….

…because she sure ain’t gonna get any Elton John tickets for the Sydney show, after Sarah and I were kicked off the system….in Sarah’s case, just as she was putting in her Mastercard number, five times!! I got as far at the seat selection phase and was shoved back into the Centre 200 waiting room at least 800 times! John was standing in line at the Savoy and saw our neighbour walk out with four tickets but they were gone just as he got to the counter.  

If there’s a break and enter the road in the near future, don’t tell anybody.

Get this…

So hubby comes roaring home and walks in the door. He shouts, “There’s music in my pants!”

“Music in your pants!!?? Don’t touch me….I’m writing!”

He comes down the hall and stands there. “Music in my pants?”

“That’s what you said.”

“No I didn’t! There’s music in my van!”

“Of course there’s music in your van…..everyone has music in their van.”

“Not when the radio’s turned off. I think it’s coming from the phone.”

“Ohhhh….gotcha.”

“I don’t want music in my pants or my van. Will you figure out a way to make this stupid phone ring? How do you make this thing ring? I’m tired of missing calls. I don’t want   Bollywood, Calypso, Flutey Phone or Funk Y’all. I want a frigging RING RING…..RING RING……RING RING.”

“Don’t look at me. I  don’t even know how to answer the damn thing. Call the kids. They have nothing better to do.”

This is a day in the life of a retired couple.

 

Pillow fight

My husband and I have a hobby because he’s a pain in the neck and so am I. We collect pillows to try and remedy this situation with our poor kinked and wonky necks. Right this minute we have ten pillows on our bed.

We have old feather pillows that seem to cough up feathers every time you pick them up. We have crappy old two dollar pillows and very expensive ones that were on sale at the Bay. Then we have the foam pillows that are supposed to hold the shape of your head, curved high on one side and smaller on the other end. The kind that always look horrible in a pillow case. One of them is cheap and as hard as a cement slab. The other one is so soft only Mama bear would use it.

Then I invested in a water pillow, which I actually like but it weighs about twenty pounds and I have a hard time positioning it just right in the middle of the night without putting my shoulder out.

The latest pillows to come into the house are ones hubby saw on television. They are shaped like comma’s, with a hole for your ear. I’d like to see the person who can get their ear in this hole. It doesn’t seem to matter which way I turn it, my ear always misses it. I tried it for thirty seconds and biffed it on the floor.

My neck is constantly sore when I write. I’m seriously thinking of getting a neck brace just to prop myself up when I’m at the computer. I find I can only go so long before…..

Sons and Daughters

I have a daughter who would happily live in a hair salon. She calls me to tell me what a bargain she found in Halifax when one place only charged her $90 for a cut and color.

I have a son who goes to a crappy hairdresser because she’s close to his apartment. He’s willing to go for eight weeks with a shitty haircut because he can’t be bothered to drive the two extra minutes to someone else. He says it’s only hair. It’ll grow back. He also refuses to spend over $15.

There’s no reason for this observation. I’m simply writing it down.

Phone = Android = Hemorrhoid = Pain in the ass

I’ve been sitting for days, now with a cushion, trying to learn my new Android phone. It’s my fault. I said I wanted it even though my daughter said she wasn’t going to help me. I don’t know what her problem is. She can program just about anything on the planet with her computer keyboard and design a friggin’ magazine from cover to cover.  So what if I ask her a few things.

“I don’t have your phone, Mom,” she says over the phone. “Not all phones are alike. I’d have to have it in front of me.”

Funny….that’s what her brother said. I don’t believe them.

“All I want to know is how to answer the damn thing. I already figured out how to find an app and press a widget and set up my bank account and find out the weather forcast in Vancouver but what happens when the phone actually rings?”

“You anwer it.”

“HOW???”

“What do you mean how?”

“The screen keeps going black. Every time I want to see something it turns off. I paid good money for this thing.”

“It’s saving the battery.”

“I don’t want the battery saved. I want to know how to answer the phone and I want to know how to call someone on the phone. It is a phone after all. I don’t need to know where the star constellations are in the sky or how to drive to Atlantic City. I want to call the dentist.”

“There should be a box that says ANSWER. You press it.”

“Call me.” I hang up and wait….and wait…..and wait…..!

I call her back. “Why aren’t you calling me?”

“I did call you but I just remembered you don’t have service in Homeville.”

“So I can’t call you and I can’t text you….is that what you’re telling me.”

“You’ll have to run to the bungalow to use it, or go to Sydney.”

Like an idiot, I drive a half an hour to Sydney and sit in the Mayflower Mall food court sipping a large de-caf with one and a half creams and call Sarah. She answers. I’m thrilled. Like I’ve done something terrific.

“Now I’ll text you.”

“Okay.” She hangs up.

I fiddle and slide my finger up and down and sideways trying to remember what icon to use to text someone. It must be the little green man’s head. I push it and I’m right. It’s ridiculous how proud I feel. I find Sarah’s name and press on it. Now I have to turn the phone around to press the keyboard because there’s no way my inexperienced fingers are going to use the tiny letters on screen.

I send her the message. “Hi oney. i’m jere at the malll so text me rifht back. Love you. mom. X0″

I wait….and wait…..and wait. This is for the birds. I try to call her but I can’t find the right screen. Then a little peep goes off. I hit the volume button first and then the camcorder comes on and I’m filming my feet. I’m panicked thinking I have to answer this text and if I don’t, do I lose it?

Somehow I press the right button by accident and there it is.

luvu2.

I hear the Hallelujah Chorus. Maybe that should be my ringtone.

Someone call 911!!!!

My daughter and I talk on the phone several times a day. She lives away and this is how we connect since I have no idea how to text. She refuses to show me how, saying the migraine she’d get trying to explain new technology to me wouldn’t be worth it.

So basically she’s to blame for this morning.

We’re on our first phone call of the day. The phone rings and before I say hello she says, call me back…. in other words, I’m paying for it. We’re chatting about nothing while I’m sucking on my morning smoothie.

My husband is downstairs doing or fixing or measuring something. I suddenly hear this weird frantic thumping. It sounds like he fell down the stairs or off a ladder, so I yell, “ARE YOU ALRIGHT??” “ARE YOU ALRIGHT?? Then there was yelling and cats flying down the hall and running up the stairs. I now scream “WHAT’S WRONG??” and “OMG, WHAT HAPPENED??” Then I screech at Sarah, “I HAVE TO HANG UP!!!!! and I do.

Turns out he lifted the cover off the sump pipe in the basement at the bottom of our stairs and as he lifted it, a squirrel jumped out at him and landed on his chest, then flew over his head and up the stairs with our fat cat chasing it and our scaredy cat running the other way to hide in the rafters with his tail five times its normal size.

John starts yelling at me to get the cat, close the bedroom doors, open the front door and back door while he chased the squirrel around the living room. “I CAN’T DO EVERYTHING AT ONCE!!” I had to get the cat first because they’re indoor cats and with both doors open I didn’t ‘want them to escape.

“HE’S COMING YOUR WAY! HEAD HIM OFF AT THE HALL!  NO! THE KITCHEN! WHERE IS HE? OH THERE HE IS. HE’S RUNNING BY MY FEET.”

It did run out the door only about a minte after the whole episode started. We closed the doors, opened the bedroom doors, laughed at the cats, one of whom as thrilled with this excitement and the other who nearly passed out.

So I call Sarah back. She answers the phone with an “OMG!!! ARE YOU GUYS ALRIGHT??? WHAT HAPPENED?? DID SOMEONE BREAK IN?? IS DADDY OKAY?!!!!!

“A squirrel got in the house.”

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE BEING MURDERED!!!!!!!!!!!! MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!DON’T EVER HANG UP LIKE THAT AGAIN!!! YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!!!!!!!!

Now if I had been texting her, she’d never have known a thing.

Eagle Eye

So I hear about this website www.raptorresource.org that has a bird cam on an eagle’s nest somewhere in the states. The eagles taking care of their two eaglets and another one that just hatched last night. I’ve been hooked for three days now. I have it up on my computer all the time, checking in with our happy couple every twenty minutes or so. It’s absolutely wonderful.

But now I’m taking it personally. The other day the male (I’m assuming….no mother would do this) is out of the nest for a super long time. They usually spell each other every half hour or so. So the mother is getting antsy. You can see it in her beaky face. The poor soul is even yawning!! Did you know eagles yawn??

So she starts squawking big time. Like “get your sorry ass over here now!!”

Nothing happens. So she gets up on her feet exposing two babes and an egg and flies off screen. I’m like “OMG, what are you doing?? The babies!” But I should have realized she wasn’t stupid. She just flew to a higher branch and mouthed off again and then came back down and snuggled her babies once more. I couldn’t wait for Romeo to come home….I was too nervous that something happened to him.

But he must have come home because there was a big fish dropped in front of her, a bouquet of roses in the eagle world. So then he takes over and he starts feeding babies. One of the chicks keeps getting in the way, so Daddio gives him a toss….harder than he really meant to. Baby eagle is now on the outside of the inner nest. Dad plunks down on the other two, and junior is having a fit. It’s cold!

So I find myself screaming at the computer screen. “Get that child in the house now! Are you nuts?” I finally couldn’t stand it and had to shut it off, or I was going to have a heart attack.

Then today I tune in and the three eaglets are there and the new one is being pushed out of the way by his stronger siblings and the eagle keeps feeding the same one and the little guy is in the back, not getting anything! I’m beside myself. I jab my finger at the screen. “Can you not see this hungry infant?? What is wrong with you bird brains!” Again, I had to shut it off.

I mean these eagles are amazing. They are doting parents and they do a fabulous job. And apparently my daughter just informed me that the parent will feed the strongest first to ensure survival. Which makes sense, but not when I’m watching. So now I’m stuck. Do I keep watching or not in case something awful happens.

There is no place in this world for fools like me. We have a terrible time if you must know the truth.

But I wish mom and dad eagle the best of luck with their brood. Raising kids is not easy. Oh gosh, I don’t have the picture up but the sound is on and I can hear chirping. PLEASE feed that little baby!!! 

Or I’m just going to explode.

OMG

I just took a quick tour of my house.

I have a heating pad on the back of my favourite chair in the living room for my neck, a comfy throw for my cold feet and a fan directed at me in case of hot flashes. In the bathroom I now use Polident for my ‘appliance’. In the kitchen I have a huge bottle of Metamucil on the counter. In the porch I have a box of insoles for my shoes.

Just when in the name of God did I turn into my grandmother????