REVOLUTION!

Because, obviously, we have a strict do-not-feed policy around here.

Words with Friends?

I have a (rather long) list of words that I actively dislike. The most hated word in the English dictionary--MOIST, like I even need to write it down for you--is of course prime among them. There are a few others that are maybe not so predictable:

• pouch
• trousers
• shrimp (try saying it aloud without sounding like someone you don't want to be)
• gusset
• morsel
• parsnip (obviously)
• Guglielmo (who the hell knows how to pronounce that??)

Today, however, my least favorite word in the whole freakin' universe (after "moist") is "actually," as in "Actually, mom, you only asked me to put on my coat four times, not five." "Actually, mom, Jerry Potts had tuberculosis." "Actually, mom, Pluto is not a planet." "Actually, mom, there isn't a pokemon called U-Green-Poo." I WAS BEING FUNNY. 

It happened so quickly. One day, and I swear it was yesterday, Kid believed in me and my Very Great Brain. Today? I am one of the stupider forms of oatmeal. If Mark Twain is right, I have to wait until my son is 21 before I'm going to get any respect--at which point I will have been at Shady Acres for probably a decade already. 

"Actually, mom," I can hear him saying, "they don't take people at Shady Acres until they're 60, so you'll only have been there for two years." 

I may be the only middle-aged woman on my block to start adding ten years to her age. Much more of the lippy kid shenanigans, and I won't have any trouble passing for 60.

Bloggerfodder

Life has been so boring. I haven't been able to come up with anything to write about here for what seems like 10 months. The dog . . . barked, howled, got dirty. The Kid said . . . you know, what kids say. DH . . . is beyond all reproach and consequently not fodder for a blogger.

So anyhow, you might be asking, Lorraine, what has driven you to sit down today to Worn Ragged?

Here's why, and you're welcome.

Wednesday. The door shuts on the last of the men of this household as he bobbles down the sidewalk to where his ride to school is waiting. The dog goes back to bed. It is Wednesday. Wednesday is the Day of Reckoning around here. Things are tidied, cleaned, put in unusual places in order to surprise and delight me later when in a panicked search. "Oh, aren't I hilarious," I am wont to say upon discovering a can of chickpeas in the dishwasher detergent tub under the sink. "How I do amuse myself and make my own life diverting. I love me."

Multi-tasking is the key to getting done all of the things that I contract with myself to do on Wednesday mornings. Put the brown rice to soak WHILE the handtowels are being washed. Disinfect bathroom sinks WHILE books are being reshelved.

Remove unsightly facial hair WHILE tidying the front hall.

Forget all about the Olay Smooth Finish Creme smeared liberally on my upper lip (and maybe a little on "that chin" as Queenie the neighborhood manicurist likes to call it) WHEN the Canada Post man rings the doorbell.

"What an odd man" I thought, recalling his buggy eyes and smirking twitchy mouth, as I brought the Amazon box into the foyer and placed it on the table under the mirror.

"Bloggerfodder," I whispered as I caught my pseudo-Santa reflection.

BLOGGERFODDER!

Pretty, Guilty

A lot has changed in the voodoo bungalow since I last visited my own blog. The most important one is that I have radically scaled back my work, so I can become fully human again and so I can finally finish my novel-in-progress. That's all well and good, mental health yada yada yada, creative fulfillment blahblahblah--but this life of leisure comes with a price tag. A price tag more or less equivalent to my former monthly salary. What's a girl to do, then, when she sees her new favorite dress hanging in a store window?

I offered to tell jokes behind the counter for two whole hours, at a reasonable hourly wage of $200, but the uptight owner wouldn't even entertain the idea. Some people clearly choose to work with people because they hate people.

Emergency trust fund withdrawal? Bernie at the bank would look at me sternly over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses and say something about "octogenarian despair" (like I'd want to live to 80 WITHOUT THAT DRESS).

My car is probably worth $400 if I wash it, but I'm going to need it to go places in my new dress.

I could try to sell Elvis's dog drugs to children but. . . . I can't believe I even wrote that down. I would never do that. I wouldn't. Not that they would even hurt the children, being antibiotics, but still. Maybe some stomach upset, but likely only mild stomach upset, and it is a very cute dress. Okay, fine, no dealing antibiotics to the local urchinry. FINE. I WILL REMAIN POORLY DRESSED AND DIE ALONE.

Except that a very odd thing might have happened minutes after the boys went to tennis lessons: the mountain hotel in which we were to spend a few brief, probably dull, hours swimming in a mineral pool and eating at what has been no doubt hyperbolically called "one of the best new restaurants in Canada" on our way South to the Excited States might have called to say that they changed their mind about having a dog in room 144.

My family was sad to hear that this might have happened, but they're a pair of manly stoics: we will just have to make it to our destination in one long day of driving in the hot sun with a smelly hound in the back of the station wagon. And we've saved ourselves $422 dollars!

Which means I had 22 dollars with which to buy some quality chocolate for the guys. Hopefully they will remember my generosity if they ever discover that I am wearing our vacation.

Minnesota in the morning

The Internet has done many mean things to me. It has publicized an unfortunate photograph of eyeless me in a sunhat; it has turned me into an Etsy addict (but isn't this cute? At least I will be a well-dressed Etsy addict); it has, via webmail, caused me to hit "Reply All" when I ought not to have (I didn't like that job anyhow) (and he was a bastard) (and he basically had it coming) (but I am sorry about his wife being pregnant with the quads at the time); it has caused me to spend sad amounts of time obliterating jewel-toned stars in an attempt to I forget what but it really seems really important at the time. You know the story.

But the Internet has done at least one lovely thing for me: it has found me the very greatest friend. Who is a decade younger than me, lives in a different country, and over whom I tower, particularly in the orange platform heels I cannot wait to show her tomorrow. She is the finest munchkin bestie in tap shoes that a girl could ever have. We met in the chat room of a Swedish blog (thanks, Emi!) and instantly bonded over  almost everything, from Edward Gorey to Opi "Mermaid to Order" nail polish to taxidermy to interesting metaphors about rolled up microwaved cheese quesadillas (don't ask). In the last few years, we've had a first date in Los Angeles--and neither of us was a serial killer! Yay!--and even our ridiculous husbands got along; then a birthday trip to Calgary (it snowed);  a family vacation lakeside in Idaho (there were margaritas); and a writers' conference in the far suburbs of Vancouver (there were no omelettes). And tomorrow I get to go to Minnesota! I have been promised gin, backyard toad lesbians (really), no hikes, lots of floppy-hat and sunglasses events, a French dinner and four different ice cream parlours except without the "u." I hear there is a bomb shelter. I KNOW.

Thank you, universe, for the Internet.
See you tomorrow, Grits!

WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!

Things I learned today:

1. Never give up with the plunger.
2. Snake bites hurt, even if (especially if) given by smallish but fierce little people disappointed about television.
3. The time lag between my snapping someone's head off and their unwise decision to say even ONE MORE WORD about the amount of liquid that the very expensive organic chicken breasts have given up, even if it is a sign that they have been previously frozen and a practical guarantee that they will be tough: 3 seconds. I am nuclear powered!
4. A child can weep for a toy that was "disappeared" four years ago.
5. A farting foxhound does nothing to alleviate tension in a room in which a child is weeping for a long-lost toy and a spouse is kvetching about meat products purchased by a FREAKING VEGETARIAN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT DO YOU EXPECT.
6. Ahem.
7. A plane from Calgary International Airport leaves for Barcelona at 11.47 this evening.

Meet me at the gate?

OH in Ottawa

If you couldn't afford to HAVE a child,  you shouldn't have had one. --apropos of not buying a Certain Someone an iPad on the grounds that they were expensive

Jay-cues Fartier! Who's he when he's at home? --upon scaling statue at Parliament Hill of Jacques Cartier, the modern European discoverer of our fair nation

My mom is super grumpy today. Something about the moon and her ovals. Blah blah blah. -- informing the waiter at The Metropolitaine about why a Certain Someone was sulking over his steak frites

Creepy, dusty stuff. -- critical appraisal of The Canadian Museum of Civilization

THIS BABY JESUS DOESN'T HAVE A PENIS. I THOUGHT HE WAS GOD. -- Renaissance Gallery, National Gallery of Canada

Is that the Prime Minister's car? How do they know we don't have A BOMB?! WE COULD JUST THROW A BOMB RIGHT --  hastily shushed observation about security, or lack thereof, at Parliament Hill

If that guy behind me doesn't stop snoring I'm going to shove Twizzlers up his nose. -- observation shouted while watching Teletoons with headphones on at 37000 feet

You at least have one dollar to spend on your child, do you not? I need a massage. --upon spying the vibrating chairs opposite baggage claim.