family vacation to Darien Lake (never, ever, ever, again)

Growing up Canadian means you spend your life asserting that you aren’t American. Most of us hold a secret fear that we are exactly the same, but we pretend otherwise to simulate national pride. We don’t have swagger about being Canadian, we have stooped-shoulder mutterings and tiny, little lapel pins.

Which makes any foray over the border a culture shock of Lazlo proportions. It starts as soon as you hit the border guard and dodge the assault of flat a’s and cock posture. Then the flags hit in a flurry of red, white and blue, and then the size. Like Gulliver in the land of the giants, everything demands a double-hand grip from the coffee cups to the shopping carts. It is a large, large land.

The second leg of our family vacation planted us square in the honeymoon capital of the world — Niagara Falls. Back in Canada I was assaulted by the beauty of high-class hookers and the gorgeousity of Mother Nature. I have started worrying on my hairdo, wondering if I should dye it to match Abby’s. A slew of pictures were snapped, and I appeared in many, which meant the laundry list of deficiencies is born anew: cheeks too big, thighs too big, head too small, hair too dark. Mr. Apple claims I’m lovely, but I think my stellar personality has blinded him. He claims that it is impossible. I fear he is speaking of my personality never being stellar, but pretend otherwise. Marriage is a tangle of white lies and open-mouthed kisses.

to bed with you!

Just shy of the Aug 10 deadline — the 10th anniversary of my marriage (what?) — the quilt top is done. Two attempts to begin the quilting ended in failure. The first was a hair brained attempt to roll up the mighty thing to stitch during Mad Men. Instead it was like being on the receiving end of an Alec Baldwin lap dance, all weight and struggle. The second was a round with the mighty sewing machine that went twelve inches before I gave up.

Until I can round up a generous handful of needle sluts who will come to a quilting bee, I will unfurl the zillion-piece spiderweb quilt-top and trade quilt compliments with Mr. Apple in exchange for time spent in my Paris under-nothings. Fair trade.

Also on summer holidays, have been gently encouraged to begin the Goomba costume for Oscar. Hardwired for micromanaging, he hovered and pointed for four hours yesterday. I stopped at the teeth, and am going to do shots before I begin the legs and puffy feet.

Tomorrow we go camping in New York at Darien Lake, which I am betting good money on is NOT considered camping, aside from the tent and the 10-lb pack of duty free marshmallows I intend to eat with an American sized jar of peanut butter. Mr. Apple and I have yet to recover from our last jaunt to NY city, where we were stunned by the gum aisle and the cheap pistachios. Coming back to Canada is always a bit like entering the gulag tuck shop.

corps sans ennui

Such a lie. I’m filled to the teeth with the shit. I woke up to discover I juggle ennui, boredom and cynicism. Waiting for the world to surprise me. I called it out it in a fit, deep into my memory-foam pillow.

Nothing is new. People I meet fit neatly into the mould of ones I’ve met before. Blech.

Mr. Apple met me at the foot of the stairs the other day when I woke up, and showed me a baby deermouse in a coffee mug. He’d rescued it from the laundry room floor. I dipped bits of embroidery thread in baby formula and let it suckle. I rubbed it’s little mousey naughty bits with a q-tip to stimulate mouse pee. I carded some fleece and we wrapped it up warm, keeping microwave blankets on it for comfort. Abby spent two days dipping and feeding while I stood at my former waste-of-life post and took body blows from hobos. The mouse died in her hand last night, and we had a funeral this morning at dawn. Dressed in my finest black romper, I did the rites. Butchered up an Anglican service with an approximation…and so as it is, it shall always be, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…and in went mousey in a tea box marked Dragon.

Today I am on official holidays. The party starts with costumes.

Toad Man

On my last day at work in the Orillia library, Toad Man heaved himself over the threshold and did a double take. As his jowls trembled from side-to-side he squinted at me and noted that my hair was short. “It’s not that bad,” he gurgled. “It’s growing on me.”
Well thank goodness.

Leaving

Radio silence indicates mad scrambling activity to clean out desk at my post in the Orillia Public Library. News of my departure has caused a stir, and though I suspect there are ongoing celebrations and high-
fives behind my back, some coworkers have tried to slow my departure with methods of questionable success rate. Like stickering my belongings with messages of longing.

I’ll begin a new job at a new library in September. Imagine the posibilities! I have 3 weeks to hone a guise of calm capability. Meanwhile, I have two days left to dodge poison darts and jumbo stickers.

Suspected

This, however, could well be pornography. I couldn’t take it home for a secret, dirty date because someone has it reserved.

Hot damn. Let’s get flexible.

Mind Changer

About this time of year my mind turns to homeschooling. We’ve shucked off the routine of the school system and broken out of the bindings of grade school hierarchy. They sit and read Archie for hours. They do dishes. They hang. It’s idyllic in a way.
But then signs come. Signals from the universe that point a hairy knuckle at me and wag it slowly like a metronome in warning. Don’t don’t don’t don’t. Look around.
Here’s one now.

An innocuous video in the night slot, wanting a check in. After I shamed it for it’s very existence (not to mention its poor graphics and horrible back blurb) I did it’s bidding and checked the sucker in. Who had it out?
Homeschoolers.
Signal received universe. I won’t inflict the horrors of ‘math class’ on my offspring.

Cheese Sweat

Death by sweaty cheese and refined sugar loomed in the staff room. Resist, I did, until a middling fancy-body magazine suggested I eat protein NOW. I popped a piece of dripping Swiss into the air and gulped it down like champ.

Ha flippin’ ha

Found in the book slot.

Jokes on you, Big Funny Hinter. We split the pack, chased them down with Dr Pepper, and gnashed our teeth harder than ever.

lots of talk

Last Sunday my eye woke up and decided Gunther von Hagens was its muse. Red and angry, it forced me to abandon my contact lenses and don the glasses. I hate the glasses. My ego diminished, I suffered through until Wednesday at which point both my eyes were raging red and dripping green goo down my cheeks. The doctor whipped off a remedy and sent me back to work to tell the ladies that they’d been sharing the computer with a victim of the dreaded double pinkeye. They immediately took to the spray-bottle and doused the department in angry bacteria fighters, relegating me to one keyboard, and banning me from taking calls on the shared phone.

From the point of diagnosis, I was regaled at the circulation desk with stories that started differently, but always ended with a reference to fecal residue. Apparently pinkeye is code word for poo stories. I did not catch my infection from feces, but from a lovely little trio of children who handed me the virus on their messy little books that I rubbed up against my face in glee with the shout of “I love this series!” However, I heard all about how other people caught their pinkeye: bad diaper changes, prison, sex acts with eyeballs, and door handles.

Pinkeye fully on, I tried to draw attention away from my squishy glasses-face (they shrink my eyes into currants, and turn my nose into Bert’s, and expand my pores in a most unpleasant way) and wore deep v-necked tops to work all week. No one was distracted by my cleavage, but the glasses did provide a fantastic talking point. Just when we all finished talking about my haircut, too.