Superstition

….

Anywayyyy … I feel the itch to write something, but of course 2 years has flown by and I couldn’t decide what to write about, so I went to the WordPress blogging site “prompts” and this is the prompt for today.

“Superstition”

That’s it.  Am I for it?  Against it?

Let’s explore…

1. I will walk under a ladder if it’s the shortest route.  I’ve  got any number of foot (feet?) issues, (some more unsightly than others – to the great dismay of the girl who does my pedicures) so every step matters.
2. Broken mirror.  I’m not a fan of mirrors anymore, and haven’t walked around holding one since my 20’s, so I’m really okay with breaking them and not concerned about the consequence of a mere 7 years.  My lip gloss is older than that.
3. Find a penny pick it up … get serious. I’m not doing that.
4. Black cat in your path is bad luck.  I only find cats to be bad news if they are mine and I have to pay their vet bills. Plus this superstition discriminates so I’m against it.
5. Lucky rabbits foot.  I don’t believe that carrying one will bring me luck, as it definitely didn’t work for the amputee rabbit.  For me, if I’m going to carry around a limb of something, I’d prefer it be a chicken wing, because that’s just good eatin’.
6. Knock on wood for luck.  This superstition has changed over the years, and become quite sexualized.  Both knockers and wood now have a different meaning, and I refuse to comment because I’m a lady and certainly don’t want to discuss all the ways people go about getting lucky.
7. Cross your fingers for luck.  That’s a bit harder than it sounds now that my skin looks like pleather and I’m semi-arthritic. Might freeze that way, don’t see the value, not doing it.
8. Rain on your wedding day is good luck.  That’s just a lie, to make soggy brides with huge hair and runny mascara feel better.
9. Friday the 13^th.  For me, now that I get to work from home on Fridays, I couldn’t give a flying @#$K what the date is.  As long as I’m not doing the commute.  It’s lucky for everyone else on the road, because I’m safely at home  lounging working in my sweatpants business attire.
10. Umbrella in the house.  How can that be unlucky?  How else can I act out my Mary Poppins /Singing in the Rain song and dance numbers in the privacy of my basement? Sidenote – empty nests aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

The only thing I’m on board with about Superstition is the song by Stevie Wonder.  My dance moves to this one are on point, and now that I blogged I believe I officially qualify for Dancing with the Stars – so my future may be very bright indeed.  Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

 

Retirement Aspirement*

*Not a real word

Well … it’s been rather a long time.  There’s no denying it. I know I just disappeared without a word, and I’m sure it caused many sleepless nights and maybe even one or two Amber Alerts.    It’s not you – it’s me.   But the answer to my extended absence is in plain sight in the of the name of my blog … I just got a little sick of me.  “Me, me, me all the time”.  I worried I might be approaching the point where I became one of those people who find themselves infinitely fascinating, and who simply cannot have an unexpressed thought. Stop me when that happens, will you? But … enough about YOU.

How is it possible that another year has blown by?  It’s 2014.  That’s frightening on so many levels, but this one in particular: In my “corporate” job that I started in 1997, from day one my HR information always said:
“Year eligible for retirement – 2014”

Sadly, that job came to an end, but that other date has stuck with me.  It is officially 2014 – and let me make it perfectly clear … I am in no way “eligible for retirement”.  For the following 10 reasons:

1. Still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
2. Not mature, in the maturity sense.  Still the first one to laugh at inappropriate times, dance like no ones watching when clearly, people are watching, and they’re horrified (usually because I’m in an elevator, store, or my car).
3. Not disciplined.  Would just lay around in my PJs and eat mini chocolate bars instead of going to lawn bowling or to seniors get 15% off days at Shoppers Drug Mart.
4. Still too good at driving.  I restrict use of my blinker to times when I’m actually turning.  Plus I go 20 kms above the speed limit at all times.
5. Still have kids at home.  Sure, they are grown ass adults who spend most of their time trying to get away from my smothering ways … “What are you looking for?”  “Who texted you?”  “Where are you going?”  “Did you have a good sleep?”  “When do you work?” “Are you cold/hot/hungry/sad/drunk/crazy?” etc. etc. etc.
6. Punctuality issues – still arrive everywhere late.  Couldn’t make an early bird special to save my life.
7. Still HATE gardening.  I believe it’s still illegal and immoral to be “retired” and yet lounge around a weed filled yard with flower beds full of dandelions and skunkweed, drinking daiquiris in a leopard two piece.
8. My bucket list still involves an actual bucket, and a list of things that I intend to “give a good scrubbing” when I get home from work.  If I retired, I would always be “home from work”. Hence my dilemma.
9. My dog is too young.  Many retired people I know have a sedentary geriatric dog with warts and mysterious smells and no teeth.   My dog is a mere 3 years old and is full of piss and vinegar and just enough attitude to make coming home from work every night a bit of an adventure.  “What did he ruin today??”  It wouldn’t seem fair to him to just BE home from work every day, and cut his demolition career while he’s in his prime.
10. Investments.  As a retiree, rumour has it that you’re supposed to have them.  I’ve been heavily-invested for years in things like ½ hour sit coms, Saturday Night Live reruns, and late night eating contests starring me …  going up against – me.  It’s not like I don’t have a financial plan – I’m not an idiot.  It’s just that so far every time I check my portfolio it says “NOT A WINNING TICKET”.

Sure, I’d be “eligible for retirement” if it only meant superficial things like:

1. Endless repertoire of “in my day” stories.
2. Brown spots multiplying at breakneck speed.
3. Upper lip 5 o’clock shadow.
4. Regularly reach the top/bottom of the stairs without even an inkling of why I went up/down there.
5. Intermittent rogue nose hair.
6. Constant muttering.  (I’ve been muttering the whole time I’ve been writing this.)
7. Bunions that would put Paul to shame.
8. Fascination with roller coasters officially replaced with growing interest in “Stairlifts”.
9. Increasing crankiness.  For effect I was going to say , “I put the crotch in crotchety” – but who SAYS that?  That’s disgusting.  Suffice it to say – I’m sometimes cranky.  And lastly, and probably most important …
10. Waning interest in getting out of bed in the morning to attend any sort of job.

If that’s all it takes, then YES, I couldn’t be more eligible.  I’m frickin’ GEORGE CLOONEY eligible.  But sadly, in spite of official Human Resources documentation from the nineties; I think my realistic retirement date is something like 2034.  So, co-workers —  you’re in for a TREAT.  Because I’m not getting older … I’m getting more and more eligible.

 

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Hair today …. Don tomorrow

Recently I was watching Barbara Walters interview Donald Trump – and it occurred to me that one of them has almost the exact same hair as me…. and it wasn’t Barbara.  It’s official –  the Donald and I share lifeless looking, odd coloured clumpy yet wispy coifs  – not unlike the rather large full body mats my newly feral cats now sport.

Image via Wikipedia

My hair has no real part, it just goes every which way it wants.  There are little flippy things at the side sometimes, whenever it feels like it.  There is no predicting what it might look like from one day to the next.  The level of ridiculousness seems to be directly related to the occasion, and the necessity to be presentable. If I have nowhere to go that day, and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I’ll sometimes think to myself,  “Hmm, not bad – a Bonnie Franklin post-One Day at a Time thing going on”.  But then without a doubt, at my next event where I have a real vested interest in NOT looking ridiculous, like an old boyfriend is going to be there or something, (ha) then sure enough I will have something that either looks like I:

1. am wearing a sideways Bump-it 
2. have an aggressive head tumour
3. am sprouting horns
4. have purposefully flattened and parted it for my best Gomez Adams impression

Should I have something really important like a job interview, I can pretty much count on rocking something closer to the Donald Trump or even Don King look.

Image via Wikipedia

 I don’t know exactly when this happened – if I had to nail it down to a decade I think it would be the 90s.  I used to have normal girl hair.   At one point it even moved, and had what I believe they call “body”.  Now the texture is similar to the angel hair we used to put on the Christmas tree.   This new thin, dullness was further aggravated by a recent Groupon experience.

Without Groupon, I never would have considered going to that nice, trendy salon that was practically in the city.  It was all decorated in black and white, with lots of angles and flattering lighting.  It’s obviously for people who are extremely sophisticated – like those types who accessorize and dress differently according to what season it is. (Even though they’re going to be too hot in those sweaters.)

But – it was only going to cost me a fraction of the price of the normal fancy salon haircut, and since my nest emptied I’ve been trying to care about “me time”, so why not live a little and be adventurous?  I went in and sat in the chair and the chic girl looked up from her texting and with a thick, exotic accent spoke to me, while trying to hide her disappointment. 

“What are we going to do today?” 

Then I muttered a bunch of incoherent things about

“It’s too long at the back …. but I don’t like it when the back gets the clippers on it because then it’s boy hair.”

“I don’t really like bangs, but I really hate my forehead, and headbands are out so leave it long…”  

Yadayadayada ….  And then I ended my speech with my signature, “It’s only hair” tagline, that used to go over so well at First Choice.

The whole time, I was admiring her cute fashionable outfit and her long locks (which I now understand were extensions).  Anyway, I hated for her to have such a boring customer, and I just got completely swept up by the pounding dance tunes and complimentary trick mirrors – and  when she started talking about doing something “funky” I agreed wholeheartedly.  Bring it.  I’m all about the “funk”.  I’m practically Grand Funk Railroad.

When she was finished I looked pretty decent – old boyfriend decent even, with my dramatic, Twiggy-esque “statement” hair, all carefully “messy” and with dramatic sideburn things.  Luckily I had a date with hubby and some manual labour – I struck quite an impressive figure in my hard hat as I helped him drag and chip brush.

But … in the cold light of the next day, when the glow of funky chic had worn off, I had to deal with it myself.  It became evident that what “funky”  really amounted to, was her cutting all the hair away from around my ears.  Equally problematic, my ongoing funkiness was going to be directly dependent on me having to do stuff that I don’t know how to do.  Like use products … and pull my hair into dramatic “wisps” onto my face.  After working on it for half an hour, I had moved away from resembling high fashion Twiggy-esque model, and settled on a look that was closer to be “Sad elf with huge hairless arcs above ears” .

That was about 8 weeks ago.  It  gradually morphed from sad elf to Donald Trump.

Now comes the hard part – going back to my usual hair dresser like nothing ever happened.  I already have a reputation as a problem client, who takes in pictures of cute haircuts that I want to her to give me, that are virtually impossible for me to have. 

“Yeah, that’s cute – but that wouldn’t work on you.  Your hair is too thin/short/long/patchy/thick/cowlicky”… the list is endless.

Now that I cheated on her with Groupon, I feel like I need to make an effort to be more faithful and lower maintenance.  This time I’ll take in a picture of Donald.  And maybe a promise ring.

Failure is a Gift… and My Gifts Are Failures

Well, it’s about a month until the big event, and time to start the nightmare that is Christmas shopping.  Trying to buy other people something they want.  What a concept.  If they want it, and are over 16, and they have the means — or even if they don’t have the means but have a credit card — chances are they already bought it.

This makes shopping even harder, because now I have to think like a marketer, and identify an unmet need, and then fill it.  I need to buy people something they don’t even know they want, but that will delight them, ideally beyond their wildest dreams.  This is a tall order, and one that I have been known to take very seriously.

I’ve failed miserably at this in the past.  I used to be a sucker for gadgets. My first gift to my then boyfriend back in 1974 was a “hot lather machine” for shaving.  Seriously.  And I couldn’t WAIT for him to open it. He was barely old enough to shave, and somehow I thought that the only thing lacking in his life (now that he had me, the ultimate prize) was the foam that he put on his face before scraping it with something sharp, was too cold.  Life altering indeed.  Even more staggering is that he used it, but I think that’s just because we were in the early stages of relationship training where he still did what I said.

And I distinctly remember presenting my sisters with such technological wonders as nail dryers.  Because what girl hasn’t suffered  through the cruel hardship of having to wait for her nails to dry, or heaven forbid “wrecking” a freshly polished talon (which we all sported in the 70s) before it was sufficiently hardened?  Much like Dr. Drew, I was able to act as a Lifechanger and bestow upon them these nifty gadgets that would actually blow on your nails FOR you. Talk about luxury.  Ivana Trump had nothing on us.  I think that these gifts would have been more meaningful if my siblings were asthmatics or something, and blowing on their own nails presented more of a problem, but sadly these ladies have always enjoyed perfect health so I wasn’t able to have quite as dramatic an impact.

What other useless gadgets have I gifted, you ask?  Well, I’ve attempted in good faith to transport my sisters and girlfriends from their kitchen tables to luxurious spas, by providing them with the rare and coveted facial steamer.  So what if you can accomplish the same thing by leaning over your boiling kettle, or opening the oven door during broiling – at the time I was almost exclusively shopping at the high-class “Consumers Distributing” store, and from the picture in the catalogue it seemed like a definite  life changer, in an  elegant  “Calgon take me away” sense.

And remember back in the seventies when everyone smoked?  Well, everyone except my dad.  My mom chained smoke (God rest her soul – not a coincidence ).  So I was able to find the perfect gift to solve the problem of my dad’s constant bitching about secondhand smoke.  It was of course to buy her a ‘smokeless ashtray’.  I expected to win hands down the favourite child of the season award that year.  But surprisingly, turned out not to be a big hit.  Mom was annoyed because the thing basically smoked her cigarette down to the filter in seconds, as it was powerfully “inhaling”  the whole time it sat in the ashtray.  Consequently her number of smokes per day skyrocketed.  And while Dad was hard of hearing, the industrial sounding hum that this thing emanated seriously impacted his enjoyment of Bonanza reruns.  Conclusion:  total bust.

 And sometimes, without intending to, in my zeal to dazzle I guess I could be downright insulting.  But, keeping in mind that I aspired to improve lives in a similar fashion to Richard Simmons and  “Oprah’s Life Class”, when my dear friends complain about cellulite, naturally I take that as a challenge to come to the rescue.  The quizzical (disbelieving?) expressions on the face of recipients whom you’ve just (at no small expense, might I add) gifted with an anti-cellulite product is something that must be seen.  Never mind that in my head I visualize them, because of me, now being able to rock their Daisy Dukes, and not in a “the People of Walmart” kind of way.  It’s true what they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

But I am not always on the giving end of crappy gadget gifts.  My husband gave me something for Christmas early in our married life, that signalled that indeed the honeymoon was over, and had me seriously questioning our compatibility.  My feelings were hurt and I couldn’t believe that he thought that this was a suitable gift for me, his trophy wife.  It has gone largely unused, but I’ve kept it over the years, just for spite. 

It’s Black Friday and I’m hitting the mall.  Let the games begin.

 

What happens in Vegas … is a blur

Just flew in from Vegas, and boy are my arms tired.  Almost as tired as that joke. It was my first time ever in Sin City, and when your group of four ladies has a combined age of 225, it’s a somewhat different experience than the one depicted in the movie “The Hangover”.

Firstly, I think Priceline has a bit of sick sense of humour.  That’s the site where you plug in your bid and what area you want to stay, and then if your bid is accepted it books you at a hotel without letting you approve it first.  It’s also the one that has William Shatner as a spokesman, and he must have a dark side even darker than the one he sometimes vented on  Mr. Spock.  Otherwise, I don’t know why else they would book a group of women celebrating a 60^th birthday, into the hotel on the strip that’s known for having the “hottest, most action packed pool in Vegas, complete with DJ”.    We couldn’t wait to get into our string bikinis and let the masses feast their eyes on us, bat wing arms, surgery scars, spider veins and muffin tops be damned . The pool turned out to be even more action packed than advertised, and while kind of entertaining to watch, we decided not to actually swim, for fear of contracting an STD or worse – an unwanted menopausal pregnancy.

I found Vegas particularly exhausting, because as a mom of 20 somethings, I was continually fighting the urge to dispense my sage advice around to the young girls wearing impossibly high stilettos and outfits comprised of small pieces of string and glitter.   I wanted to be an evangelist for good.  You would think a tattooed, fist pumping, young girl grinding up against a chiseled guy at the bar would be keen to learn about the connection between 6 inch heels and inevitable bunions that will eventually have her busting Hulk-like out of her footwear – but you would be wrong.  Even the show-and-tell part, where the Crocs came off for the big reveal didn’t do the trick.

I never really got the hang of the slot machines either.  I prefer the ATM drill, where it spits money out at you if you are lucky enough to remember the right numbers.  It just seems wrong to sit there pushing perfectly good $20 bills into a machine for the privilege of listening to bells and whistles and then staring trancelike at a row of pictures of fruit and gold bricks, without having a clue about what it is that I want to come up.  I found Pac Man complicated, so I’m pretty  well lost at “Progressive Flaming 7’s with 20 lines”.

I know lots of people love to play the slots, but I had trouble concentrating, when merely a few feet away there were scantily clad young ladies the age of my daughters, wearing red and black bustiers and thong underwear dancing on the tables to a deafening beat.   I wanted to let them know that in a flash they will go from $20 dollar bills stuck in their thigh-high fishnet stockings, to Kleenex stuck in their sleeves, and they ought to start preparing for that eventuality with a little dignity.  They were really distracting, and I wanted to bring them a robe and a sandwich, and mostly a vat load of Purell.

We did have lots of laughs, but in true mean-girls fashion, they were usually at each other’s expense.  Highlights included my sister getting off at the end of the moving sidewalk in the airport, then realizing she had gone the wrong way, and she promptly tried to get back on, heading the other way.  Like it was going to magically change direction.  (She thinks the world revolves around her).  Naturally it tried to toss her off, which still makes me smile when I think of it.

However, we were able to stay true to one part of the Hangover movie . No, it wasn’t a tiger in the bathroom.  In spite of not actually having been roofied, we did have considerable difficulty remembering stuff.    We had many false alarms, where each of us separately thought we lost something critical – a wallet, a passport, etc., only to find it shortly thereafter,  –  sometimes after having made a scene like chasing a cab down the driveway or rooting through the garbage in the airport – and always in a location where we ourselves had placed it.  The worst memory lapse was the morning after “2 for 1 cocktails night” when we tried to remember who paid for dinner.  To make it easier on the waiter, I had paid the bill and the girls paid me.  At least some of them did.  Try as we might, we can’t remember who paid me and who didn’t.  We had to end up splitting the difference.

At this rate I think the next trip for the four of us might have to actually involve a tour bus and quite possibly, hanging onto a rope.  That’s fine, we’ll still be making memories … however fleeting they  may be.

Boomers & Boomerangs

Now, I’m not one to complain … but I really feel like us Baby Boomers got the short end of the stick, both as children AND as parents.

Our parents’ generation had the best of all worlds.  They could do anything they wanted, with no consequences.  Yeah, there might have been a couple of small negatives, like World War II and no reliable birth control, but those were relatively minor inconveniences.  World War II was temporary, and when women got pregnant, it didn’t even cramp their style.   There was no “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” it was more like:

“Surprise!  The rabbit died …. As you were.”

Expectant moms kept drinking, smoking, and doubled up on pastries because she was “eating for two.”

And then from a parenting standpoint, life was soooo much simpler.  In addition to an absence of that pesky prenatal care, once the child arrived there were no such things as car seats, baby monitors, or self esteem.  Moms didn’t feel the need to organize “Play Dates” or worry about “socializing” by sending their toddlers to preschool.  They didn’t have to – we were socialized by an angry pack of siblings, all vying for favourite kid status.   There was a natural pecking order, and an overall Darwinian philosophy at play. For example at our house, my older brothers and sisters nicknamed me “Piggywiggywoo” … and I credit my thick skin and people skills to their repetitive use of the  witty go-to comeback:   “Nobody likes you.”

Of course, and I’m digressing now … but I finally had my revenge when my mother was kind enough to present me with a younger sibling to torture … namely one “Rickydickyhicky”.  After he graduated babyhood and became officially annoying and a competitor for parental attention, I gave every bit as good as I got.  I was, I must say … even a little more creative than my sisters.  I composed a song about him, complete with rhyming lyrics, which absolutely drove him nuts.  I would quietly hum the tune while we were at supper – causing him to freak out and my bewildered parents would send him away from the table – because obviously I wasn’t doing anything to him, just humming.   They had no way of knowing about the scathing lyrics that he and I both mentally heard whilst I hummed.  His hysterical reaction always seemed so melodramatic. It was the perfect crime, and some of my finest work.

But back to us Boomers – no wonder self esteem was non-existent; adults were allowed to abuse us, both physically and mentally.  In Gradeschool, there was “the Strap”, and the constant threat of “the Strap”.  If you got the Strap at school, you didn’t run home to your parents for consolation – you knew you were probably going to get it there too. It was like a conspiracy between teachers and parents.  It seems the establishment was always hard at work coming up with new ways to humiliate us kids.  Remember gym class, and Partici-PACTION?  “What – you can’t even do a flexed arm hang?   Loser!!”  And “Let’s see you try to do it wearing one of those standard gym suits.”  Somebody with a warped sense of humour came up with those hideous baggie, belted onesies. I think they were based on the same fashion principle as the burka.

My point is, that as Baby Boomers we got the shaft.  There were constantly too many of us, our classrooms were overcrowded, on Track and Field day there were only ribbons for performance, none for participation, on Valentine’s day your popularity was evident by the number of valentines you got. Then when we grew up we had to fight for jobs because we outnumbered them; we got married at a time when it became outdated for your parents to pay for the wedding; then when we decide to reproduce suddenly parenthood becomes a privilege not a right; and we had to do stuff like prenatal care, physical AND mental nurturing of our offspring, not to mention a lifetime of helicoptering.  To top it off, for us medical science invented cholesterol and colonoscopies. We also had to quit smoking, limit our drinking, and break up with awesome foods like cheese and bacon.

Just for us, it became the norm for mothers to work full time, and in the workforce we had to adapt to a constant barrage of new technology.  I remember being astonished by an IBM instant correcting typewriter.  NO MORE WHITEOUT??  (Although sniffing that stuff did have its upside).  We’ve had to try not to act all wide eyed, and refrain from making Star Trek comparisons when exposed to new things like faxing, computers, cell phones and SKYPE.

It seems irony is alive and well, fellow Baby Boomers.  It’s gone full circle, and parents pay for weddings again, and as a bonus, it’s now quite acceptable for unmarried or divorced kids to behave like boomerangs and come back home to live in their parents’ basement well into their thirties.  Luckily though, as we age we won’t cross paths with them much – we will have to keep working because there’s still too many of us  and the Canada Pension and Old Age Pension is drying up fast.   Based on the pattern of the past 50 years, there’s one more thing that was recently invented  that’s making me a little nervous … it’s called Elder Abuse.

And our parents thought Hitler and Mussolini were scary …

Mentalpausal Musings

Wow, times have really changed.  I remember when my mom went through “the change”, she was CRAZY.   Certifiable.  Us kids still at home probably should have been placed into some sort of protective custody, but those were different times.  She had intermittent crazy eyes, and a flair for the dramatic, and when she was really feeling it, she would burst into a rousingly mournful rendition of the country tune “Unwanted, Unneeded, Unloved”.  Good times.  Hmmm, now that I see that written down, there may have been some underlying self-esteem issues going on,  but I can’t say for sure –  I’m not a doctor. Or Oprah.

Now that Barbie and I are both 50+, I may have had a couple of menopausal symptoms so far, but all in all I think things are going pretty well.  At work, I’ve pretty much mastered the art of staying focused during meetings, even though I am sometimes dangerously close to bursting into flames.  At home, in spite of the wintry weather,  we keep our house heated to a blistering 62 degrees (as further proof of my age, I still speak Farenheit.  Still not convinced this whole “metric system” thing is going to catch on).  At least at home I can dress the way that I want (HA- and everyone said I was crazy for keeping those tube tops I got in the summer of ’77).    At work I dress business casual, which usually means dress slacks and turkeynecks.  Oh – sorry  – turtlenecks.  Just an unfortunately accurate Freudian slip.

There might have been a couple instances of lapses of memory.  I begrudgingly had to confess to one recently, when hubby asked why I was feeling my toothbrush and I had to admit that it was to see if I had brushed my teeth yet.  He said, “You used to have to do that to check up on the kids”, which naturally made me run dramatically upstairs weeping loudly.

Couple other subtle signs.  I got to the store and read my grocery list and it said:  Milk, Eggs, Mayo, Bread, Peanut butter , Mayo, Coffee, Paper Towels, Mayo.

Plus it’s getting expensive –  I suffer from chronic lack of counter space, so was using the George Foreman grill on the top of the stove to cook some asparagus, and even though the grill was on, “HIGH”,  just for good measure I apparently also cranked the burner underneath to “HIGH” .  What made things worse, as it was snapping and cracking and smelling, I was casually thumbing through a magazine and said “That thing stinks – there’s something wrong with it.”  Hubby leapt into his stop, drop, and roll routine, taking it out to the lawn, as I chased him to salvage the asparagus.  That stuff costs like $3.99 a pound.  Yeah, that’s right – a pound.

I’m not yet singing along to sad Country tunes (mostly because I can’t remember the words) , and I don’t have crazy eyes, and I don’t terrify the children – although rumour has it that their plans to come home for the summer are now “up in the air.”  Come to think of it, I have also noticed that the cats are now a little tentative around me.  Like for example, they meow at the door to come in, but if I’m the one that opens it they crane their necks to see past me to see if anyone else is home before making their final decision, and, inexplicably, when I’m alone, they sometimes opt to just  stay standing out in the rain….        Unwanted ….

Plus I’ve been going out of my way to be considerate, and caring and maternal, and my busy offspring don’t even have the time to acknowledge the motherly comments I make on their photos they post on Facebook,  like “Did you really wear that?” and “Looks like your skin flared up again – maybe should layoff the pizza.”  If caring is a crime then I’m guilty as charged……Unneeded….. 

AND yes I guess when provoked I may have a bit of a shorter fuse, but that Revenue Canada guy on what they laughingly call the “help” desk I spoke to today can’t prove that I said “effing”  – I’m doubtful that they even record those calls.  ALL I was trying to do was file my daughter’s tax return, as she is quite anxious to get her refund to finance her extended travels so she doesn’t have to come home one minute earlier than necessary.…..Unloved….

But one of the scariest signs of mental instability combined with advancing aging occurred on the weekend when preparing our Easter dinner when I, for no apparent reason, felt the inexplicable urge to make … a jello moulded salad. I think it may be some sort of complex psychological combination of longing for the simpler days and Easter dinners of my youth,  combined with a self-preservation instinct,  preparing myself for the institutional food at the third rate budget senior’s facility of my children’s choosing, that I expect to soon call home.

Oh well.  At least I will have my memories.  Or not.