Hark! The laptop has returned!

Yay, sing a song! Do a spin! Shout to the rooftops! My laptop is BACK!!!

I can blog for real again!

Let's just enjoy this a moment, shall we, this wonderful moment where I'm not trying to access all my blog functions on a tiny, bare-bones mobile app? Let's enjoy the simple pleasure of uploading a photo.

Ha! Wondrous day! Now, wait for it....

Yes!!!! Right-side alignment!Sing the praises of the heavens above!

Callooh callay! It is once again possible to embed a video! We have returned from the stone age, my darlings. (PS. It's worth the watch.)

O, glorious joy of changing my font size, colour, and style!

The world is my oyster again. And I have 32 colours to enjoy it in.

So let out a boisterous cheer and raise a pint to the techie nerds who got my darling laptop back on his feet. Huzzah, you pale, hunchbacked computer geeks. I tip my hat at your scrawny, comic-themed-shirt-clad selves. Staying indoors all those years, growing pasty and never talking to girls, was worth it all. Your sacrifice will be remembered, nerds! I thank you.

All this to say: I'm back, and I'm blogging. Maybe in bold.

Mini-post: Toronto without a skirt

Miss me? Oh, how I miss you, too. As mentioned in passing a couple of weeks ago, the household laptop is broken, making it near impossible to upload a proper blog post. My laptop's name is Darth Bleeblo (for reasons I won't bother trying to explain); Darth Bleeblo had some sort of stroke a couple weeks ago, and she's been off travelling to the laptop hospital or wherever it is that she goes when she's still under warrantee. She's giving the repair guys a run for their money, I hear: she's demanded special-order parts, and she even managed to eat her warrantee papers during shipment. All this has led to a slow recovery, and has made it virtually impossible to upload a blog post properly. But I have decided to post mini-blogs until she gets back from the shop, so you don't miss out on too much and so I don't lose my mind. Because once you get used to telling the world your stories 2-3 times per week, it's hard to shut up.

TORONTO WITH MJ 

This week I went to Toronto to see my BFF, MJ. You'll recall MJ moved to the big TO this past summer, leaving me grief-stricken and miserable, until finally I cracked and planned a trip to go see her. I am not a natural traveller, which probably is obvious for those who know about my anxiety disorder and OCD. Luckily, my plans coincided with the plans of my other BFF, Hal; so I had safe and stress-free wheels to get me there, and even a hotel room for the three of us to hide out in. 

On the first morning, MJ and I got up at the crack of dawn and quickly dressed to go outside for a smoke, trying hard not to wake up Hal. Hastily, I decided not to change out of my PJ's--little satin boxers and a tank top--but instead simply threw a stretchy wrap skirt over my bottom half, and a jacket over my top half. Feeling suitably dressed for standing on a Toronto sidewalk, we headed downstairs. 

I had to pee, but hadn't wanted to risk waking up Hal, so I told MJ to go ahead outside while I used the loo in the hotel lobby. When I finished and went to wash my hands, though, I looked in the mirror and realized that I was standing there in my tank top, jacket, and little satin boxers...no skirt. I whirled around and checked the stall to find my skirt, figuring the wrap ties had come undone: nope, no skirt there. A cold sweat broke out along my spine as I began to mentally trace my steps, trying to figure out where my skirt could have come off, and how I'd failed to notice. I spun around and around in the bathroom, hissing under my breath, "What kind of horrid nightmare is this?!" There was no way I could go out and find MJ on the street wearing tiny silk boxers, and there was no way I was going to walk back through the lobby, with all those bellboys dressed in suits.

At some point in my panicked stupor, I must have looked in the mirror again and noticed that my waistline looked a little rounder than usual. I did a double take and put my hands to my midriff; there, sure enough, was a jumbled bunching of fabric. With shaking hands, I slowly unfurled my bunched-up skirt from where it had been concealed under my bomber jacket. Clearly, I'd hitched my skirt up to pee, far enough up that it was tucked up around my waist. Covered by my jacket, it had seemed to disappear. 

I share this story because I know someone, somewhere out there, has embarrassed themselves this week, and will take heart in hearing s/he's not alone. Misery does love company.

Thanksgiving Revisited: the horror

Our computer has been in the shop all week, so it's been near-impossible to get a new post up. But what I AM able to do is share last year's Thanksgiving post with you all again--the Reader's Digest version. If you want the full, gory story, click here.

POISON POTATOES: REASONS TO BE THANKFUL (THAT I DON'T COOK FOR YOU)

Thanksgiving weekend ended up being full of adventures, many culinary. I threw myself into the deep end of the pool on Saturday: Mom’s family was getting twenty-five of us together and I volunteered to bring the sweet potatoes. To be fair, I hadn’t realized there would be twenty-five people when I volunteered, but when I found out the night before, I was brave and just bought more potatoes.

I had made mashed yams once before, a few weeks prior, when I attempted to make baked sweet potatoes. We had been visiting my parents, and eager to show them my new cooking interest, I had found a recipe online for a twice-baked sweet potato. The instructions were deceptively simple: bake, scoop out, mix ginger and raisins, bake again. What ended up happening was that after an hour in the oven, the damn things were still hard as a rock, so we threw them in the microwave and did them as ginger-raisin mashed potatoes instead. They turned out really delicious, and Mom was a great support; I was so frustrated that I couldn’t pull off this recipe that a certain famous Food Network chef thinks is sooooo easy. Mom just kept saying (and this is my advice to all of you): “Potatoes are funny things; sometimes they’ll cook in no time, and sometimes they’ll take hours. Don’t bother with that stupid recipe. Throw them in the microwave.” And her mantra for the evening, chanted at me so I wouldn’t throw the yams out the door: “It’s not YOU, it’s the potatoes.” In the end, we made a delicious dish, and I felt ready to try them again for the larger family.

Saturday morning, first thing we did was wash the potatoes. Then Brian volunteered to cut them up into smaller sections, as I was determined not to nuke my food in the microwave; we figured, cutting the potatoes into smaller portions would help them cook faster. We had talked with some tweeters the night before about just getting pre-cut potatoes, but a) I didn’t find them, and b) I figured my best bet was to follow my botched twice-baked recipe again, with the same modifications, because the end result had been great. After what happened next, I’ll tell you, I wish I had bought the stupid cut-up potatoes…

Brian cut his finger open. Even writing this out, three days later, I cringe. I left the room for two seconds and that’s when I heard his swearing. I knew what had happened. I thought I was ready for it. I ran in, saw the blood pouring out of him and the actual fear on his face…and I panicked. All my First Aid got jumbled in my head, like someone dropping a deck of playing cards. We managed to rinse the wound, sit him down, and apply pressure with a clean cloth. But every time we tried to look at it, it gushed again. What did I do? The only thing I knew how to do: I called my BFF MJ, who worked as a chef for fifteen years. I made her come over and assess the wound. She doesn’t live far, and she showed up, my hero, in mismatched pyjamas, running up the stairs. She suggested the Brian needed stitches, which Brian flat-out refused to do, so she suggested keeping an eye on it and seeing what happened. What happened was, it refused to seal itself, so we went to the pharmacy and got that 2^nd Skin stuff to seal it.

As Brian lay down for a while, looking pale and really scary, I forged on with the potatoes. I baked them for an hour, only to find they were still rock hard. I gave them another thirty minutes, and then discovered half of them had dried out. Stress and worry got the better of both of us, and Brian and I had a seriously crabby argument for no good reason while I tried to salvage the portions of potato that were either undercooked or cooked, but not dried out. I threw the resulting pulp into the microwave, feeling like a big cheater.

After that, though, the potatoes were indeed cooked and there seemed to be a pretty good yield, though maybe not enough to feed two dozen people. I mashed and stirred the potatoes, adding some (almond) milk, butter, raisins, and ginger, but it still tasted like it needed something. In a moment of inventiveness, I grabbed the maple syrup and gooshed in a large amount: perfect. They tasted great and I was satisfied. We took the bowl to dinner and ordered everyone to eat some, as there was, literally, blood, sweat, and tears in those potatoes. I received compliments, and somehow the fact that Brian was slowly bleeding to death seemed worth it. (I kid. Mostly.) There were leftovers and my mom in particular loaded up a container with them, which made me puff up with pride.

The next morning, I crawled out of bed, went to the kitchen in search of sustenance, saw the maple syrup…and realized something terrible. It was mouldy. A thick, fuzzy-gelatinous carpet of mould was floating on the top of the syrup. I think I thought it was frothiness, the day before when I used it. I don’t know how I didn’t spot it. Brian had woken up feeling a little sick, and suddenly I was terrified. I snuck into the art room, shut the door, and called Mom. When she answered, I said, “Mom, listen to me carefully. Don’t eat the potatoes.” She asked why, and I told her. She scoffed and said not to worry about it, mould wasn’t a big deal and no one was sick; why, she’d eaten a big helping of the potatoes again for breakfast! I blanched, but pretended to find that reassuring.

Author's note, one year later: no one ever did get sick off those potatoes, but this year I refused to be in charge of them. I'm making a quinoa salad, something I feel much more confident about. The whole family is coming to our house for the meal, but everything is being prepared by other people in their own kitchens. Wait...as I type this out, I suddenly wonder if maybe this is a ploy to stop me from poisoning everyone again...

Oh, well. At least I don't have to cook. Bring on the stuffing.

Flashback: Lost in the woods

Photo: Adam Pap

HAPPY HORRIBLE ANNIVERSARY

It's the anniversary  today of the day that Brian left for Calgary. Foolish boy; we'd been friends for about a year at that point, and for whatever hairbrained reason, he chose to tell me he loved me the night before he left. I don't think he expected me to say it back.

But leave he did, and I spent that first week in utter despair. I had had an entire summer with him, on the back of his bike, riding around until all hours of the night. I was addicted to motorcycles and I was missing my friend...and someone I wanted to be more. I found solace in long drives in MJ's car, chain-smoking, and angsty music. Behold, I am a teenager still. 

DRIVING INTO THE WILD

About a week after Brian left, I was out for one of my drives along the Ottawa River Parkway. I should probably mention that I was a very new driver at this time (I was older than most when I got my licence for the first time), so driving was still a novelty and my driving skills were still novice. As I approached the turn where I could either head home or head out to the Gatineau Hills, I made a snap decision: I would head to the Hills, where Brian had so often taken me up to Champlain Lookout. I would sit there, breathe the lush air of the forest, and pine for my love.

I stopped at the entrance to the Hills at a convenience store and bought a map of the area, just in case. Then I headed up into the hills, playing Arcade Fire and smoking away. I had never driven up here on my own, but as far as I could recall from the back of Brian's bike, there was just one long road winding up-up-up to the summit. Nothing to be afraid of.

YOU ARE NOWHERE.

After about twenty minutes of driving, I found myself--you guessed it--on some unfamiliar road. I pulled over when I saw a giant map, figuring I could locate myself with the handy YOU ARE HERE arrow: no luck. The map had no YOU ARE HERE arrow, and to this day I don't understand how that could be. Anyway, I pulled out my pre-purchased map and realized that I probably should have opened it first, because turns out, the Gatineau Hills are simply coloured in with green--no roads are indicated at all. I sighed and got back in my car, and headed aimlessly out. I figured I would either find my familiar piece of road, or discover that I was driving back towards home.

I was wrong.

Several kilometers of confused driving later, I finally pulled over in the parking area of an unfamiliar lookout. I picked up my phone, and dialed MJ. As she answered, and I said, "Hey, MJ; I think I'm lost," the sun sank abruptly below the tree line and I was plunged into utter forested darkness. Then my cell signal faded and dropped the call.

DARKEST AFTER THE DUSK.

The next hour is a terrified blur. I remember driving from one parking area to another, aimlessly driving to picnic areas, hiking trails, and lookouts. I remember repeatedly calling MJ back and getting about 30 seconds of airtime before the signal would fade again. She was searching a giant map of the Hills on her laptop, trying to locate me, and somehow she was always one stop behind me. She implored me to stop driving, and I finally did, tucking my car into a velvety black gravel lot where I was surrounded by trees and the only sign of civilization was a hut on the edge of the clearing. 

I hunkered down low in my car, holding my phone tightly and listening to MJ's attempts to calm me down. All I could think of was that I was lost in an ginormous uncharted national park, in the pitch black, by myself. In a shaking voice I told MJ where I was, and that I had a granola bar, a half-pack of smokes, and a bottle of water to get me through the night. MJ reassured me that I wouldn't be stuck overnight, and suddenly had a great idea: call Andrea, our police officer friend. I agreed with this plan; Andrea had been my confidante through much of my grieving for Brian, and would know exactly where I'd been trying to drive to. MJ hung up on me to call Andrea, then called back to let me know that Andrea had just got off duty, knew exactly where I was, and was headed up to save me. 

It was all over but the waiting.

But waiting is the hardest part.

As I huddled low in my seat, I looked out at the deep black forest and started to freak myself out. I'd been reading a lot of vampire and werewolf books lately--no, not Twilight--and suddenly all those silly mythical monsters didn't seem so mythical. The wood hut, in particular, seemed to be a likely hiding place for a horrible monster that would surely drag me off into the woods and devour my entrails. I faced that terrible dilemma: hide my head under my hood so I couldn't see the looming woods, thereby allowing the ghouls and goblins to sneak up to my car unnoticed; or keep peering around, maintaining a manic vigil on the forest. It was a lose-lose scenario. 

MY WHITE KNIGHT.

As my panic was just reaching its highest point, and my bladder was screaming for me to get out of the car for a pee, there were headlights lighting up the road. I recognized the silhouette of our dear, sweet, heroic Andrea in her car. She pulled up to my driver's side window in a lazy loop, rolled down her window, and in a slow drawl said, "Feeling nostalgic, were we?" 

Andrea guided me home, and I will forever be indebted to her for the rescue. I eventually admitted to Brian what I had done out of my overwhelming grief at losing him. He wasn't nearly as impressed or sympathetic as he should have been. 

I'm so very, very happy that my sweet boy came home to me. The first thing we did upon his return was head to the Gatineau Hills...with Brian navigating, of course.

Short Story: Missing MJ

Just a short post today, to tide you over...

I'm missing my bestie, MJ, today. I have a doctor's appointment and she's always my rock for these things. I found myself scrolling through my Evernote files for something interesting today, and found a few MJ quotes that I'd written down before she moved to Toronto, so that I'd have a couple little snippets of her with me all the time. Here's a couple examples of why I miss this girl so much:

JORDAN: I don't understand how dogs panting cools them.

MJ: It's their way of sweating.

JORDAN: Yeah, but when a person sweats, the wind dries the sweat and that's what cools them.

MJ: So maybe the wind is cooling his tongue.

JORDAN: Well then why not just hang it out? Why all the panting?

MJ: Cuz it's hard work.

......

MJ [AFTER SITTING IN SILENCE WITH ME FOR NEARLY 20 MINUTES]: 

I would buy the cow. Even if I got the milk for free.

......

MJ [AT HER MOVING SALE, WHERE NO ONE STOPPED TO BUY ANYTHING]:

Why is no one buying my stuff? People always say how cool my stuff is when they come over. [SHOUTING TO ALL]: Well, now you can own a piece of the legacy! 

......

For everyone out there missing a sister, best friend, companion, etc., I feel for you. We should make a group. It would be depressing, but I'd bring brownies.

The NEST in NS: Hitting the vacation 'wall'.

HITTING THE 'WALL'

There comes a point in every trip a traveller makes where the glamour wears off and you just want to go home. Marathon runners call this ‘the wall’: the point where your physical self says ‘No’, while your brain has to persevere and say, ‘Yes’. I hit my wall on Tuesday on this trip, and I suspect you’ll quite easily see why.

EATEN ALIVE

First brick in the wall was the mosquito bites. I don’t know what kind of German-swim-team steroids it is that Nova Scotia is feeding to their mosquitos, but these suckers swarm like plagues of locusts, and can apparently eat you through your clothes. After Monday night’s bonfire, where I sat for several hours perched on the bare metal frame of a patio chair, I had 28 mosquito bites on my backside. Despite my jeans, those suckers had managed to pierce my skin over two-dozen times on my ass and upper thighs. I showed Brian, and even Mr Unshakable bellowed out a curse. He hadn’t even yet noticed the grape-sized bites on my jugular, temples, and knees. I thought about my friend Graham, who is a tree planter in British Columbia and who is routinely savaged by bat-sized bugs…and I determined that my mosquito trauma is worse, because Graham is at least dressed for battle, whereas I brought cute little sundresses.

Swollen foot. Sad!

THE DEER FLY-EATEN FOOT 

The second brick was the deer fly bite. Deer flies, for those who haven’t experienced these devils, are giant flies that actually bite a piece of you off; they make mosquitos look like benevolent pixies and mosquito bites look like freckles. I used to get bitten by these monsters all the time as a kid at our campground, but I haven’t had a run-in in many years; turns out, my body has developed some sort of hate-on for the suckers. I learned this when I swatted one, mid-bite, off the top of my foot, then watched in horror as my foot swelled up enormously until I couldn’t wiggle my toes. Aside from the pain, which was akin to the feeling of a black eye except in my foot, there was also this terrible tingling as my body fought the anti-coagulant chemical that the fly had spat into the wound. I hobbled around for the next two days, and here on day three, it’s now half as swollen but ten times as itchy.

THE YOGA GAUNTLET

The boys, heckling and totally NOT exercising.

These discomforts drove me to seek out a pleasant afternoon activity, so I changed into workout clothes, grabbed my yoga mat, and went out into the field behind the cottage for a good round of yoga. This, my friends, was the final brick in that wall of mine. As I began my asanas, my brother, brother-in-law, Brian, and the foreign exchange student all sat on lawn chairs drinking beer and watching me. After a while, my mother came to sit, as well. I kept my focus as best I could, until Dad came out with the dogs. Two of the pups became wildly alarmed by my poses and began circling me and barking. I stopped my routine and calmed them down, and returned to my mat just in time to see my dad coming up to me with my other yoga mat. He laid it down and we all stared in shock as we thought he was about to join me…when he pulled out his remote-controlled helicopter, and began using my mat as a helipad.

You want to test your ability to stay focused in a yoga routine? Try to bend yourself into a downward-facing dog while hearing the angry whirring of chopper blades as they slice the air just a few feet away from you.

The kite, mocking me.

At this point, the rest of the family became inspired to start an activity as well. I watched in dumbfounded awe as my brother picked up a boomerang and began learning how to use it just a few meters away from where I was. Brian and Jed grabbed—I kid you not—a croquet set, and designed a route that encircled my yoga area. Yeah, because there’s nothing as relaxing as trying to do a pigeon pose while rock-hard balls ricochet across the lawn around you. Then somebody unfurled a hideous yellow kite sporting a grin and a pair of sunglasses, and that mocked me from the sky as I performed my warrior poses.

Within ten minutes of me beginning my yoga, my entire family had armed themselves with clubs, balls, canines, motorized blade-wielding toys, and a kite string to finish me off like a garrotte, if all else failed. I lay on my back in resting pose and stared up into the mocking face of the yellow kite, and fumed a bit.

Eventually, I found my calm place and finished my routine. It was surreal to be deep-breathing and performing these slow, smooth motions in the midst of utter anarchy. Once I got my second wind, much like the marathon runner, I felt better and moved past my vacation 'wall'. I rolled up my mat and added to the familial cacophony by pulling out my guitar and trying to learn a new song. Because if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. 

SO FAR, SO GOOD...

I survived demon mosquitos, an anaphylactic foot caused by deer fly, and my family. I had pushed past my ‘wall’, and was ready for more vacation. Of course, I didn’t know what PEI had in store for us the next day…

The Return of the Bats: Bat-tle Royale continues

THE FIP-FIP-FIP OF BATWINGS

source: Cdn Museum of Nature

 We really had hoped that the bats were gone after that miserable night of chasing them around the house and attempting to bat (ha) them out the window. For those of you with bat encounters of your own, however, you probably know what happened next.

Around dusk the following night, we returned home after visiting my parents, and heard the ominous fip-fip-fip of a pair of leathery batwings. Sure enough, one of the flying rats was still inside our house, flying around the living room. Brian seemed hellbent on dealing with this problem once and for all. He pulled he screen out of the window and gave it to me to use as a barricade so the bat couldn't escape the living room. I then watched him crouch on the floor with a squash racquet in his hand, which he began waving at the bat every time its panicked flight took it further away from the wide-open window. For what felt like a lifetime, Brian huddled by the sofa and waved his racquet menacingly at the bat, until finally...it disappeared. A twenty minute search of every nook and cranny--examined by pulling apart my entire living room--resulted in Brian finding the creature inside the handmade birdhouse his uncle had made as a wedding gift. If that image isn't sufficiently Bugs Bunny enough for you, imagine what it looked like when the bat flew out of its hiding place and took Brian on a merry chase around the room where, by leaping after the bat, Brian succeeded in breaking a leg off the sofa and knocking a painting off the wall.

Eventually the bat landed, exhausted, on my shelf of knicknacks. Brian ran upstairs to get a shoebox, and I watched the beast crawl on its weird wing-arms over top of my Red Rose tea figurines and my rock collection. The window screen slid in my sweaty hands, and when I went to adjust it, I knocked something off the wall by my hand. Hopped up on adrenaline, I managed to catch the thing: turns out, it was the big black crucifix my friend had brought me back from Ireland. I stood there with my mesh shield and my giant crucifix clutched in my hand like this five-inch-long bat was a vampire I was warding off.

Brian eventually managed to scrape the bat off the shelf and into a shoebox, which he then shook out into the night air. I told him I would have thrown the whole damn shoebox right out the window, but a half-hour later, when Bat Two made a reappearance, I was glad he still had it. In the dining room this time, Brian crouched on the floor near the window, waiting for his chance to pounce. The bat sensed his presence near the window, though, so it kept bombing the window screen I was holding, latching onto it, and trying to find a way through, ostensibly to eat out my eyeballs. My hooting Beaker-from-the-Muppets scream punctuated the night as the creature battered itself against my barricade. 

Artists' conception. Sorta. The teeth
aren't big enough.

Brian eventually caught the monster and threw it out the window to join its ugly friend. The bat specialists who arrived the next day (as well as the public health nurse we talked to about rabies) both called Brian a modern-day hero. I do, too, though I have a small bone to pick with him. You see, when Brian caught Bat One in the shoebox, the flying monkey was really peeved off. It started making angry bat-swearing sounds, which sound a bit like tiny rusty gears being turned. After the furor died down with Bat Two, I turned to Brian and asked him if he recognized the angry bat sound we'd heard, and he said no...until I reminded him that four days earlier, we had heard the sound in our bedroom, and Brian had said it was a cricket. You see, this means that the bats were in our room for four whole days. 

I'm glad they're gone, and that the pros came to seal up the holes in the roof. But I've memorrized that creaking angry bat sound, and if I ever hear it again, I'm throwing a towel over my hair and heading straight to Mom and Dad's. Cricket, my arse.

Short Story: the Hepburn-Islam mashup

Katharine Hepburn makes everything look classy.
Hell, she's using a saucer in the CAR.

I have begun blogging these short stories because my BFF is moving away; an  explanation is here.   

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY

It's been raining a lot in Ottawa. I've been looking for my umbrella around the house but it's just not showing up. In my teens, I never carried an umbrella because I felt they were hazardous eye-poking devices, and I hated the awkward social courtesy expected when walking with an umbrella-less friend: how I'm supposed to squeeze our heads under that tiny shelter, without poking out anyone's eye, I don't know. But now that I'm older and no longer sporting the 'Corey Hart wet look' hairstyle that was pretty much rain-proof, I'm ready for an umbrella. The risk of eyeball injury is apparently less distressing than walking around with flattened hair all day.

Nonetheless, the single dollar store umbrella we used to own seems to have wandered off (Mary Poppins, I presume, is behind it), and so this week I attempted to pull off the Katharine Hepburn in-a-convertible look: I took one of my big shawl-shaped scarves, draped it over my head, swished it around my neck, and strode out of the house. 

It worked for keeping off the rain, but as the bus stopped in front of me and I got a good look at myself, I realized I looked nothing like Ms Hepburn. With a particularly modest floor-length skirt on today, plus my also modest long rainproof coat, I looked eerily similar to the Muslim women I used to counsel in my old job. In fact, I know this is how I looked because when I got on the bus, the driver and passengers, now familiar with me after weeks of travel together, looked at me with raised eyebrows, as if to say, 'Well that was a quick change in your life journey, considering yesterday, you were wearing an outfit similar to Britney spears circa 'hit me baby one more time'.'

THE KEYPAD MOLESTATION

source

Adding to my absurdity, I got to work and one of my workplace rituals played out, as it does every morning: the keypad molestation. Every day I get to work and realize my magnetic key card is in a pocket or bag on my person, but I'm unsure of location. Our keypads are fairly sensitive, so I can usually get it to acknowledge my card through a couple layers of fabric. So instead of dropping all my bags and my coffee, I begin rubbing various pockets up against the keypad. The result is that I appear to be giving the keypad some sort of vertical lap dance, rubbing my hips, butt, and boobs up against it. Somewhere along the way, the keypad will decide I've been demeaned enough, and it will happily beep me through. But I guarantee you, this is only after several VIP's have walked by me, and maybe a tour group or two.

I'm learning to accept that the only time anyone is going to mistake me at work for a cast member of Sex In The City is if the show comes back and does an episode where Carrie converts to Islam, loses her mind, and starts rubbing herself all over walls.

Bats in the attic: not always a metaphor.

source

PROLOGUE 

Several years ago, Bryan Singer's Batman: the Dark Knight came out, and I found a favourite quote: Why do we fall down? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again. I use this quote a lot, and my Bestie MJ finally had enough one day; she was telling me about a tough experience at work, and when I said, 'Why do we fall?', she looked at me with distrustful eyes and said, 'So the bats can get in our hair!' Remember this for later. 

4:00AM: BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS...

I am awakened by the sounds of our pug, Mr Darcy, scrambling around on the floor. Figuring he's having a seizure, I spring up in bed and blearily peer over at him. It takes me a few seconds to realize that he's attacking something...something that has escaped him and is now flying around the ceiling fan.

The Something has brought a friend, I see, as my foggy vision makes out not one, but two giant angry bats. They spin wildly around the room, endlessly following the blades of the spinning ceiling fan. Like some terrible Tim Burton mobile. 

source: Cdn Museum of Nature

I must have started screaming, because Brian is up in a flash, but still confused. He decides to stand up even though I'm screaming at him to duck. Me, I slither off the bed like a snake, and begin walking like a chimp on all fours towards the stairs to the first floor. Brian eventually catches on as the two big bats whiz past his head, and he shouts for me to go downstairs, which I'm already doing, sticking as low to the ground as I can in a crab walk position on a steep incline. 

4:10AM: THE BATTLE ENSUES

When I get downstairs, I lock myself in the bathroom, and it's only then that I realize I've left the love of my life to fend off two crow-sized bats. It occurs to me that neither of us knows how to deal with this. I open the bathroom door a crack to check on Bri, hollering that I'd like to know what the plan is. When I don't get a response, I step out of the bathroom and stand at the bottom of the bedroom stairs, where I shout, 'Don’t you let those bats touch you, or we will make you get a rabies vaccine!' Of course, this is when Bat One, confused and maybe mistaking my shrill voice as one of his kin, flies directly into me.  

source: Cdn Museum of Nature

The creature bounces off my forearm and ricochets into the living room. I scream one long, high note reminiscent of Beaker from the muppet show, and furiously scrub at my arm. Now YOU have to get a rabies shot, says my brain, and I start to yell to Brian that I need to go to the doctor. He runs downstairs, reassures me that the bat hasn’t given me rabies by running into me, and then heads off to deal with the bats, which have regrouped in the living room. I can’t figure out where to go, so I keep wandering back and forth, crouched close to the ground, wondering what Brian is going to do. Full panic has set in and I keep looking at my arm for signs of scratches. One of the bats dips out of the living room and straight into my previous refuge in the bathroom. I drop flat to the floor in the hallway, grab a towel out of the laundry, and throw it over myself; crouched in a corner, I call my parents.

Mom answers the phone. She’s actually up with a touch of insomnia, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Sobbing, I tell her, “There are two bats in my house, and one of them touched me!” She sounds surprised and amused, but keeps her cool and gives me directions for Brian: get a towel or blanket to throw over the beasts. At this point I start laughing as I say, “Mom...oh my god...there are literally bats in my attic.” She laughs heartily at this. Mr Darcy finds me in my towel fortress and curls up in my lap like a cat, presumably  to better protect me, or maybe to secure the best view from which to watch my breakdown.

 4:25AM: HATS FOR BATS

Brian informs us that one of the bats seems to have left through the patio door—at least, he assumes so because it’s disappeared and the door was open. I’m more skeptical. He heads into the bathroom with his blanket-cum-net, and I fill Mom in on the whole story. I hear Dad wake up on the other end of the line, just as Brian comes out of the bathroom and says that Bat Two has also disappeared. Dad shouts out ideas of where the bat may be hiding, but all come up empty. He suggests looking for a tiny tuxedo left behind, a la Dracula.

source

We surmise the beast must have escaped back into the house through the giant gap in the bathroom door frame, and then must have escaped through a window. Again, I’m dubious. We close the windows and Brian shuts the door to every room as we climb back into bed.  

4:45AM: REST FOR THE WICKED

I reluctantly lay down, but absolutely insist on wearing a hat. My brain, shocked and exhausted, just keeps repeating one thing over and over: 

“Why do we fall?”

“So the bats can get in our hair.”

Short Story: Dad learns of The Bloggess

I have begun blogging very short stories because my BFF is moving away; explanation is here. 

I started reading the new novel by Jenny Lawson (aka the Bloggess) the other day, and it's so funny that I keep telling people stories fom it. I was describing Jenny to my dad and told him about Jenny's obsession with antique taxidermied animals, and he got all riled up; apparently antique dead animals have all sorts of carcinogens going on, though I can't remember what type. He said that the museum he works at has a HazMat team handle those things, and that I should warn Jenny not to touch them anymore. I tried to explain that Jenny's dad was a taxidermist and probably knew this stuff, and also that Jenny Lawson is a big deal and I don't know her, nor do I think we're ever going to be engaged in casual chat where I can warn her about her cancer risks. But I guess it's a bit like when people ask a Canadian if they know Steve or Joe...that assumption that we all know each other, right? Apparently in my dad's eyes, all us bloggers meet up at our blogger gentleman's club and drink sherry. Anyway, Jenny, if you ARE out there somewhere, my dad thinks you're a comedic genius and would like you to watch out for your health.

Friday with Jordan: random rambling

Fridays are usually Brian's day to post, but he's working at the Ottawa Comicon, so his brain is set to stun. (Trekkies are laughing.) That's okay, because I have started writing on the bus, which means that I'm producing more writing than I can post the rest of the week. Consider this like the bonus footage on the DVD.

WORKSPACE THAT FITS MY HEADSPACE  

I was surfing the net the other day (why does that sound antiquated?), when I came across a local company that had the most intriguing 'we're hiring' page ever. They promised catered meals, open workspaces, and freedom with your schedule. They talked about fostering creativity by letting you do your job, your way. While I love my job I’m in right now, I'd be lying if I didn't find myself wishing I could work at this other place. A few days after seeing their site, I actually drove past this business and saw that the staff had been drawing foolishness on the windows. I sighed in utter envy.

I’ve worked in offices before, but my new one is definitely the most formal and structured. It’s a bit of culture shock, and I’m learning to adjust. But seeing this local biz, I found myself thinking, what would be my ideal workspace?

Naturally, my first thought was of a blanket fort. Yes, that is my natural first thought, and I’d argue it should have been yours, as well. Actually, maybe more of a pillow fort. I would drape my workspace in sheets ‘til it resembled one of those gypsy tents in the movies. I would sit on the floor in a nest of pillows and play music softly on my laptop. People who want to talk to me would have to knock, or maybe ring a little bell, take off their shoes, then come in—just for the theatrics. I would have incandescent bulbs, not fluorescent headache-makers, and strings of led fairy lights.

WORK CLOTHES VS. CLOTHES THAT WORK

Of course, wardrobe would have to change, because curling up cross-legged in polyester pantsuits is just awful. There have been studies on the effect of wardrobe in group settings, and the reality is that any sort of uniform--this includes business suits--are meant to psychologically set people into certain cognitive-behavioural patterns. Business attire is formal, standardized, conformist, modest. Studies show that this will affect your behavior for the time you're dressed in such a way. I find myself missing the creativity I would show each morning, in previous jobs, where I'd put together a funky and unique outfit each morning, one befitting my mood and projects for the day. In jobs with wardrobe freedom, it was like I was priming my imagination each morning for a more improvisational, artistic headspace. Naturally, as a marketer/writer/social media person, this is a good thing.

CREATING A BUBBLE

As for open-concept workspaces, well, I haven't had a ton of love for them in my career; but I'm an introvert when I'm working (read this article or this one about the power of introverts) and my jobs haven't generally allowed for introverted time. In a past job, I worked in one of these trendy multi-organizational offices where there are four people slotted into one four-person cubicle, which is supposed to foster connectivity and collaboration (despite thestudies that say they're actually failing). My opinion on why this is failing: it’s the deterrent to personalization. One of the cubicle 'pods' was made up of a team that decorated with plush animals and goofy knickknacks, and they seemed happy in their space. Meanwhile, I placed my 6-inch-tall Tokidoki tiger balanced on top of my cubicle wall, and I was promptly told that, while my desk was my personal space, no one was prepared to accept that the airspace ABOVE my cubicle was also my space. My tiger came down, and I realized I was pretty much stuck in an invisible mime box. What if my head came up over the fuzzy partitions? What happened if I stood up while filing stuff? 

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM WITH ME

But imagining my dream space...well, it doesn’t have to be an entire fort. My desk would sit near-ish a window, close enough that I can throw some cushions into the window bay, drag my laptop over, and work in a sunbeam. On rough days, I would pull my Tarepanda stuffie down under my desk, where I will have made a piecemeal chair out of pillows and probably strung my fairy lights. I'd have a huge whiteboard to myself for all my organizational post-its and my sudden dry erase marker scribblings. On this particular day maybe I've worn my ninja cupcake tee, and a pair of the striped rainbow knee socks I still keep from my roller derby days. I wore Converse on the commute but I've changed into bunny slippers because when my feet are cold I can't focus. I take a break in the afternoon to go buy a new mug, then I have a ‘lightbulb moment’ on York Street, so I stop on a bench and write it out.

I’m not sure I can convince my officemates that this is an ideal setup and dresscode, but I was thinking on Monday I might just wear my ninja cupcake shirt under my suit jacket. A tiny nod to my creative spirit, who’s struggling to fit into her current digs.