I don’t care if Monday’s blue
Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don’t care about you
It’s Friday, I’m in love

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Oh, Thursday doesn’t even start
It’s Friday I’m in love

I don’t care if Monday’s black
Tuesday, Wednesday – heart attack
Thursday, never looking back
It’s Friday, I’m in love

Monday, you can hold your head
Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed
Or Thursday – watch the walls instead
It’s Friday, I’m in love

(by the cure. There are more lyrics but I think these are the ones covered here).
Friday I\'m in Love

- I (think) my looks got insulted on Facebook the other day. I posted a picture of myself wearing my $5 wig (after I cut it – before I did it reached my butt and was all scraggledy looking at the ends). A couple of people said “Oh Louise you look nice” or whatever… then this guy who was my high school bff’s older brother, and someone who I thought was not such a jerk anymore, said “You look like a teacher. Oh well at least you don’t have a unibrow”. Now, nothing particularly insulting in there, but having had many conversations with him about how teachers are all old bitter hags who don’t get any, I knew what he was saying.
Oh well. It’s true. I DON’T have a unibrow.

- Yesterday was a conference for all the teachers in the board. It was held in an arena (an ice rink) sans the ice. No windows, but there were big air circulation fans, which is good because with the humidex, it was 40 degrees Celsius yesterday (104 F?). When the speaker started giving his speech, it turned out that it was very echo-y in there. So 3/4 of us couldn’t hear what he was saying. For the first 45 minutes or so we were straining to hear. Then someone told the facilitators that no one could hear. So what did they do? They turned off the air circulating fans. So then no one could hear, AND we were all dying of heat prostration. And they didn’t really want us to leave. Like they had us eat our lunch in there.

- When I got home last night I took a cold shower, ate a tomato sandwich (no cooking for me) and then basically laid in front of the air conditioner in the bedroom. I did have to walk the dogs a couple of times but even they didn’t really want to be out in that. They’d keep finding shady spots and then sitting there, looking at me like “Seriously, you want me to keep walking?”.

- This morning I was walking the dogs and at one point Sprocket stopped and was smelling the ground. He does that about 7800 times per walk so I didn’t think much of it. A couple of seconds later I noticed that Doozer had also stopped and was smelling Sprocket’s face. Which meant only one thing: Sprocket had something Doozer wanted. This isn’t always good. In fact generally it’s always bad. I was thinking “maybe a piece of stick or another crab leg like last summer?”. At worst it might be a dried out piece of poop like what Doozer found the other day (fresh? They’re not fussed. Dried out? Oh they just want to carry it around forever).

Now.

I am not grossed out by many things. Puke? No big. Once when my nephew and I were in the car and he felt sick, I caught his barf IN MY HANDS because there were no bags around. Then I had to hold it for 10 minutes until we got to a rest stop and my dad could get me some paper towel. Poop? It’s not my favourite, but I don’t cry about it.

But it turns out that I have a line. And that line is drawn at DEAD MICE. Yes. Sprocket, my elegant little man, had somehow availed himself of the slightly dried-out festering head of a small grey rodent. When I tried to pry it out of his mouth (I. Had. To. Touch. It.) he resisted for all he was worth. He finally managed to escape from my clutches, and I gagging and trying to get him back.

Several interminable moments later, he dropped it (probably putting it down so that he could pick it up at a different angle) and I hauled on both their leashes to get them away from it. Then we came home and I took a Silkwood shower. Now Sprocket keeps trying to lick my ankle and I’m like “NO MOUSE BREATH NO”.

Somehow he doesn’t understand.

I am a big baby about this, in case you are wondering. I’ve been whining all morning.

Goal: To become more assertive. And to never feel the need to be so polite that I lose a half hour of my life to something that will probably never be that useful to me, just because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

So beautiful.

Yes, yes, I know that’s just the company’s name, but I started half-giggling. “Are you doing a photoshoot? Mom? What are you going to wear?” It did not Bring the Laughs. Basically, it Brought The Confused Looks From Sixty-Three Year Olds. It also Brought The Awkward No One Got My Joke Feeling. Not that I’m not used to that.

8 am: Head to the groomer. Stand talking to her about her recent trip to the States (she and her husband are seriously looking at Outer Banks foreclosures in the hopes of snatching one up as a summer home), her new coffee maker (she had had five coffees already that morning!) and how good-natured Mr. Sprock and the Dooz are. That took like, an hour. Then the half-hour drive back into town, where

10 am: Stop at Shopper’s Drug Mart looking for a certain type of razor which they had there just last week. Nope, none left. So instead I looked at the magazines and

10:30 Came home. Watched the beginning of that Robin Williams movie where he played a priest. License to Wed? Anyway. Went on eBay. Found the razors I wanted (new, of course). Bought those. For cheaper, with shipping, than they would have been to buy at the store.

11:00 Still watching that movie.

11:30 The groomer called for me to pick up the boys. Drove to her place.

12:00 Found out that they hadn’t pooped for her either and that Sprockito had been a terrorist in the tub but otherwise was great. Decided to walk them for a bit to get some of their energy out because they were wound up. Three seconds after getting outside they both pooped. I had to beg some bags from her to clean that up. Headed home.

12:40 Stopped by my parents’ where my dogs played with her dog and with my brother’s dogs. My nephew D. gave them the biggest hug.

2:30 Nephew D comes back for more hugs (SO many hugs from this little boy!). Says to me “Tante, Doozer has happy eyes. Sparocket has gentle eyes. I love them so much!”.

4:00 Head home.

4:15 Shower.

4:30 Collapse on sofa. Because have you ever heard of such an exhausting day? You have? Hah you must be nuts.

Now. My grandpa, Dad’s father, had similar problems. Mainly with his lungs though – he was a coal miner. Years of Export A’s and coal dust left him with solid tissue where sponginess should be. He lived the last 10 years of his life with just 28% of one lung – his left one and most of the right had to be removed. To go from a guy who once knocked out the Cape Breton Boxing Champion to being stuck in a chair and unable to walk up stairs was devastating to him.

My Dad was thinking that this was going to be his fate. After his stent surgery, he had scans which showed masses on his lungs. He’s been back and forth to Halifax for scans and biopsies, because the surgeons weren’t sure what was going on there. Dad’s been terrified. He’s been discussing with us for the past couple of months whether or not he would have the surgery done if it was recommended. “Sure, it might make me live longer, but what kind of life will I live?”, he’d say. I would say “It’s your choice”. In my heart I would scream “You’re my daddy! Please, please, please stay”. The prospect of this surgery was constantly hanging over his head, and you could see in his eyes, even when he was playing with my nephews or joking with my brother, that it was always on his mind.

This morning I was at my parents’ house. They wanted me to come over because Dad had decided to sell his car and buy a truck, and they wanted me to check it out (not that I would know whether or not it was a good truck, I guess they just wanted me to look at it). We were in the livingroom talking about the roadside assistance plan that my parents have when the phone rang. Mom answered, then handed the phone to Dad. She came and sat next to me on the couch and held my hand. I looked at her. “C’est le docteur,” she whispered. Then I knew – the results of his latest scan were in.

“Okay,” he said. “Thank you.” He hung up, and turned to us and you could see his shoulders rise with relief.

Benign. No surgery for that. Continued scans and checks on his stent. Continued medication for his COPD. But. He gets to keep his lungs.

He will still have health problems. He will still need medication. But the spectre of yet another traumatic surgery has gone. And we can breathe just a little easier.

Take a zucchini from your garden if you have one. If you don’t have a garden find a zucchini somewhere. Don’t steal it from your neighbour’s garden because neighbours can be annoying when you steal things from them. Slice it thickly (about 1-inch slices). Either lengthwise or in little circles (I prefer lengthwise).
Brush both sides with olive oil. Put on some salt and some pepper. Put it on your grill (if you have a grill – we have this one). Cook for six minutes. Eat it up.

If you don’t have a grill put it in the oven on broil.

Recipe #2:

Take two slices of bread. Put them in the toaster. Toast them the way that you like to toast them. As soon as they’re out of the toaster, put some butter (not margarine. Butter) on one slice. On the other slice put some mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip). Then take a tomato from your garden (see previous recipe) and slice it thinly. Put it on the bread. Make a sandwich. Eat that sandwich.

Hah. Are you impressed now with my culinary skillzzzzz? Pretty much the only things that have flourished in my vegetable garden this year are tomatoes and zucchinis. Which is fine by me because I love them. A lot.

When Summer gets here, and I don’t have to get dressed up for anything, whatever tenuous hold I had on fashion goes straight out the window. It’s sad, really. Sweatpants. Cut-off sweatpants. T-shirts. I did buy a couple of sun-dresses which are cute, and I’ve been wearing the heck out of them, but not because of their cuteness; because of the comfort factor. Plus not having to try to find a top that matches bottoms.

But now the Summer’s almost over. I’ve been looking at the clothes I have. They are causing me to panic. “What did I used to wear this with? What is this? Should I wear this with that?”…

I wonder if they’d mind me showing up on the first day in my bathrobe.