In praise of my poor, longsuffering hubby...

It occurred to me recently that some people might think my poor hubby would be justified in putting me through the wood chipper (as he has frequently offered).

I would just like to take a few moments to praise my longsuffering hubby, butt of all my jokes, straight man, and bickering opponent for 13 years now.

I know you won't believe me, but he loves the stories I tell about him.

See, he's got what they call a "sense of humor."

Like me, he doesn't care if the joke is about him, as long as it's funny. Wait a minute, let me clarify that - I don't care if the joke is about ME, either, so long as it's funny. Yes, I also don't care if the joke is about him....

He's a good man, a quiet drunk, a killer scrabble player, a man born with a silver ________ in each hand. (Insert name of any tool is the world.) He's also an insane Quebec driver - you should SEE the startled looks on the faces of the pedestrians! He's Irish, that's why he's so stubborn, opinionated, and he thinks he's right - ALL THE TIME.

But he loves deeply and hardly ever complains. And he's the world's most patient man.

He's had to be.

Chinese Fire Drill!

We had Chinese Fondue for dinner last night - the one with the broth that boils in the pot, where you stick your meat and veggies on sticks and have to wait for them to cook, while having a good time yakking with all the great people who are around the table.

So hubby, stepkid, and I were having mushrooms, green pepper, asparagus and the usual meat... Ended up with the 4 sauces I made plus three bottles of mystery slime the other two wanted, since my sauces "taste funny..." (grrrr - don't get me started...)

Anyway, the flame ran out - we'd used up the fuel, since this takes much longer than a cheese fondue...

And you know how, RIGHT ON THE BOTTLE of fondue fuel, it says, in LARGE letters: "CAUTION. Do not fill resevoir while still lit, or while hot. If flame dies during fondue, REMOVE resevoir and WAIT for it to become completely COOL. NEVER fill resevoir while at the table, danger of BURNS. ALWAYS fill resevoir away from food and diners."

Ok, so that's easy enough to understand. Everybody knows you don't refill a fondue burner when it's lit, hot, or while at the table, right?

Welllllllllll...

Hubby says, "Oh. It's gone out." (Removes burner from under pot, grabs bottle of fuel, which is sitting handily on the table.

I say, "Hey. At least take it away from the...."

My words were cut off by a fireball shooting across the table in the direction he was pouring. A line of fire sped at, oh, warp factor 4, straight towards stepkid. Everybody shrieks. Lots of stuff happens in a split-second. (By the way, it is this ability to move at warp 6 during emergencies that has me convinced time travel IS possible. I continue...)

Thank god Stepkid is an athlete - good reflexes! Up with the arm to protect her face, and sideways off the chair to get out of the way. Hubby tries to get bottle to sink, gets burned, drops bottle. Bottle rolls to a stop and burns fiercely against cabinet, on floor behind Stepkid's chair. Hubby yelling pain, grabbing tea-towel to throw, me yelling get a towel get a towel, got one from linen closet, threw it beside tea towel... pant pant pant... ok, fire's out.

(Ha!)

Yelling at hubby - "get that under cold water!" Asking Stepkid, "Your arm. Are you burnt?" Stepkid has giggles. "No! But look - the hair on my arm is gone!" She runs for the phone, to call her girlfriend RIGHT AWAY because this was SO COOL! While she's on the phone, I get her to put her arm under the faucet as well, and keep urging hubby to put his hand back under...

Let's pause now, to talk about hubby's expertise. Hubby is trained in emergency first aid. Been to at least a DOZEN courses, keeps getting re-certified...

Stepkid has also taken emergency first aid, and SHE remembered the bit about putting cold water on burns...

I took ONE course, and I remembered about putting cold water on burns....

Well, hubby of course doesn't remember that bit, and god forbid he should do what two people are telling hm to do without an argument.......

We resume.

Stepkid looks at her chair and yells "Hey! Look at my chair! OHMYGOD - my FACE was there!"

Sure enough, there's a one-inch hole in the fabric of her chair. Her instincts had prevented her from getting a singe up there.

But Stepkid is still excited. "OHMYGOD I could have burnt my HAIR!"

Amazing what some people find important, eh?

As I move over to examine the burn in the chair, something catches my eye. Something on the floor beside Hubby's chair is still burning! It's his computer bag! I grab the towel off the floor and put it out. The bag is burnt through (plastic) on the top layer and looks oddly skeletal... There is much moaning and wailing that his computer is destroyed, but no, it turns out the computer is safely in another room. Only the bag is damaged.

Hubby takes a diabetic needle and proceeds to EXTRACT liquid from his blisters, over the shouts from Stepkid and me....
It boggles the mind... He said it relieved the pressure...

I pick up the now-cool bottle and read aloud to Stepkid "NEVER fill hot burner. ALWAYS fill away from food and diners. Wait till burner is COMPLETELY COOL before filling.

She gets it! And we have three souvenirs of the best family dinner EV-ER... a burnt bag, a singed fondue fork, and a burnt table-top. "Oh shit!" said Stepkid, "we'll have to get a new table!"

Not.

Sugar, Sugar...

DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!!!
grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......

I live with a man who has type 2 diabetes. A hatred of physical activity. And an insatiable appetite for carbs. Specifically, bread.

Yeas ago, when Montingnac first appeared, he watched two people who work with us drop 100 lbs and get fit. He was a man inspired. He talked about Montignac like a born-again. He was a fanatic. He was so determined we were going to do this, he was going to cook, he was going to arrange it all. He impatiently searched through the books at Costco, and finally bought the damned thing in French because he simply couldn't wait another DAY to get the book in English. He raved about it all the way home. He sat down at the table to begin reading...

(At this point, you must imagine an expectant hush falling over our lives)

And then he came to page 4, where it says you can't have bread for two weeks.

TWO WEEKS.

Fourteen days.

Montingnac sailed into the garbage can, and nothing more was said.

So this morning, I'd given up trying to pack lunch. There's nothing in the house but bread. Oh, excuse me - there's bread, AND bagels, AND buns! I said to him "Take a banana at least." He argued (which he ALWAYS DOES!) "a banana is just as bad as bread."

I couldn't let that pass. "Oh sure, honey, a banana might have lots of carbs, but it must have something ELSE in it, unlike your four slices of raisin bread, which contains ONLY carbs..."

And so it went. Finally, he ended the argument with "I'll have a half a banana tonight - with some ice-cream!"

I give up. He's suicidal - death by sugar.

W A I T I N G F O R D O C T O R . . . . .

I had vertigo yesterday. To those whose vocabulary isn't yet completely formed, vertigo is dizziness. (Now, now, no comments about "dizzy broad." This is SERIOUS!!!

I was unable to work, because the world was spinning around me. And closing my eyes made it worse. And there were stabbing pains in my head. Time to head for the horse-pickle.

Where I waited. Ate. Quilted. Drank. Made friends. Gave out marital advice. Quilted. Ate again. Drank again. Had searing pains in the head. The world continued to spin. Asked the nurse - not how long the wait was, because they CAN'T TELL YOU THAT.... but how critical I was, on the list of who gets bumped down when someone with a more serious condition comes in. I was in the middle. So I waited. Ate. Drank. Finished the quilt. Gave out more marital advice.

The tedium was occasionally punctuated by two psych patients who roamed the first floor at will. "C", a woman who looked to be somewhere between 20 and 40, was having a party. I don't know who she was talking to or dancing with, but she mostly didn't bother anyone, except if you had to get past her - that sometimes took a minute or two...

But Pyjama Man was a bit more annoying. He talked very loudly and expected people to listen to him, and if they didn't, he got in their face and talked louder. Oh, except when he was trying to pick up a woman.

Towards the end of my wait time, they wheeled in the stretcher-bound alzheimer's patients. "Doktore! I need to see DOKTORE!" yelled one unfortunate woman. Though the nurses managed to convey to her that she had to be quieter, she still yelled out every time a uniform walked by.

By this time I'd been waiting for eight hours, and as I had an appointment to get to that I'd made seven months previously, I took my chances being dizzy and left.

In the meantime, I'd figured out a pilot script for a new tv show. Medical shows abound on tv, they've long been favourites. But this one wouldn't have the doctors and nurses as the main characters - it would be the patients in the waiting room.

Because, let's face it - no one is funnier that human beings at their worst!

Shewee, or not shewee...

My stepdaughter asked, "So... why exactly did you buy this thing?"

My husband said "I'll bet your going to put this on your blog..."

Hmm. The "SheWee." Yes, it's a urination aid. Or toy. Or... or what, I'm not sure, but it brought the house down today when it arrived, and all 3 times I used it since.

The SheWee is a small plastic contraption design to allow a woman to pee standing up, theoretically without sprinkling herself, her pants, the toilet, the floor, and anything else in a 5 meter radius...

It's a blast! It's a riot! I'll never admit to this in public, but I now have just the TEENSIEST bit more sympathy for my poor beleaguered hubby, vis-a-vis, the difficulty of AIMING the damned thing!

It's actually harder than it looks! Who would have thought! You aim the thing straight, and it squirts out the side! You aim it straight, and it shoots sixteen inches forward of the mark! You aim it straight, and YAY! For once, going to the bathroom is FUN! Disconcerting, if the little thingy isn't SNUG against all those folded bits and everything pours out over everything else.... "What do I do! What do I do!" I shouted at my hubby, who was laughing too hard to answer me... However, when he caught his breath, he suggested that the next time I try it, I remove EVERYTHING south of the belly-button, just so I don't have more laundry to do... (Ah bless him, he's always thinking of me....)

Ah, how a little variety in the otherwise humdrum of life spices things up! In my defense, I will say that I WIPED UP EVERY SINGLE BIT.... 'bout time somebody ELSE learned to do that for himself! Yes, each and EVERY time I went!

I'm not quite ready to try it in a public toilet yet - one of the selling points of the little toy - but what a GAS! I can't wait to go camping now!

the travails of aging...

Oh yes, it happens to the best of us... AND the worst of us... Matter of fact, it happens to ALL of us...

We's gettin' old.

My most recent reminders of the countdown timer have been wet panties.

Coughing, sneezing, laughing, slipping on ice: all lead to the same damp conclusion. It's bad enough to flat on one's back - but it's really miserable being wet as well!

And then there's my figure. Although it's getting smaller - EVER so slowly - I'm still what "they" call a BIG GIRL. My size has dropped from double letters to a single one, but it's still a grown-woman's size...

Catching sight of myself in the mirror while dressing this morning, I made a remark in dismay concerning my size, and hubby said "Your cup runneth over?"

Yeah. All three of 'em!

Serious Silliness

Well, yesterday my pal Laszlo di something sweet for me - he lent me his DVD collection of The Black Adder. And after we had all dined, we proceeded to begin at the beginning (which I had never seen), and though everybody went home/to bed, I stayed up and watched the whole first DVD...

...and remembered who I am.

I am a seriously silly person, and it had been far too long since I'd sat down to watch something I loved. I watch stuff over and over - my favourite part of filmmaking was the editing, so seeing stuff 100 times doesn't bother me in the least!

There has been far too much drama in my life. Too much tragedy, to much suspense. A healthy dose of nonsense was just what the doctor ordered to get me back on track!

Thank you Laszlo, thank you Rowan Atkinson. With any luck, my week will be chock-full of insanity - in a good way!