Barking at the Moon

I am a loon.

Certifiable.

The stuff of pink padded rooms, trimmed fingernails and soundless screams.

NUTTER.

One of the most challenging parts of sashaying my gravity-challenged ass down the path of middle age is the wild hormonal changes. In some respects, they are welcome but for one week out of most months, I am batshit crazy.

And as time passes, I become less able to control my mood. I sometimes find myself sitting in traffic, frustrated for whatever reason (children, job, Chinese QC) and I get this insane impulse to smash into the car in front of me. I actually have to grip the steering wheel, white knuckled, and talk myself out of it. I become a woman whose rage bubbles just under the surface and unfortunately, it is my family that takes the brunt.

Recently, I was having lunch with my husband and the way he chewed his cucumbers caused me to want to reach right into his mouth and pull them out of there just to STOP THE NOISE. He wasn't smacking his lips like Andrew Zimmern (don't even get me started on that guy) or munching away with his mouth open but the fact that I could hear the consumption his meal through the walls of his cheeks made me want to hurt him, which is horrifying considering I would shrivel up and die without this man.

Then there are my poor babies. Yesterday morning, I was trying to wrestle Olivia's hair into a sensible coif. Water, a brush, a comb and coloured bands were involved. Several of those things when wielded improperly can cause a measure of pain. Olivia protested, violently moved her head away from my clumsy ministrations and I immediately saw red. Sensing serious danger, she stood motionless while I finished and then she quietly left the house with two, enormous, you-hurt-my-feelings, tears running down her face.

For two seconds, I was all, "Yeah, you get your sorry butt to the bus stop," and then I shook my head, disgusted with myself and thought, "Fuck." I ended up driving by the bus stop to apologize because besides the fact that I was totally wrong, who sends their kid to school in that frame of mind? When I was hugging her, she said, "What's wrong with you mummy?"

I don't think she would have understood me if I had told her that perimenopause is a Gong show. Chuck Barris was before her time.

I might need a pharmaceutical intervention. At the very least, I should have a sign hanging around my neck that says,

DANGER! I AM A PERI-MENOPAUSAL WOMAN WITH PMS. STAY BACK 20 FEET AT ALL TIMES. I AM LETHAL.

(Mum, that is NOT an invitation to send me another book about raw foods. If my diet were any closer to a cow's than it is right now, I'd have to grow another stomach.)

Down For The Count

Last week, Dallas and I learned that manchild had given up his apartment and moved back in with his enabling kook of a mother, which likely made her happy in a twisted, self-serving way. To swoop in like a martyr, ostensibly, to pick up the pieces and indulge manchild in the fantasy that life hasn't handed him a fair shake; well that kind of drama is what puts the skip in her step. She provides a world where there is no personal accountability and where problems can be eradicated by swinging a pendulum or placing a crystal in just the right household location. The situation is impossible and I have come to despise her. It is one thing to march to her own off tempo drumbeat but to cast manchild and teenage daughter as leading roles in her personal Heart of Darkness play is criminal.

Dallas has a much better attitude, which I find really remarkable. Like me, he finds the situation heartbreaking but somehow, he manages not to obsess. I, on the other hand, feel like we need to be doing SOMETHING.

We also learned recently that manchild's Japanese fiancée (a term that we politely accepted a year ago in a tongue-in-cheek-aw-shucks-ain't-that-cute-way until it wasn't so fricking cute) is coming for a visit in late October.

And.they.plan.on.getting.married.

And then new wife is going to go back to Japan for an unspecified period of time, probably to pack.

Whatever.

How do you get through to a nineteen year old, employed in a minimum wage job and now living with his unemployed mother and unemployed sister, that the marriage smells a lot like a Japanese girl's ticket to American residency? How do you protect him from himself? How do you tell him that the only reason his mother is supporting this marriage is because she wants to be the antithesis of his father, who has expressed grave concerns?

"We need to stop him, Dallas. This is insanity." I've said.

"We can't control him. This is his life. These are his mistakes. I've given him my opinion." he answered.

"I don't think we are doing enough," I countered.

He asked,

"Are you prepared to have manchild or teenage daughter come and live with us again?" (Nothing like a metaphoric bucket of cold water to snap my controlling ass to attention)

Inside my mind, I FREAKED (a little) at the thought of repeating all of that dysfunctional drama. It was a difficult, stress-infused year and I wasn't interested in revisiting any of it anytime soon.

I answered,

"No."

And with that, I threw in my towel.

eBay Blues

When eBay first debuted, I didn't think it would go anywhere because really, who the heck would purchase items sight unseen from an auction house?

Yeah, complete miss on that one. It's right up there with me turning down the opportunity to import the RipStik® for fear of insurance liability issues. Stupid.

Anyway, like a ton of other people, I was hooked on eBay the first time that I tried it out. I love the whole competition side of it where sometimes, bidding strategy is necessary to win the item. I got my first iPhone that way and once I realized that I had won (choking on the fact that I'd just agreed to pay the equivalent of my Harley note FOR A STINKING PHONE), I was quite pleased with myself.

When I need weird or hard to get items like Tim Horton's coffee or golden syrup from New Zealand, I turn to eBay, which was the case during the Labour Day long weekend.

I've been using Arbonne®'s skin care products for years. I've tried gobs of other brands from the ultra expensive to the cheap and dirty. Nothing else that I've used gives me the same results. (is it just me or do I sound like a commercial?) This past spring, while Dallas and I were driving to Florida, he asked if I had been using something different on my skin. I looked over at him, astonished, because I had recently switched to a wallet burning product that I found at Sephora and I couldn't believe he had noticed. "You can tell?" I asked, expecting that he was going to comment about my newly glorious Hollywood glow and he nodded.

"Your wrinkles here (touching the dimple area on my left cheek)are pretty noticeable and they weren't like that before."

*blink* *blink*

After removing the fork from his eye, I understood that he was just trying to be helpful and I resigned myself to having to go back to Arbonne. The trouble for me is that Arbonne is a network marketing company and it's a hassle to deal with the whole distributorship/recruiting/BEST-OPPORTUNITY-OF-YOUR-LIFE stuff but there is no denying how good the product is so consequently, eBay became my answer. Or so I thought.

On September 7th, I won and paid for my product.

I still haven't got it yet.

The seller, who has a great rating, has emailed me twice and only because I emailed her first gently inquiring about when I could expect my package. I was given some song and dance about the post office, yadda, yadda, tracking, blah, blah, get back to me Saturday. Saturday came and went. Sunday, I sent my second email asking if she had learned anything. Nope, department closed, talk to you Monday...And guess what? Big shocker but no communication. No resolution. Nothing.

So what do I do? I don't want to be a total cow. Leaving negative feedback on eBay is a bit like honking one's horn in traffic. It feels impolite. I just want my damn moisturizer. I'M WRINKLING UP AT THE SPEED OF SOUND OVER HERE!

Any suggestions?

Just Call Her Capulet

Many years ago, during one of many insufferable teenage phases, my mum turned to me, used her pointer finger like a wand and cursed me.

Every mother who has given birth to demon spawn a difficult child, will at some point, squint her eyes, take a deep breath and direct all of her frustrated energy at the universe, begging for mercy. When no relief arrives, she will draw the offender to her chest, bend her mouth to the hellion's ear and whisper,

"One day you will have a child just like yourself."

And with those simple words, the curse lives on.

Olivia, my gorgeous and smart little ball of fire, is both my joy and my penance. I would say that I probably got off lucky. For the most part, especially since Dallas came into our lives, Olivia is a gift. She has the power to make me laugh until I wet my pants. She also has the uncanny ability to push my buttons like a seasoned professional. She's seven. And precious. And precocious. And every now and then, we get a brief glimpse into what the future holds for us as her parents.

I'm scared.

A few weeks ago, she came home after playing with her friends and announced that she had a boyfriend. We raised our collective brows, smiled and asked all of those cutesy questions that you do when you are dealing with a child. "What's his name?"(Nathan) "Where does he live?"(down the street) And then we dismissed it with an absentminded pat to the head and a rote answer of, "That's nice, sweetie."

"Nathan told me that he loved me. I love him too." THAT got my attention. The mummy antennae shot straight up.

"Hold old is Nathan?" I asked.

"Seven," she replied. Okay then, everything was still copacetic. But we were fooled into a false sense of security.

Nathan is IN LOVE. Olivia might be home for five minutes and the child is pounding on our front door wanting her to come out and play. She is equally eager. She races through her homework to get 30 minutes of time with him. The kid is at our door, at dinner time, EVERY SINGLE DAY. And he doesn't just knock once or twice. The boy rat-a-tat-tats on the door until we open it. He is always slightly breathless, excited and peering around me to get a glimpse of Liv. She's like a mini Juliet, trying to break free from the dinner table to see her beloved Nathan and when she is told to stay put and finish her damn peas, she is crestfallen, crushed. It's all a bit much. Last week, she left her jacket over at Nathan's house and during the dinner hour, he made his usual pilgrimmage to our front door. I opened it and he stood there with this goofy look on his face and his hands behind his back.

"Whatcha got behind your back, Nathan?" I asked.

He blinked his eyes slowly, looked up at me and I swear to freaking God, there were cartoon hearts collecting around his head. "May I talk to Olivia?" he asked.

"She's having her supper, Nathan," I replied. Olivia, meanwhile is positively keening from the kitchen in her desire to see him. "You'll have to wait until after we finish eating." I tell him. He visibly deflates, mouth turning down at the corners and he says, "Okay. I'll come back."

Which he does, of course.

And when she answers the door, he lights up like a Christmas tree. The boy is clearly smitten. For real. He withdraws her sweater from behind his back and hands it to her, with reverence, as if it were the freaking Hope diamond. She takes it, thanks him and they say their good byes, making tentative plans to hook up the following day. Olivia runs upstairs to get her shower and I watch Nathan walk down our front path stopping every few seconds to turn back to see if Olivia might appear in the window beside the door.

I break out into a cold sweat. She is seven. SEVEN.

I have a feeling that my penance is going to be long, painful and anxiety-ridden.

Thanks, Mum.

Camera Shy

This middle age thing BLOWS.

Last week, I traveled to the East Coast for meetings. There were a few late nights, some cocktails and perfectly greasy fish and chips at an Irish pub in Manhattan. All of this was fabulous except for the fact that Thursday and Friday were spent shooting FILM for our corporate website. And I looked every one of my forty two years.

It's odd that I can look in the mirror every day and walk out of my house with a measure of confidence because when I reviewed the footage and the still shots from Thursday's session, I wanted to vomit.

First of all, my make up made me feel like I had on a Mardi Gras mask. I'm not a big cosmetics girl. I've been blessed with good skin and frankly, I don't give a fig about the difference between foundation and powder. I've always found the application of make up intimidating so I've avoided it. I stick to the basics of liner and mascara and sometimes, I even manage to dab on a bit of lip gloss. That's it.

At the shoot, we were put into the hands of a very capable make up artist whose full time job is to beautify runway models for a well known house of couture. She prepared our faces for the glare of the lights and there were no mirrors, which turned out to be a good thing because when I finally excused myself and went to the ladies' room, I just about had a coronary.

In the mirror was Tammy Faye Baker.

I'm not kidding.

As I looked a bit closer, I was horrified to find that the light shadow on my eyelids had collected into newly obvious FOLDS in the skin above my eyes. Where did those come from? My crow's feet were literally jumping off my face and the marionette lines that join my nose with my mouth made me look like an exaggerated, perverse version of Pinocchio. I kicked myself for not taking advantage of that Botox special last month. The worst part of the whole experience was the realization that I have morphed into the slightly feminized version of my father. Even a plastic surgeon couldn't touch the power of his DNA.

It's a freaking horror show.

To make matters worse, I had the opportunity to review some of the raw video footage. Do I really look like that when I talk? Really? Do I always hold my mouth like I'm sucking on something sour? And that chin. It's like a giant pointy arrow at the bottom of my face. Me and Jay Leno. Lovely.

And my hair. Oh dear God. When I glanced into the mirror that morning before leaving, I thought I had achieved a gentle curl. On film, my hair looked like I had just rolled out of the back seat of a Mustang after shagging myself blind and attempted to comb it with a tree branch.

I turned to our cinematographer and told her that she would have to cut me from the planned video vignettes. She reassured me with promises of "colour balancing", "editing" and a generous airbrush.

"I thought the camera was supposed to add ten pounds, not fifty!" I screeched. She just smiled, handed me a paper bag and told me to breathe deeply.

The camera is cruel. Liquid make up and finishing powders are instruments of the devil. Sparkly eyeshadow, clearly, was invented by someone with a sick sense of humour. Liposuction, Botox® and Restylane® should be offered right along with mammograms once a gal turns forty.

Today, I am back on a bloody diet. I have made an appointment with a dermatologist. We are buying a treadmill.

And for goodness sakes, keep that bloody video camera away from me.

Yawn

Easy weekend full of normal, responsible homeowner stuff like painting, grocery shopping and vacuuming. It was delightfully boring.

The fall allergy season has kicked in and my head is in a state that requires constant ibuprofen ingestion. A pounding headache woke me up out of a dead sleep last night, which is always fun. There is just nothing like the sweaty dry heaves at 1:48 am to ring in a Monday morning.

Tomorrow, I am flying to the East Coast on business which will leave my very fabulous husband having to deal with my not so fabulous ex husband. I am not worried, though. All Dallas has to do is open his mouth, utter "mate" in his delicious accent, and my ex husband instantly feels like he is an extra in a Peter Jackson movie.

Dylan had his first football game on Saturday and he did well considering his exposure to the sport is only two weeks old. I just love that he's part of a team and out there sweating his tail off rather than spending hours in front of his laptop. I sense a small shift for him both in confidence and attitude. On Saturday, one of his friends we haven't seen in ages, showed up and invited him over to hang out and then Sunday, he again spent most of the day outside with Liv and some of the neighbourhood kids. It was all very angst-free and functional which was a welcome break from some of the high drama we've experienced lately.

So that's it, really. There just isn't much to tell. The minutiae of life.

And if the truth were to be told, I have to admit that I'm thrilled to be steeped in the mundane.

9/11

Today, the blogosphere is full of posts discussing the significance of today's date and how eight years ago, our lives were irrevocably changed forever.

Like most, I remember exactly where I was when I heard that the first tower had been struck. Like many, I watched, live, as a plane flew into the second tower. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My first thought, "what the hell is going on with air traffic control?", was quickly replaced by, "Oh my god. We're under attack," as realization dawned.

I called Canada and woke my mum up. As we witnessed the horror unfolding with each minute that passed: the collapse of the towers, the debris field in Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, the firefighters, the police officers, the panic, the ash, the smoke, the passengers, the crew, the people trapped in the towers and the people that escaped....my prevailing thought was, "This is not happening. This is America."

I did not personally know anyone that died on that awful day eight years ago and I can only imagine how torturous it must have been for those that had to wait weeks to get confirmation of what they knew deep down inside. To be one of those mothers or wives or sisters who played old messages over and over just to have the comfort of listening to fifteen seconds of a voice they'd never hear again or to be one of those left behind plastering the photo of a missing loved one on the exterior walls of the Armory on 26th Street, well, it's just heartbreaking. The emotional pain of that day still has the power to stop me in my tracks. The enormity of the loss still takes my breath away.

Today, we will remember. Today we will mourn.

Tomorrow, we will honour them by allowing life to go on.

From the Soapbox

Busy, busy week so far and the last couple of days are looking to be somewhat hellish so I'm going to be really quick today.

I've got a few comments about the president's speech last night.

While I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get more details, I was encouraged to hear that the public option wasn't taken off the table. I'm Canadian. My husband is a Kiwi. We come from countries where there is socialized medicine. We've experienced both sides of the proverbial fence and I can tell you that nonsense like Sarah Palin's death panels is nothing more than propaganda. Canadian health care isn't perfect but it's good. As a nation, we need to understand that the insurance business is FOR PROFIT, which simply boils down to the fact that every single day, a medical decision is made in favour of the shareholder and at the expense of the patient. EVERY SINGLE DAY. It's a blatant, head-shaking, clear, conflict of interest. Seems to me that we should be talking about those thinly disguised "death panels".

And really, how can anyone in this country possibly look to the Republicans to provide us with a reasonable alternative to the health care plan currently on the table? These are the people that gave us Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act(MMA). Besides the provision that prohibits the Federal government from negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies (WTF?), the cost of this legislation was deliberately concealed. In December 2003, as Dubya inked the deal, the 10 year cost was estimated at $400B. That's how it was sold to the more fiscally conservative members of his party. In January 2004, the Whitehouse adjusted that figure up by nearly $150B. By 2005, estimates showed the 10 year cost to be over $1.2 trillon. Former US Comptroller, General David Walker referred to the MMA as "......probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s".

I'm pretty comfortable rolling the dice with the Democrats.

Congressman Joe Wilson was a disrespectful tool for yelling out, "You lie!", in the middle of the president's speech. Idiot, for sure. But he quickly apologized so let's get over it and move on. Bush was booed at a State of the Union address and while I despised him as a president, the office deserved more respect than that. Also, it wasn't that long ago that Senator Harry Reid referred to George Bush as a "loser", which was equally inappropriate so let's not get our collective liberal panties in a bunch and turn Wilson's remarks into a freaking rally cry because we will look like hypocrites.

Bottom line, we need health care reform and we probably don't need to reinvent the wheel. My opinion is that we need to focus on affordable insurance so that people will get in front of their primary care physicians. Those doctors are first in the line of defense against skyrocketing health care costs and they need to be compensated accordingly. They are the ones that see people before the heart attack, before the stroke, before the type II diabetes. They are the providers of preventative care and if everyone had affordable access to them, we'd save money. Lots of it.

And something needs to be done about malpractice lawsuits. We must institute reasonable limits that don't exist today. The cost of malpractice insurance is staggering and when you combine it with the reduced compensation that a PCP gets for seeing a patient, many doctors simply can't afford to be private practitioners. My son is hearing impaired because of hospital error and we flirted with the idea of suing but the fact is, money wouldn't have changed a thing for Dylan and the hospital did 99.9% of everything right. His lab results slipped through the cracks, which is unfortunate but mistakes happen. He's impaired, not deaf. While it would have been nice to have had a chunk of change to pay for the hearing aids that he will wear for the rest of his life, I couldn't get my head around all of the attorney fees, court costs, time and effort that it would have taken to accomplish this.

Okay, that's it for my soapbox today.

A Boy's Rite of Passage Begins

Tuesday, I was at my desk labouring over cost sheets that needed to be modified because of unexpected increases in raw materials when my mobile rang. I wasn't in the best of moods and since I didn't recognize the number, I fully expected there to be a telemarketer on the other end. As I answered, I shrugged on my superbitch persona and prepared to take out my daily frustrations on the schmuck who had the misfortune to call.

"This is Beth", I said.

"May I speak with Mrs. J", he said.

"Yes, that's me. What are you selling", I asked in clipped, impatient, Nazi tones.

There was a short pause, an audible intake of breath and I smiled, thinking that the telemarketer had to know at this point that an unpleasant experience was at hand.

"This is Tom from the Boys and Girls Club. Is your boy still interested in playing football this year?" And people, this man was all southern charm and respect. I scrambled to dislodge my shoe from the back of my throat.

After apologizing profusely and giving him an overly long explanation about telemarketing and spam calls and how I really wish I had a bullhorn to blow every time I received one and nodding furiously on the other end of the line even though I knew he couldn't see me, I took a breath and told him that yes, Dylan would be thrilled to get on a team.

He instructed me to bring him by on Wednesday afternoon to sign him up.

Then, I called my ex because Wednesdays are the day that he picks the children up from school and takes them to some fast food joint to fill them full of 1500 garbage, artery clogging calories dinner.

I explained to him that Dylan got into football so please don't fetch him from school on Wednesday as I would be taking him to get signed up and then on to the sports store to outfit him with proper equipment. His reply?

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR ANY EQUIPMENT!!! I PAY A SHIT TON OF CHILD SUPPORT AND THAT MONEY INCLUDES STUFF LIKE THIS!"

How does one respond to that? Well, I suppose a more mature person would have calmly allowed the irrational blow up and then have reasoned with him in a gentle, measured manner. Sadly, I am not that person.

Instead, I spat out a paragraph laced with four letter words, detailing his failings as a human being and then I hung up on him before he had a chance to reply. Like I said, I am FLAWED.

Anyway, yesterday, after we had signed all of the papers, Dylan and I made our way over to the sports store to get pants, pads, a mouth guard, a chin strap, a practice jersey, cleats and a helmet. My ex showed up, which I thought might be a positive thing but alas, he was true to form. When it came time to pay, you could have run a car on the vapours my ex left behind as he fled from the store.

$175.00

Dylan's eyes widened as I handed over my bank card.

"Thank you, Mum", he whispered. And the child meant it.

"You're welcome sweetie." I said, giving him a hug. "You understand that quitting won't be an option, right?"

And with that, I officially became a southern, football mother.

Monster

Man kidnaps 11 year old girl and holds her captive for eighteen years.

He rapes her repeatedly, fathering two children with her; the first when she was just fourteen years old.

She and her two children are imprisoned in the BACKYARD of a structure in a cluster of shanties and tents.

EIGHTEEN YEARS.

They are not schooled. They are not socialized. They live like animals.

Man is married.

The wife of this sick bastard is more than an accomplice. Turns out she is an enthusiastic participant.

Both plead "not guilty", promising a great story with a "heartwarming" ending.

I have to turn the television off because the story is more than I can stomach.

I do not believe that pedophiles can be rehabilitated.

But I also do not support the death penalty.

These two monsters make it easy to understand why some people do.