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If anyone out there is still reading this, my apologies for the unintentionally long hiatus my blog has taken as of late.  Our vacation kind of melted into Christmas, and I was rather too busy eating nanaimo bars to properly gather my thoughts. 

Besides, ever since we got back from Australia, it has been a little difficult finding any alone time at the computer.

I have a friend who always says that one of the most important discussions to have before getting married is about being tucked or untucked in bed.  She says that if one partner likes to have their feet covered at the end of the bed, and the other is an "exposed dangler" it might end up being a dealbreaker for the marriage.  What she neglected to tell me was that you have to take cats into consideration when having those and other bedroom discussions. 

We have a monster under our bed.  Well, not so much a monster as a fat orange cat that likes to leap out in the dark and attack your feet if you happen to dangle them over the edge.  I love Max, but his nocturnal habits leave a little to be desired and sadly, the feet attacking is the least annoying and most easily dealt with of the bunch.  The most annoying one is his recent decision to move breakfast time back a few hours and to remind us of this fact in the wee small hours of the morning, and somewhere around the middle of the spectrum is his tendency to sleep on my pillow. 

Last night as I thoughtlessly allowed a bare toe to creep out from under the covers and was startled awake by a flurry of activity in the direction of that toe, I remembered blearily that there were only 2.5 sleeps left until our vacation, and drifted back to sleep content with the knowledge that hotel beds are generally cat-free.  

This afternoon, I picked Mike up at work and we went to a flu shot clinic at our doctor's office.  I am a big (huge, gigantic) baby when it comes to needles, but I've had the good ol' influenza a couple of times and in terms of misery, it's no contest.  (Last year was the first year I didn't have an office flu shot clinic to go to, and I never did get around to getting a shot.  I did get around to contracting the flu, and after the fever/chills/lung pain/general misery was gone, I ended up with a cough that lasted for months.) 

I always tense up before getting the injection, and they tell me to relax, which just makes things worse, because it reminds me that there is something to relax ABOUT, and that if I don't relax, it will hurt MORE, which creates a vicious cycle of tension, pain, and whining.  When I sat down in the chair, there was a little boy two seats over, reminding his mom not to look, that it would be over quickly, and she would only feel a slight pinch.  I did look (I always look - I need to know when it is going to be over), it was NOT over quickly, and it DID hurt.  

When I stood up, there was an elderly man next in line.  He asked me nervously if it was very painful.  I smiled sweetly and told him it didn't hurt at all. 

Today was a banner day for me, character-wise.  I come up short in the bravery department when compared with a five-year-old, and I lie to the elderly.  On the plus side, my arm hurts enough that it was extremely difficult to get out of my regular clothes and into my pajamas, so chances are pretty good I will have to wear these sweatpants for the rest of my life. 

... If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory, 
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.

- Wilfred Owen

Sometimes it feels a little strange about being 27 years old, married but without kids, especially compared to what seems to be the remarkable fertility of the people I grew up with.  Some days I still feel like a kid, like I haven’t really lived at all, like there’s a lot left to do because I didn’t really do the kind of things you’re supposed to do when you’re young and foolish.  And sometimes I feel like I must have entered adulthood somewhere along the line because in the space of 24 hours last week, my hairstylist suggested it might be time to start colouring my hair and I uttered the phrase “You can let yourself in but please don’t mind the mess – our house is a pigsty.” 

On Saturday, Mike and I (accompanied by Trish) drove to Bayfield to visit my grandmother.  We had a really nice time – we got a tour of the model home for the townhouse complex she’ll be moving into in a year or so, we tromped around the 20 acres of land my grandfather had bought for the purpose of – in the words of my grandma – pretending to be a farmer, and we had a drive around the empty marina, admiring the beautiful houses and the rows of boats, docked for the winter on enormous rusty metal stands.

On the way back from the marina, Mike almost missed the turn, because he didn’t recognize the bottom of Grandma’s property peeking out onto Highway 21.  She realized he had never been given a tour of the acre or so that her house sits on (other than the small area on which she hosts the annual Anderson family picnic) and suggested that Trish and I give him the fifty cent tour.

So we showed him around.  We showed him the shed in front of which we tipped the ATV my grandfather was teaching us how to drive at the tender age of ten or eleven, the woods we used to play in, the deck from which Grandma would ring a bell to call us for dinner, and the area where we used to have weenie roasts over a fire pit.  We led him around the spot we used to pitch our tent (from which we were awakened one morning by my grandpa lurking around having fun with his duck calls, an unfamiliar sound that was terrifying to wake up to), and the big hill we used to toboggan down on plastic serving trays (plus the fence at the bottom that I slid into and got partially stuck underneath). 

We didn’t do much playing around the property after my grandpa died, so it had been around 15 years since we’d ventured beyond the first little picnic-hosting clearing ourselves.  It was mostly the same as we remembered.  Just a little wilder, a little grassier and leafier, and a little … smaller?  Smaller, somehow.  When she asked how the tour went, Trish remarked to Grandma that she remembered the property as much bigger, perhaps only because we used to be much littler. 

I’ve never felt more like an adult than when I cautioned our surprise houseguest about the pet hair in the hall and the dishes on the counter.  And I’ve never felt less like a child than I did on Saturday afternoon.  

So I was driving along, as I am wont to do, and I was listening to the radio (as I am not very often wont to do, since my iPod is chock full of music I actually like to listen to) when a song came on, introduced by the DJ as a very popular new single.  This song, apparently, is called “Man of Two Minds” and it is by a band called “The Trews”.  The following is the chorus of the song:

I love you, I love her
I need you, I need her
I’m always gonna love you
I’m always gonna love her
I guess I should just let this thing die
‘Cause I am a man of two minds

If I was a woman who was less dignified and more prone to dangerous driving, I think I would have laughed so hard I would have driven off the road.  I mean, REALLY?  This is a SONG?  That is played on the RADIO? 

Usually I’d close this with a comment about kids today, with their sideburns and their rock and/or roll music, but I am so discouraged about the state of the world today (what with the wars overseas, global warming, the possibility that John McCain might be President of the US, and now THIS) that I can’t even summon a joke. 

Occasionally (i.e. extremely rarely) something will happen that will make me miss working in a big office.  Sometimes it's news of a potluck.  Sometimes it's the steady paycheque.  And sometimes it's because I think even the cats are judging me for talking to them.

Holidays were always festive times at the offices in which I worked.  I don't really miss the frustrations of day-to-day interaction with other office people, but I do occasionally miss the food, decorations, and costumes.  A few minutes ago, I had a slight twinge of office-related jealousy when someone sent me an email to tell me that a) her co-op student is dressed as Joe Dirt and b) her boss is dressed as Ozzy Osbourne, Prince of Darkness.  

However, the person in question wore her pajamas to work, to which I say, that's not Hallowe'en ... that's Monday. 

COMPLETED

• Purchase winter hat that looks like a sock bunny
• Wear said hat out in public and look ridiculous yet adorable
• Purchase new winter coat, to replace the old one that has a giant stain on the side
• Get yellow paint on new winter coat

IN PROGRESS

• Regularly perform prescribed physio exercises to enhance general muscularity of back & shoulder for improved hotness and decreased pain during shoveling
• Consider the likelihood of actually doing any shoveling due to awesomeness of husband and ability to work from home and/or contact outside world via the world wide web
• Improve balance and learn to ice skate without falling over (Plan B:  teach the dog to pull me on a sled)
• Convince Starbucks to implement free delivery of salted caramel hot chocolate

COMPLETELY INCOMPLETE

• Become independently wealthy and move to Hawaii

I had a dentist appointment the week before last, and it was awful.  I’ll spare you most of the details, but it was the worst one I’ve had since the time the dentist gave me too many drugs and I hurled in the car on the way home.  I will never understand why hygienists feel the need to lecture me about the problems with my teeth that aren’t my fault while I sit in the chair trying (often unsuccessfully) not to cry and/or hyperventilate.  I used to tell dental professionals that I “hate the dentist … no offense!” but in the last year or so, I have stopped appending “no offense” to the end of that statement.

My appointment started with the receptionist coming over to where I was sitting, leaning down, and saying in her most soothing voice, “I know you prefer to see Leah, but Leah is on holidays today and tomorrow.  I have put you with Cheryl instead.  I think you will really like Cheryl.  She is very experienced and has been doing this a long time.”  Sometimes I think I would like to see what it says in my chart, and some days I think I would be better off not knowing.  If I had to hazard a guess, I would say it is fairly likely that the words “HIGH MAINTENANCE” are scrawled in giant letters on every page. 

I had a meeting later that day with someone who happens to be a dental hygienist.  She was lovely and cheerful and generally someone I think would probably be a pleasure to deal with if I were a dental patient at her clinic … but it made me wonder what it’s like to be in a line of work that some people are genuinely terrified of.  I’m a copywriter, not a dentist or airplane pilot or the guy who runs the elevator up the side of the CN Tower.  As far as I know, I have never made anyone bleed and none of my clients has ever been overly concerned that their new tri-fold brochure will fall from the sky and plummet to the earth, taking everyone with it.  Is it thrilling to have that kind of power over someone, or is it disheartening that your clients might require medication to just spend an hour with you once every six months?

Cheryl may have been experienced, but she was also mean.  I am filing this away somewhere deep in my brain, so that if ever I end up with a client with a paralyzing phobia of copywriting, I won’t scrunch up my face and say, “You KNOW, if you were a better SPELLER, this wouldn’t be so PAINFUL for both of us!”