The Royal Wedding, or The Reason I'm Going To A 2:30 a.m. Tea Party

So THE wedding is tomorrow and I'm sure I'm not the only person bourgeois and/or pedestrian enough to be excited about it.  Hey, I'm a Canadian girl.  One of my fondest memories is when, thirty years ago, my grandma woke me up at four in the morning to watch The Wedding with her, and although that marriage was clearly doomed and also somewhat of a sham, it was endlessly fascinating to me.  I was completely enamoured with Princess Diana and for years after I received something Diana-related for every birthday and Christmas: glossy coffee table books outlining her (somewhat frumpy) fashions, Royal Family scrapbooks, and a paper doll book, the (somewhat frumpy) clothing I patiently, painstakingly, cut out with safety scissors.  Do you remember how many lace points were on her wedding dress?  I cut every single one of them out with safety scissors. 

So of course I'm going to get up early to watch the wedding.  In fact, a very sweet friend of mine is having a 2:45 am tea party to commemorate the occasion.  My grandma phoned me last week and mentioned that one of her Red Hatter friends is coming over in the wee hours to watch with her, so I feel the circle has been completed. 

As an aside, my grandma is one of those people who thrives on very little sleep, even now.  When I was a kid, I could get up at any time of the night, and my grandma would be at her dining room table, smoking and drinking coffee and doing a crossword puzzle.  There was always something very comforting about that.  I think it would be the same now, except my grandma quit smoking - cold turkey - after more than six decades of being a heavy smoker.  An amazing woman, the strongest woman I know. 

I love weddings.  I love them in spite of all the icky, anti-feminist, bride-as-a-piece-of-property-being-passed-along traditions that are at any wedding.  I just try not to think much about such traditions.  If you think too much about them you might just go crazy deciphering the fertility symbols, virgin-whites, and property-exchange that are at the bottom of most wedding rituals.  It's better just to sit back and enjoy the happiness and wedding cake.

One of my husband's young colleagues is getting married in a couple of months.  I wanted to pass along my completely unsolicited advice for any bride who may be enduring typical bridal stress regarding flower arrangements and centrepieces.  There are only three things anyone will remember at a wedding: what the bride looked like, if the food was good, and if there were too many speeches or bad dance music.  Those are the only three things that brides really need to concern themselves with, in my opinion.  I remember one wedding I attended where the very drunk best man monopolized the microphone for thirty-five minutes, telling incredibly inappropriate and frankly, pretty gross stories about the groom.  I was at another wedding in which they had an open mike.  Future brides, take note: this is a very bad idea.  Especially if open mike is combined with open bar. 

But I'm sure Kate is probably stressed about more than those three things given that she is going to be a) filmed and photographed within an inch of her life and b) marrying the future King of England.  Also, she is the subject of much artwork.  I am amazed at the sheer volume of artwork and commemorative items cropping up depicting the two of them, and sometimes, creepily, the three of them, if you include the late Princess Diana.  Some of this artwork is lovely, of course, but some?  I am the least artistic person in the world; if I were to draw a picture of the happy couple it would be a stick man and woman, with maybe an apple tree in the background.  But some of this artwork is so truly horrendous it is actually kind of kitchy.  Quilts!  Dolls!  Tea cozies!  Frankly, I'm surprised I haven't seen an engagement portrait made entirely out of spray-painted macaroni noodles, with Princess Di floating in the background.

There is one commemorative item I am truly dying to have: Crown Jewels Commemorative Condoms.  Their slogan is Lie Back and Think of England.  I mean, how absolutely great is that?  I especially love the disclaimer at the bottom:

Crown Jewels Royal Wedding Souvenir Condoms are not supplied to, or approved by, Prince William of Wales, Catherine Middleton or any member of the Royal Family.

Crown Jewels Royal Wedding Souvenir Condoms are a novelty condom not suitable for contraception or protection against STDs 

 

Duly noted.

Celebrity, Marky Mark, and the Big Egg Hunt

I was at the grocery store on the weekend, picking up only a couple of items and scanning them through the self-checkout lane when one of the cashiers, a fairly young guy, ran up to me excitedly.  “I saw you on CBC!” he said.  “I was watching the hockey game and then you were on TV!  On the news!  I said to my buddies, I know that woman, she’s in Co-Op all the time!”  Clearly I spend a lot of time buying groceries.  I gathered up my bananas and dinner rolls, fairly pleased with my one minute of fame and also pleased that the video clip came from a separate interview a day after my unexpectedly videoed, bad-haired radio interview.

Often I think being a celebrity, despite the fact that celebrity often means fabulous wealth and personal chefs, would be very difficult.  It would be hard on even the strongest ego to see oneself on the cover of Star magazine or similar with circles around one’s belly or buttocks, highlighting cellulite or “Is She Pregnant?” bulge.  Having a personal chef would be pretty amazing though.  It would eliminate the “what’s for dinner/ spaghetti again?/ if I have to chop any more carrots I’m going to stab myself” boredom we all go through.  Or I go through.

Speaking of celebrities, I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Mark Wahlberg (MARKY MARK!) and Christian Bale.  Christian Bale, I’ve liked him since he was Laurie in Little Women.  So I have wanted to see The Fighter for a while now, and I actually watched it on the weekend.  It’s an excellent movie, and I really loved it, but I would have to say if I knew what the plotline was prior to seeing the movie, I probably would not have seen it.  Have you seen it?  Christian Bale is a crackhead, which, right there, would have turned me off this film. I make it a general rule not to watch movies that feature a lot of illicit drug use because they are just too sad.  I’m a real escapist at heart.  But – and I really mean this – it is actually kind of a feel-good, happy movie.  Although I was pretty sad that there were very few shots of a shirtless Mark Wahlberg.  I mean, it’s a boxing movie.  I expected a lot of gratuitous, sweaty, shirtless scenes, not unlike the volleyball scene in Top Gun.  Sadly, there were none to be had but I recommend it anyway.  Even if I did spend most of the film saying “Argh!  I hate his mother!  Argh!  I hate those sisters!” 

The weekend was a beautiful one, and you may or may not believe this, but it did not snow!  I know!  An Easter miracle.  It was lovely and sunny and the boys staged several egg hunts in the backyard.  We, traditionally, hide chocolate eggs and candies from the Easter Bunny in the house on Easter morning, but we take our hardboiled coloured eggs outside later in the day, weather permitting.  The boys prefer hiding the eggs for my husband and I to find them.

I love this picture. They look like hobos; Mark with his torn jeans,
Jake with his rubber boots and hat over his eyes. 



Yesterday it continued sunny and mild and the boys asked if they could run through the sprinkler.  At 13 degrees.  I said yes and so they put on their jackets and played in the water until they were soaked and frozen.

Notice that there is still snow in our yard.  My children are a hardy people.

Birthdays, Mommy Makeovers, Easter, and Earth Day

It was my birthday yesterday, just in case you missed the announcements and my not-so-shy reminders from the rooftops.  I love birthdays.  I think everyone should be celebrated on their birthdays with an outpouring of love and affection and maybe even some cake.  I was the happy recipient of an ice-cream cake, two new yoga tops, and several bottles of body lotion, not to mention a sticker proclaiming my status as "Number One Mom".  My husband even unloaded the dishwasher, and you know what that means!

My lovely friend brought me those; aren't they pretty?  Another wonderful friend lent me her daughter's tiara for the day, which is to say she really knows me well.

A nice upside to a spring birthday is, depending on when Easter falls, the plethora of good chocolates around.  My in-laws sent the boys a big box full of treats and I have been surreptitiously absconding with some.

From the vantage point of t + 1, I think that 36 feels pretty good.  I'm happily sliding towards 40.  I know that aging bothers many - most? - people, but really, it's better than dying.  I mean, sure, it's disconcerting to see one's breasts droop bralessly towards one's navel, or to realize that one's forehead has deep horizontal lines permanently etched into it, but it is not the end of the world.  I've been completely grey for years - thanks Dad, for those fabulous genes - but why else was hair colour invented?  I know a man who was so upset about turning 40 that he and his wife got into a divorce-worthy fight when she jokingly referred to him as "old".  He admitted that he wished he was still 22.  This was years ago and yet I still find that strange.  In no way would I want to be 22 again.  I don't know what you were doing when you were 22, but I spent my time dating idiots and having self-esteem crises every other day.  I'll take the slide into cougarville any day over that.  In fact, today I'm wearing Seven jeans.  Cougar-licious!

Yesterday it was brought to my attention that there is a children's book dealing with plastic surgery, entitled "My Beautiful Mommy".  I looked at the website and felt fairly soiled for the rest of the day.  Plastic surgery in general makes me feel squeamish, but I find those "Mommy Makeovers" are especially vile.  Clearly there is a large market for that, and I suppose that if one is getting physically altered and recovering from the process one should really prepare one's children for it.  Nonetheless I do find it sad that our society is so focused on appearances that we cannot celebrate our bodies which have been irrevocably changed by motherhood.  Not that I want to proudly display my muffin top with a crop top and Daisy Dukes, but there is something to be said about gracefully aging.  There is something to be said about a face with smile lines and a body that has borne, nurtured, and snuggled children.  Aging does not have to mean a decline in all of one's body's functions and a complete erasure of any physical beauty until one is saved by the sweet release of death. 

Which is not to say I didn't find some humour in the beautiful mommy website.  "No, honey, Mommy IS happy.  Mommy just can't smile big anymore!  Remember Mommy's operation?" or "Mommy just can't close her eyes anymore.  Can you find Mommy's eyedrops?".  "Careful, honey, Mommy's new boobies are a little bit sore.  But remember when we go to Florida this summer, Mommy will be able to float really well!"

So I'm feeling good about my birthdays, many more to come I hope, bringing to me to my eventual goal of becoming Blanche Deveareau and/or a sweet old lady carrying her five pound dog in a handbag, and/or a backbending yogi grandma.

Have a lovely long weekend, everyone!

PS In honour of Earth Day, I have a post up at Yummy Mummy Club.  To be honest, it's not my favourite thing I've ever written.  Environmentalism is a noble, but somewhat dull topic, in my mind.  Evidently I much prefer to write about how to make over the bad boys of movies, or about the evils of skinny jeans, than the environment.  It's hard not to sound like a preachy zealot or, alternatively, like a giant carbon footprint moron.  Wow, I'm really selling this post, aren't I! 

PPS I have a new post up at the cooking blog!  It's all about berry crisp and how I am an awesome wife.

It's only Tuesday? We're all going to die!

Here's a view of our backyard; the kids are in their pajamas because someone who is not me took the kids out in only their pajamas to take a picture of the giant snowball that they made. 

What a weird day.  It’s only 2:15 and it has just been a strange day.  I keep reminding myself, alarmingly, that it is only Tuesday.  It’s Tuesday and it’s the first day of soccer, and the kids are actually meeting for a practice on the snow-and-ice-covered fields.  When I heard that, my first reaction was something along the lines of We’re All Going To Die, but I’ve since been assured that the practice is going to be more of a “meet and greet” than an actual practice.  I’ve also been told that Mark needs cleats, which he does not have, and for some reason it had not occurred to me, despite weeks of working on the soccer schedules.

While on a normal day it would be easy for me to run out and purchase a pair of cleats that is not the case today as I’m home with a sick, feverish Jake.  It seems that Mark’s mystery illness was of the contagious variety.  I was up for most of the night with Jake, who was burning up with fever and then instantly vomited when I gave him Tylenol to bring the fever down.  Don’t you hate that?  Here, take this medicine.  This medicine which will make you barf. 

So I am exhausted and I have weird hair and I’m wearing “at home with sick kid” clothes and I was interviewed by CBC with regards to education budget cuts.  I can barely string three words together, I’m so tired, but I agreed to the interview because it was supposed to be on the radio.  The chance of someone I know listening to this interview seemed slim to me; but they brought a TV crew.  So me and my weird hair and my eye bags and my non-functioning brain will be on the news tonight.  Whee.  I just hope I don’t look like a ranting Charlie Sheen,  with speech therapy and class sizes rather than porn stars and tiger blood.

I'm so tired.  I can't believe I lived six years of my life with extreme sleep deprivation/ constantly interrupted sleep.  Two pregnancies in 18 months, newborns, toddlers, and the fact that my youngest did not "sleep through the night" until he was four and a half years old adds up to six years of exhaustion.  How did I live this way?  I guess I didn't realize how poorly I was functioning until I actually started sleeping like a normal person.  You know when you have a newborn and you think "Wow, I'm really doing well on two hours sleep!" but really, you're insane?  You think you're functioning well but really you burst into tears when you run out of peanut butter and you think that everyone is out to get you and anyone who so much as sneezes in public is plotting against you and your precious baby.  I recall sobbing in the grocery store because I was there with my infant and one-year-old and the baby was crying and the carryout person reached over and put his soother in his mouth.  A stranger!  Put her hands in my baby's face!  Her filthy carryout grocery hands!  We're all going to diiieeeee!

I'm sure I'll get some sleep tonight.  In the meantime, I am going to go dig out my giant winter coat and Sorel boots and get ready for soccer! 

Cheerful thoughts for a crappy weekend

It has been a dull, dreary weekend.  It started for me at 6:20 am on Saturday when Mark woke me up with the words no one likes to hear, “Mom, I feel like I’m going to barf.”  Fortunately no barfing ensued, but unfortunately he spent the weekend feverish, lethargic, and without an appetite.  Then the snow continued to fall, the endless snow in this endless winter.  I feel like Laura Ingalls in The Long Winter but without the actual hardships; no one is starving, freezing to death, or spending days either grinding wheat to make bread or twisting hay into fuel to keep warm.  I’m actually wondering if the snow will never stop.  Maybe a woolly mammoth will take up residence in my yard.  That would be interesting, to say the least. 

So I spent much of the weekend monitoring Mark’s temperature, staring sadly at the grey sky and masses of snow and obsessively refreshing the online weather forecast, and wallowing around nursing hurt feelings from perceived slights by a variety of sources.  Poor me!  It was like a little black cloud was following me around, and I spent many hours in a state of gloom.  When I feel gloomy like this, there are a few ways for me to turn things around: wine, yummy food, and thinking of cheering things. 

Here are the cheering things from this weekend:

1)      Yesterday, while I was getting my roots done in the salon, the perky, very young new shampoo girl chatted with me about her weekend plans.  She was telling me that she was going to go dancing that evening, and then proceeded to ask me, startlingly, if I ever went to her favourite nightclub.  When I responded, she exclaimed “Why not?  It’s so fun and they play GREAT dance music!”  I refrained from mentioning that the last time I “went dancing” was the last time bodysuits and high-waisted coloured jeans were in style; likely I was wearing those with my Rachel haircut, drinking $3 triple vodka slimes.  Probably the dance music was along the lines of “I Like To Move It (Move It)” and “What Is Love (Baby Don’t Hurt Me)”.  She proceeded to discuss the pros and cons of clubbing: on the one hand, if you get there before ten o’clock you avoid the lineups, on the other hand, if you go that early then the dance floor is dead.  Just completely dead.  I had an image of me completely asleep in a corner by the time the club started shaking; besides which I have no idea what people actually wear to clubs anymore.  Maybe bodysuits and high-waisted coloured jeans are actually back in style.  Nonetheless, I did appreciate her high-energy chatter even if I felt like I was ninety years old.  What do the kids like to do on Saturday nights nowadays?  As it was, my husband and I watched The 40 Year Old Virgin, which never fails to make me laugh.  “Now you let your seed blossom into a plant.  Then you fuck the plant.”  Good times.

2)      My husband was watching golf this weekend, and the announcer said “I’ve really been impressed by the way he stroked it.”  I’m sure Clarence Carter was very pleased.  Ah, there’s nothing like sports related unintended sexual innuendo.  Of course there’s curling – “Hurry!  Hard!  Hard! HAAAARRRRRRRDDDD!  WHOA.  Whooooaaaa.” – and football – “Now that’s some really good penetration” – but golf, I find, is the most amusing.  On a non-sports-related front, a friend mentioned that he finds the new “chip” credit cards entertaining – “Just go ahead and stick it in the bottom”. 

3)      A friend of mine wrote an article about undergarments, specifically shapewear, and just casually mentioned that nothing gets between Oprah and her Spanx.  That image is alarming, to say the least, but in the cover photo of this month’s O Magazine, you can really tell that it’s true!  Ewww!

4)      It’s my birthday in four days!  I can hardly believe it because a) it’s really really cold, and b) I missed about a week, mentally, due to my surgery so I keep thinking it’s only March.  No.  It’s BIRTHDAY TIME!  I need to find myself a tiara and dust off my “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY” sandwich board.  As an early gift, my husband made me a mixed CD – a mix tape!  Squee! – and it’s chock full of my favourite types of music, including, but not limited to, the Tina and Ike version of Proud Mary and the song Baby Come Back.  You can blame it ALL ON ME.  I was wrong, and I just can’t live WITHOUT YOU! 

And now you can blame me for putting that song in your head.  Tell me some cheering things, come on, tell me something good!

The cooking blog is up! New recipe!

My very first post at my brand-new cooking blog is up!  It's all about tomato and bocconcini salad, plus a little secret about breakfast for dinner - I do not enjoy it.  Oops, secret's out!  Go check out my new blog, pretty please.  Yummy.

Polymer Anarchy - a guest post

One of my very favourite blog friends is Marilyn, at A Lot of Loves.  She's awesome and funny and has a really great site.  When she asked me to guest post, I was thrilled and started a post on non-Newtonian liquids.  That's fun to say.  Non-Newtonian liquids. 

This morning I woke up feeling all stabby from a very frustrating school council meeting last night (have you ever dealt with a school board?  Then you would probably understand.  Those people are from a completely different planet.) and the arrival of fifteen centimetres of snow on the ground today.  I took one look outside this morning at 5:00 and decided that, in lieu of going to the yoga studio, I was going to go back to bed.  Sivasana! 

After some extra sleep, giving myself some exercise by shovelling the wet, heavy snow, and making a snowman with the kids before school - a snowman who was immediately pummeled to death by those same children - I feel much better.  I'm going to make the winning combination of kale chips and chocolate chip cookies today, which makes everything better.  And to top it off, my guest post is up at Marilyn's, and I would really appreciate it if you could check it out!  I'm going to blind you with science!  See you there.  xo

What makes a happy couple? Not outdoor soccer.

Last week I was applying makeup while wearing my robe and Jake peered over at my exposed legs.  “Mom, you should go put your stockings on,” he said in a voice of concern.  I assured him that I didn’t need to wear my stockings anymore!  Happy news!  He repeated his request, slightly louder.  I repeated my response in a slightly different way, simplifying it as I thought he didn’t understand, like maybe he had an issue with comprehension of the English language.  Finally, he tearfully snapped.  “MOM!  Please just put your stockings on!  Your legs are creeping me out!”

Ew!  And this is after a week of healing.  It's like Frankenstein's monster's legs, but paler.

I went and put on yoga pants.

Yesterday was a lovely day and I spent the majority of it bundled up and sitting out in the sun, reading, like the elderly person I have now become.  The boys rode their scooters and bikes and dug holes in the dirt while I wondered how much longer it will be until I can clean up the yard a little, plant a few things, cut back the old dead perennials.  There is still snow on the ground although it’s trying to melt.  My husband watched the Master’s, and for those of you who are not golf fans – I suspect that I’m talking to most of my readership here – it is being touted as the most exciting Master’s EVER.  At one point there were six players who were tied for the lead, which is evidently quite rare.  Tiger Woods even was a contender – I coulda been a contender!  I coulda been a somebody, instead of just a nobody. – but he did not win.  It is a little amazing to me that he still has a large fan base and that people were clapping (in the muted, golf way) for him.  I guess this gives hope to Charlie Sheen.

It’s funny about relationships.  I’ve been reading a few articles lately that have addressed the issue of how to “keep the spark alive”, and while I have a hard time keeping the ribald jokes to myself (Blowjobs! Pornography!  Alcohol!), I think it’s an important topic.  My husband is, obviously, an avid golf fan and an avid golf player, while I, most clearly, am not.  I am a yoga practitioner, whereas my husband, most emphatically, is not.  But yet, I find that our separate interests are part of our keeping said spark alive, even if we frequently “parallel talk” – i.e., “I shot a birdie on the tenth hole, then bogeyed the eleventh.”  “My back’s a little stiff from Kapotasana.  I think I should stretch.”  There is no way that we are ever going to be a “golf couple”; I am never donning one of those little hats and killing myself with frustration.  We are also never going to be a “yoga couple”; my husband is never going to “inhale happiness exhale peace.”  We’re a happy couple, though.  Even if I know, against my will, that Rory McIlroy completely fell apart on the back nine.

Tonight is soccer evaluations, and the single greatest email I received last week informed me that the evaluations would take place indoors this year, given the plethora of snow.  I was almost hysterically happy with this news.  Next week the season starts and let me tell you a little secret: outdoor soccer in this city is terrible.  Every year I sit on my little folding chair dressed for a blizzard, with a giant cup of tea and a sleeping bag wrapped around me, and it feels like, indeed, hell has frozen over and I am living in it.  But the kids are happy out there in the fresh air and light evenings, running around, and that’s what matters most.  Now, if only that snow would melt.

High Maintenance Girl

Sally: Which am I?

Harry: Oh, you’re the worst kind.  You’re high maintenance, but you think you’re low maintenance.

Sally: I don’t see that.

Harry: You don’t see it?  Waiter, I’ll have the house salad, but I don’t want the regular dressing.  I want the balsamic oil and vinegar.  But I want it on the side.  Then I’ll have the salmon with mustard sauce but I want the mustard sauce on the side.  On the side is a very big thing for you.

Sally: Well, I just want it the way I want it.

Harry: I know.  High maintenance.

Once again, I feel that movie is actually all about me and my life.  My husband is constantly telling me that I am high maintenance and although I protest, my protests are weak because I know that this is an accurate way to describe me.

I’ve been feeling somewhat guilty about complaining so much about my surgery because really, what am I really complaining about?  Things could be so much worse.  My beautiful, very active and sporty neighbour and friend was hit by a car while riding her bike, and ended up with a broken back.  A broken back!  She was out of commission for a long time, unable to do the things she loved.  And not just the sporty things she loved, but things like getting in and out of cars unassisted.   Another friend of mine had surgery in which her chest was cracked open and she couldn’t care for her two small children for many weeks, and a year later she still is feeling the effects of it.  So I feel a bit spoiled and high maintenance for complaining about something that is making me walk like I’ve been riding a horse for the  past month non-stop and is making me unable to wear anything but yoga pants.  I mean, a week ago I was clad in only pajamas and tensor bandages, so yoga pants are a very large step up. 

I’m still going to complain, though, and this one might be filed under an excess of information, but if one cannot impart an excess of information on one’s readers, then why have a blog to start with?

Here’s the thing: I can’t shave my legs.  I’m not sure when I will be able to shave my legs.  I feel like a sasquatch, or, alternately, a hippie.  You know, dear readers, I am all about peace, love, and happiness, but pass the damn razor.  And also the lip gloss.  Did you see the picture in the previous post?  That is what happens when there is no makeup.  I would have been a terrible hippie.  When I think about Woodstock I immediately get shivers thinking of all those people, all that rain and no toilets.  Not to mention the brown acid.  And all the guys wearing leather fringed jackets with no shirts underneath and without a doubt no showers or deoderant. 

But back to the issue at hand.  I feel like an actual yeti.  I don’t even want to hear from you people who regularly do not shave your legs because you don’t feel the need to.  Almost everyone I know who doesn’t shave a) is blond, or b) has little body hair anyway.  At the risk of disgusting everyone, I am not only fair skinned and brunette, but I am also of partial Scottish ancestry, and apparently my body still thinks that I need to keep warm in the Highlands. 

That’s that.  I’m not going to complain anymore, I promise. 

When I am an old woman

When I am an old woman, I will wear an excessive amount of Chanel Number 5.  I will wear thick, bright layers of lipstick that will feather and bleed into my papery skin.  I will make wildly inappropriate jokes and sexually harrass all the male orderlies at the home and earn the reputation of being the creepy old woman in room 14. 


What I have discovered about myself, disturbingly enough, is that when I am an old woman I am going to relentlessly discuss my various health complaints.  Yes, I'm going to be one of those horrible old people who talk about my less savoury ailments to random passerby.  I'm discovering this about myself as right now it is all I can do to not roll down my thick, dark beige compression stockings to show people my stitches.  "Want to see my scar?"  Anyway, my legs have become somewhat fascinating to me, and so I must think that they are fascinating to everyone else, despite the fact that my long suffering, beloved husband turned slightly green at the sight of my unbandaged, revolting legs. 

Speaking of my long suffering, beloved husband, he went back to work today and I think he was quite relieved to do so.  Not only has he had to take care of me and my random, irrational fits of sobbing - But I don't WANT my legs to hurt anymore! - he has also been running the house and dealing with the children.  I do not think that he has a glamourized view of the stay at home parent.  If any of you are feeling underappreciated these days, I totally recommend complete convalescence and to have your husband do load after load of laundry and wash sinkful after sinkful of dishes to really get some drudgery based recognition.  Or maybe I don't.  Because it's kind of depressing to realize that this is how I spend my days.

Anyway, back to my fascinating legs.  Other than the stitches scattered over the length of them - Do you have bugs on your legs, Mom? - they look, disturbingly, as though someone has taken a crowbar to them.  I'm like Nancy Kerrigan!  Why?  WWHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?  I feel a kinship with Nancy.  Perhaps she and I could hang out, discuss the pros and cons of Minnie Mouse ears. 

I ran out of my good drugs yesterday.  This is good and bad.  On the good side, as much fun as it was sleeping sixteen hours a day and being in a state of non-pain, my brain was just completely fuzzy.  I could barely concentrate enough to read a Candace Bushnell novel.  As it was, I did finish Mockingjay and I'm not sure if it was me or the book, but I couldn't really get into it.  I kept wondering if this was a different battle scene or the same one, or what area they were in, or if anyone important died.  When I finished the book I was just totally confused.  Did Gale die?  What actually happened?  I tried going back and re-reading and just became more confused.  So I think that was me. 

On the bad side, of course, is the pain.  It's like the House of Pain around here, but without the jumping around.  But you can still take Tylenol, I was told, which to me is the same as saying You can take nothing.  Bitch, please.  Tylenol?  Unless I can down the whole bottle, Tylenol is doing nothing.

So there's that.  This weekend it snowed, thirty centimetres, and I stared out the window in drugged-out bliss while Mark enjoyed it:

Those are almond eyes, a carrot nose, and a banana smile.

See?

And lest anyone accuse me of only posting flattering pictures of myself.  Here I am, completely high on Percocet, enjoying the lovely fruit bouquet sent by my girlfriends.  Note my awesome hair and pajamas.

STRIPPING! Boom chicka wah wah! UPDATE

So here's what you may not know about getting your varicose veins stripped: it really, really hurts.  I know!  News flash!  But honestly, I was unprepared for how much it would hurt and how difficult it would be to walk afterward.  I am happy to tell you that today I am moving around and even getting up out of bed by myself without thinking that a crane and/or hydraulic lift would be handy. 

My strongest - and yet still vague and fuzzy - recollection from the recovery room is whispering to my nurse that I didn't expect it to hurt so much.  "I just didn't think it would hurt like this," I whispered sadly as the nurse upped my morphine dosage.  The nurses kept asking me to rate my pain on a scale from one to ten, and I kept saying, passionately, SIX.  It is a SIX.  Mentally I rationalized that I'd had two babies with no pain medication, and that hurt way more, so I could not go above six on the scale, but I did not explain that to the nurse who I assumed could understand that SIX IS AS HIGH AS I WOULD GO. 

Good times.  So the last few days have been marked by my stumbling around the house - "walking" to avoid blood clots and the like - sleeping a lot, and counting down until it's time to take pain medication again.  My husband has been handling things amazingly well, making meals and even keeping the house clean.  The kids have been good and have made me several dozen pictures in the past couple of days.  I was sent a gorgeous fruit bouquet by some girlfriends and one lovely friend dropped off sourdough and scones just today.  So I feel very thankful for my wonderful friends and family.

Here's my complaint about convalescence: it is very boring.  Daytime television is atrocious.  We have a couple hundred channels and almost everything is either a) some sort of strange reality program, b) a crappy talk show, or c) sports.  Since it's spring break and the kids are around, I can't really watch reruns of NYPD Blue, either, or not without fear of scarring the children.  I did watch Chris Rock on David Letterman and laughed so hard at his criticism of foreign policy - "There's a guy over there having a heart attack!  Let's go kick him in the balls!" - that my stitches hurt. 

Thanks everyone for your well wishes.  xo