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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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…..

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.

“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.