Well, Here I Am

 In my big empty house (well, there's a husband around here somewhere), because apparently it's not MATURE to expect your kids to just HANG AROUND FOREVER just because they're funny and nice and you like being with them and they, like, CAME OUT OF YOUR BODY or whatever, but I'm supposed to let them GROW and BE FREE and FIND THEIR OWN PATH and shit. I have to LIVE MY OWN LIFE now or some crap along those lines. 

Hmph.

We moved Eve in last Wednesday and stayed until Saturday. Her residence is new and beautiful and, in a hilarious turn of events, absolutely dwarfs the puny residence Matt and I lived and met and felt like hot shit in, which is right next to it. I thought I took a picture illustrating the difference, but I guess I was too bowled over by the big res. 

Her room is wonderful, which is just such a gift, because she loves her room at home and it's her sanctuary and it was so hard to leave it, and the fact that she could kind of recreate that will really help. I went to McMaster and roomed with my best friend and my boyfriend lived upstairs, so it didn't matter that the room was crappy and small, I was fine. She's in a single with a bathroom that she shares with the girl in the single on the other side, who is absolutely lovely - they had connected online beforehand, and she literally came in (through the bathroom, which is always going to be a little bit funny to me) and said "do you want to go to dinner with me and a bunch of people I made friends with?" Then she came the next morning to take Eve over to the cafeteria for breakfast EVEN THOUGH she had already been to breakfast. She's like a Perfect Suitemate from Central Casting and I love her.

So we moved her in and got the bed made and some stuff unpacked, and then we went to dinner with our friends whose daughter is basically the one other person Eve knows at Mac, but hasn't seen since they were both nine. It's kind of a funny story - Elaine and I met in my friend's playgroup which was a group of women who had all met in childbirth class. We knew each other for a few months and then at a birthday party we were at either end of a long yard and our husbands were looking at each other going "wait, I know him, why is he here?" and Elaine and I were going "hell if I know, he's my friend's husband" and it turned out they had gone to a high school semester at the Ontario Science School in this program for weird smart science people. Eve and Holly haven't changed that much in the intervening years, but they're in difference residences so they can't go to each other's rooms at this point.

The next day we picked up Eve to shop for last-minute hardware and school stuff and snacks and then she snuck us back up to her room to put some stuff together and hang pictures. 

Then we went to dinner at Matt's brother's place - both the brother and his lovely wife are doctors who are actually on faculty at McMaster (yes, she is definitely surrounded by family and friends who will be there at a moment's notice if she needs anything, THIS STILL SUCKS FOR ME). My niece Lydia is a red-headed firecracker who frequently looks like she's plotting the downfall of her enemies and I adore her. We hadn't seen Mitchell since he was a baby (stupid Covid) and he is a delightfully giggly little force of nature. 

Friday we went back and walked around campus so Eve could find the building where her in-person class is and we could show her the places we spent most of our time when we were there. Some places were instantly familiar and some were a complete blank for the first few moments, which was extremely disconcerting. It was disorienting being there as a parent after only ever being there as a student. 

Matt's library (H.G. Thode - Science library)

My library (Mills Memorial - Arts library)

Once you get in past the ring of residences, the inner campus is a beautiful layout of old buildings and grassy paths. Eve said "wow, I feel like Rory Gilmore before she turned into an asshole".

 

As we were approaching the back of our old residence, she said "omg, there's a group of people playing soccer on the grass. It's literally like a brochure. Are all the races represented? Yep, it checks all the boxes!" 

On a sunny day, all the campus pictures look like brochure shots

Saturday we picked her up and drove into Westdale, the little town around the university, and had tea at a little cafe. Then we dropped her off and had lunch with Matt's former supervisor who is still at the university - we had seen my former professor at her cottage in Thunder Bay when we were there for the memorial, so this closed the loop. He and his wife live in a pretty little town a few minutes away from the university, where they both work, which is one of my dream alternate lives. I loved my time in university, but I did realize at a point during my master's that, as much as I love literature, I didn't really want to be a professor, so as much as I like to imagine walking around campus as an adult like I belong there, I'm okay passing that baton to my daughter. 

So that's what happened, and I'm just going to leave it there without getting into how I FEEL about what happened for now. As for my other child, he did text at one point "enough with the McMaster mumbo-jumbo, I'm FINE, thanks for asking!" So that's good. 

Partings of Various Descriptions

 We are back from Thunder Bay and I have spent a couple of days just reading and trying to survive the heat. First of all, I want to thank Tudor (HI TUDOR) for her wise and helpful suggestions on my last post, both of which I am following immediately. I also want to thank Pat for telling me I will stop being sad - even if it feels wholly untrue, it is the kind of thing that is good to hear. And everyone else for sympathy and commiseration. I talked to Jody (HI JODY) as she drove home from Montreal after dropping off Davis at McGill and, well, there was snot in copious and bountiful amounts.

Eve's BFF since day one of JK was supposed to fly to Vancouver (many provinces away) on Thursday with her family to get settled in for a week or so before starting drama school. We dropped Eve off on the way home from the airport near midnight, with her suitcase, so she could join the good-bye party when we landed and Eve turned her phone back on, her friends had sent a picture of the plane flying over Marianna's house and the friends screaming up at the sky.) There was Netflix-watching and carousing and laughter and screaming and very little sleep, with souvlaki. And then the flight got cancelled. So then Marianna was there for Davis's goodbye party which, refer back to the carousing and screaming and very little sleep, with shawarma, which got sent home with Marianna because her mom had cleaned out the fridge and sent all the souvlaki home with other people and then they were delayed for three days with zero food in the house. Then there was one more good-bye party for Marianna, and then she actually got on a plane that actually left today, which is good because they are all punchy from lack of sleep and if there was any more good-bye partying they might lose the ability to be friends anymore (Eve: "this one wasn't even sad. She's overstayed her welcome, it's time to go.")

Leavin' on a jet plane. Maybe.

Barb's memorial was pretty much everything we wanted, which meant it was a wonderful family reunion that she would have very much enjoyed attending - so yeah, it was everything we wanted minus the person being dead. There were funny stories and lovely poems and many tears and a lot of laughs, and a truly prodigious amount of Chinese food (plus Bill said he needed a Brinks truck for his payment for the alcohol).

After the interment, the daughters and granddaughters were supposed to go through the closet in the spare room full of Barb's wraps and purses and clothing. This initially sounded kind of distasteful to me in a 'casting lots for the clothing' way, but it ended up being a really lovely thing - everything reminded us so much of her even while much of it was perfect for someone else, so it felt like she had picked things out for us unconsciously. Stuff that looked perfect on short, white-haired Barb inexplicably also looked like it was made for tall, svelte, red-haired Sam (HI SAM), which was weird and wonderful. I was very happy with my Coach wallet and scarlet Roots bag, but then I pulled a pair of Chapters fleecy reading socks from a bottom drawer and started laughing because this was the one item of clothing that would fit me. Then I said "oh shit, I wonder if I bought her these and she never used them (the tag was still on)" and Sam said slightly disconsolately "no, that was me", and I would have felt bad for her, but like I said, tall, gorgeous, red-haired, once cooked for Lady Gaga, she'll be okay. Eve found a dress that she wore to the memorial next day.

Now we're in a breakneck countdown to both kids leaving for school. Eve and I hit a couple of stores yesterday and got most of the stuff she needs for her room. She commented on how weird it is trying to gather up all the stuff that you usually have all over your whole house and then picturing finding space for all of it in a single room. Angus said we should watch a movie tonight and picked Stillwater - I went in blind, and was startled by the fact that it seemed to be loosely (VERY loosely, like attached in the least secure manner ever) based on the Amanda Knox story. I actually thought it was a really good movie, references to the real world aside, and we also enjoyed looking up the similarities to the actual case afterwards and coming across statements such as "the movie keeps some details but adds a hot French lady and Matt Damon in MAGA drag". 

The last couple of weeks have been a strange whirlwind. Gathering with more people than I have in a year and a half. Mourning and rejoicing. Hugging Marianna good-bye once and then twice and then for the third and final time. Crying in the car. Crying in the grocery store. Hearing Matt Damon say "ma'am" a whole bunch of times. Seeing Eve having dinner with Davis in the McGill cafeteria on Facetime. Crying at the bakery (goddammit, those bakery people are SO  nice, and that is NOT WHAT I NEED RIGHT NOW). The circle of life is literally smacking me in the face right now, and because it's a circle that means it smacks me OVER and OVER and OVER again. An oblong or rectangle of life would probably feel less violent. 

We got upgraded on the last leg of our flight, because of Matt's status (he flies a bajillion miles for work in a normal year, he figures they got a ping that he was flying again and said "whoo-hoo, this guy is worth fifty grand a year!") and probably because they wanted to fit more standby people in. The flight was only 45 minutes, but was delayed significantly waiting for people from other flights, and waiting in our twenty-five-percent bigger seats with fancy snacks did not suck. Angus and Eve sat together a few rows ahead of us, and I will leave you with Angus's contribution to the group text, because it is funny and no matter how sad I am I have a pathological need to end on a laugh. 

Raging Against the Dying of the Light and Various Other Things

 I keep trying to put off blogging until I feel like I can be funny again. I do not feel like I can be funny again. My mother-in-law's memorial is next week-end and we're going to Thunder Bay and I keep feeling like we're going to visit her, and then remembering she's not going to be there. We've been going through pictures for a slideshow which is a really great way to remember how much we loved her and how much it sucks that she's dead. I recognize that it is a gift that I had a mother-in-law who was such a great friend. I'm happy that we will be together with people who also miss her after we've all spent the year grieving separately. It's just all kinds of wrong that we buried her mother at 95 just a couple of years before we lost her at barely 70 (which sounds churlish, in a way - 70 would have sounded like a perfectly fortunate crack at life when I was younger. We want too much. We are given an embarrassment of riches and we still want more. In some ways it seems like the only way to human.)

Eve snoozing on Nana Barb

Also, Eve is moving almost five hours away to university on September first. I went almost five hours away to university also (the same university, which has not stopped being weird). I always expected I would and I sort of expected that my kids would too. Now that I am faced with the unforgiving reality of the situation, I have morphed unwillingly into a massive, inescapable, mortifying cliché. I am bereft. I am heartbroken. I am rending garments and howling into the void - metaphorically, I mean. In reality I am mostly sitting staring into space wondering if this is the part of my life where I just sit very still until I wither away into some powdery substance and blow away on the passing wind. 

Do you get it? Nicole and Hannah will get it, if no one else does

I was drawn unwillingly into scrapbooking quite a few years ago. Once I got into it it was addictive, though, and I loved it, but I was doing it on the dining room table and that whole corner of the table and room was getting increasingly paper-strewn and cluttered. So I moved everything downstairs where there's a table and a set of shelves I could put everything on. But I didn't like having to go down to the basement to do it, and then Angus moved his bedroom down there, so I felt like I was disturbing him. Once I had the fleeting though "well when he leaves for university I'll have the basement to myself again" and immediately I was stricken and sad and hated the thought of selecting and displaying pictures of my sweet-faced goofy kids while said kids were fully grown and fled, and I thought fuck that, I'll just never scrapbook again. (To be perfectly honest, there was also a moment in the show Dexter that inexplicably took the wind out of my enthusiastic cropping and dry-embossing sails: Dexter's hard-boiled sister Deb crosses paths with another cop who tells her that she should get a hobby outside of policing, like maybe scrapbooking, which is described as "the tradition of putting photos and memorabilia into family keepsake albums, with relevant journaling". Which, I mean, that's exactly what it was, and yet the bald description of it somehow made me feel like a giant schmo (Shut UP, Other Cop, it's a way of expressing CREATIVITY and INDIVIDUALITY. Later on Deb takes down a perp and yells "I'm a cop! That's all I need! I'm not going to do any fucking scrapbooking!" and it's very funny but somehow made me question all my life and Innovative Layout choices.) Anyone want 900 sheets of acid-free paper and some flower stickers?

Similarly, last night I was reading a paper book instead of an ebook and I opened my bedside table drawer to grab a bookmark and was reminded that last time I started on one of my cleaning-and-organizing tears, which are effective (if a little frightening) but never last quite long enough, I stopped just before cleaning out my bedside table drawer, which really, really needs to be cleaned out. "After Eve is gone I'll have time to get to that" was my first thought, closely followed by "I DON'T WANT A FUCKING CLEAN AND WELL-ORGANIZED HOUSE THAT MY CHILDREN DON'T LIVE IN, I WANT TO LIVE IN SQUALOR WHILE COMPLAINING THAT MY KIDS WON'T LEAVE". It's a pretty well-acknowledged fact in our immediate friend group that I coddle my kids the most, and yet they're the only ones going away to university. How did those other assholes managed to co-dependent their kids into living at home for school and mine are swanning off into a world that I have left them ill-equipped to deal with? Angus has managed insultingly well, all things considered. Hmph.

This is usually the part (I think) where I say "it's okay". And of course, it is a little bit okay. And a lot not okay, and (ah fuck) that's okay. People are going to die and we're going to be sad about that. Kids should leave home eventually, and it's probably good that I'm not rejoicing over it. This is where I am in my life right now and there's no way out but through. 

I did absolutely kick ass going head to head with a Facebook fat-shaming troll last week, so when I feel like being funny again I'll tell you about that. 

(Unspecified Adjective) Thursday

 Oh look, it's Thursday again. I'm less surly than concerned about my mental health right now, but Terrified-of-Spiraling-into-Numbness-and-Despair Thursday doesn't have the same ring. 

I AM surly about the heaping helping of misogyny coming across my social media feeds right now (and always, but the last few days have featured some banner entries). First, Simone Biles withdrawing from the Olympic finals because her mental health was endangering her well-being, and being accused by many people of 'being a quitter', 'not persevering', 'proving that the new generation is weaker', 'taking a spot that someone else would have loved', etc. etc.

The fact that a lot of people criticizing her are pasty white men who could barely walk around the block probably fits some definition of irony, but it's not really relevant to me - I don't like criticizing people based on their looks even if they're worthless tools, and some of the criticism is actually coming from other athletes. The fact is that no one has one iota of justification for opining on why, or if, Simone Biles deserves to walk away. She has given unceasingly to a sport and a country that failed to protect her. She has reached pinnacles of achievement most people can only dream of. Does anybody really think that it was an easy decision to walk away at that point? Well, yes, stupid people steeped in a bubbling, fetid stew of toxic masculinity and American individualism (which is ironic again because somehow the American people think that Biles OWES them a gold medal - I mean, go flip over a fucking bench yourself if you're so proud and self-reliant). 

Someone showed Piers Morgan defending a British football player over mental health struggles, paired with his denigration of Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles over the same issue. Gee, what could the difference possibly be?

Hard on the heels of this was the news that Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney for releasing Black Widow to streaming and theatres at the same time. This wasn't in her contract, which tied her pay to the box office earnings. She tried to renegotiate when she found out what they were doing and Disney refused.

A quick Google search shows that Scarlett Johansson's net worth is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 156 million. Am I a big fan of people having millions of dollars while other people don't have enough to live on? Nope. Do I think the income equality in our society is a big problem that needs serious attention? Yep. Do I agree with the people on social media screeching "ffs, how much money does Scarlett Johansson even NEED, she wants people to go to the theatre and DIE just so she can have MORE MONEY?" No I do not. 

It was a fucking contract, people. Anyone saying "she has enough money, this is a non-issue" while not also laying into Disney for being slimy bad-faith negotiators and counting on the fact that she can't stand up to them is not making the virtuous point they think they are. I also have trouble imagining that the tone would be the same if the actor in question was, say, Robert Downey Jr. 

Finally, some guy that Eve and her BFF were in English with a few years ago unfollowed all their S.M. accounts and when the friend asked him why he said "I unfollowed all the girls who were getting too political". Not that it really matters, but 'political' in this case basically means 'saying maybe don't be shitty to gay or non-white people". So they said, oh, kk, fuck off then.

So everybody sucks and I am angry and I need a social media break again. So I told Eve I'd take her shopping and told her she could bring a friend and she said "A friend?" and I said "yeah, obviously you have to bring all of them. And two of them wore adorable matching overalls, and they all carried the friend who is in Texas around on Facetime and we had her try on outfits and enormous scrunchies. 

 

I went outside to wait for them at one point and saw these mannequins

When they came out, all I had to do was point at the mannequins and they knew exactly what to do.

Are they not amazing? Davis did the ankle thing even!

Someone in one of the stores told Jackson and Alison they looked really cute and they said "our crazy mom made us dress the same". And then the person looked at me like I was the crazy mom (of four children the same age and one who lives in a telephone). Whatever, I owned it.

On the way home a couple of the girls were talking about trying to make their (ex)-boyfriends watch movies that were important to them: "We were watching The Princess Bride and he kept trying to kiss me and I was like 'WE'RE NOT HERE TO MAKE OUT, I'M TRYING TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING THAT IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE CULTURAL LEXICON"; "I tried to watch Whiplash with him so he could see what it's like being a drummer but he just (redacted)."

Boys are dumb. Misogyny sucks. My weird children are awesome. That's all I got for now. 

Surly Thursday, Midsummer Edition

 I just posted yesterday, but I just realized it's Thursday (it is Thursday, right? Time has lost all meaning), and I just now saw something else that made me angry and realized that I have been VERY ANGRY this week, so maybe this is a good way to siphon off some of that rage.

Of course, now that I've sat down to do that, I can't think of any of the things that have been making me angry, which pisses me off. Okay, good, that's one.

Front and center, naturally, is the anti-vaxxers. I might actually just have to give up Twitter AND Facebook for a while because I go on intending to ignore them but I always seem to see something - so smug, so cement-headed, so proudly, obnoxiously STUPID - and I want to smash something. Someone actually said that the Delta variant cases are high somewhere where a lot of people are vaccinated and said he was pretty sure it was the vaccines causing the mutation. Yeah, that's why we have all kinds of mutant strains of measles and polio floating around the world, right? FUCK OFF.

I went to Indigo to get a birthday gift, and for the first time ever ended up with a bitchy cashier. I was asking for a gift receipt for everything except two things, and the first time I said "the Tru Earth" and she didn't understand what I meant, which is fine, but then I said "that, in your hand" and she snapped "what that? How am I supposed to know what 'that' is?" which, hold up bitch, I called it by its ACTUAL NAME and you didn't get that either, so what are my options?" Not doing a capital-letter fuck off for her because working retail sucks and she might have had her reasons, but it was unpleasant.

Dumb car drivers. Dumb grocery cart drivers, who park their cart in the dead middle of the aisle while perusing pickles - there are fucking ARROWS right now, it's not like we can turn around and go down another aisle to get around you. 

Someone posted this video on Facebook the other night of a recipe - I don't know if this link will work. It starts with a glass pan with chicken breasts in it, and then they dump in cream cheese and an egg and lemon juice and spices and mix it ham-handedly, almost flipping the chicken out of the pan, rather than mixing the other ingredients in a bowl first and adding it to the chicken. I was INCANDESCENT with fury. I felt like I was watching a war crime perpetrated against chicken. I was very aware that this indicates that I am not well. 

I am vexed that I can't own In the Heights right now. I watched it as many times as was mathematically possible in the 48-hour rental period, and I probably should not spend another 25 dollars to do the same, but I want to. 

I am idiotically replying to way too many assholes on Facebook right now. It's like I can't stop myself, even when I know it's useless and I'm becoming annoying even to myself. I stopped doing it on Twitter, because for some reason on Facebook I can stick to my rule of never swearing at anyone, and staying restrained and polite even while telling someone they're a dull-witted doorknob who adds nothing of value to the human race. On Twitter I just end up saying 'fuck' a lot until I eventually black out from impotent wrath or get my account restricted again.

Okay. Deep breath. Do I feel a little calmer? Perhaps. Maybe the next time some dude on Facebook says "try rereading his statement" as if I disagreed with it only because I CAN'T FUCKING READ is the correct conclusion I won't throw my computer across the room after using seventeen synonyms for asshole. 

I can't find a good picture to go with this post, and if I post without one the default is a seasonally-inappropriate Christmas one that Facebook always picks. Now I'm mad again.

Eve is tired of everyone's bullshit too. Shit, this picture is still seasonally inappropriate. Goddammit.

Meandering

 I don't really know what to write about. I've been feeling a little out of sorts for the past couple of days. We had a great week-end - went out for dinner with our lovely neighbours which was fantastic until Matt got most of a beer dropped on him, but we were just about to pay and leave anyway so it's not like we had to match our meal to whatever brew was wafting off of him. The poor waiter was mortified, and so grateful that we weren't assholes about it that it made me mad for all the people that are being assholish enough that it was a surprise to him that we weren't. We also went for a birthday drink for my friend Jody (HI JODY) and went to see Black Widow in the actual movie theatre. So maybe I"m just a bit funned out.

Monday I got groceries and cooked a bunch of things. Yesterday I mostly read. I'm reading three non-fiction books right now, which is two more than I'm usually reading at a time. One is about The Troubles in Ireland and it's fascinating - I always knew about the subject vaguely but in no kind of depth or detail, and the writing style in Say Nothing is pitched perfectly for me to understand and retain. It's very long and taking me longer than it usually takes to finish a book, which is fine.

I'm also reading Broken by Jenny Lawson (the Bloggess) and What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon. I will never not love anything written by the Bloggess, and I have again laughed so hard while reading it that my husband has stomped off to sleep elsewhere, but it's not quite as good as her first book (I haven't read the second yet). She's still funny and relatable and insightful, but this reads much more like a series of blog posts, often with some women's-magazine-worthy summing up points (which again, no judgment, I do this myself) like "we are all like those juiced limes - a little shriveled, sort of used up, ready for the compost bin but that's okay because we really put the snap in those mojitos first" (not an actual quote from the book). The Fat book is excellent but exhausting and enraging to read - we are just at the very beginning of what Gordon terms "Fat Justice" (my new superhero name), and just envisioning the comments that would follow if the book was an internet article makes me ragey and weepy and very tired. 

I knew that BMI was bullshit, but I didn't know the details of its racist bullshit inception, or the way that the National Institutes of Health arbitrarily lowered the threshold to be medically considered fat in 1998 (Gordon's article about BMI, substantially the same information as in the book, is here). And still, if you google BMI, the first page of results you get aren't about what a racket it is, but about how to calculate your BMI. 

To balance out the rigorous intellectual material I have been consuming in paper form, I have been watching absolute crap TV. Do not give me anything "exceptional, realistic and gritty". Any kind of "literary journey"? Nah. "Marvel of craftsmanship, sounding the depths of the human soul"? I'm good. On the other hand, any sci-fi series with an outlandish premise (the whackier the better), weak worldbuilding, melodramatic dialogue and laughable writing? Sign me the fuck up. Currently I'm watching some abomination about mermaids. Sure, there's a bit of a laudable thread about the human Fear of the Other and some surprisingly affecting non-traditional relationships (yes, I do mean a one-third mermaid threesome, shut up, it was mostly wholesome), but mainly I'm in it for the mermaids walking around on land hissing at people and being insanely hot.

Today I didn't really feel like getting outside but I forced myself to do some errands and walk on the river trail, and it was good. Sweaty, but good.

Sometimes the path seems so clear

 Collette was talking last night at bar night about how she always sees plants and berries on her walks and wonders what they are so I kept sending her pictures and making her look them up on our group Whats App.

Apparently this is chicory

Usually I would ask "should I eat this?" and she would advise me accordingly. Then I said I walked too far and my foot hurt and asked if somebody could come pick me up, thinking everyone would know that I was joking (I mean, my foot really did hurt, but I was asking if I should eat random orange berries and texting pictures of water and asking what this weird moving stuff was, so there was a theme) but three people offered to come get me and one actually called to ask where I was.

 Just when you think your friends are assholes, man. Well, they are, we are all assholes, but not the kind of assholes who are assholy to waiters or believe in BMI or leave their friends lost on the river trail or advise them to eat Tatarian Honeysuckle which causes stomach upset and diarrhea. 

 

Let Me Entertain You With My Awkwardness

 Things are weird. I am weird. I am weird with things. Things are weird with me. Me with weird are things. 

My Facebook account is restricted for 24 hours because I commented "I wanted to murder her father" on someone's post in my Book Bingo group, about an abusive father who also happened to be A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.

Right after I got this notification, I tried to log into Cloud Library (the express ebook platform for the library) and it was glitchy, so I deleted the app and reinstalled it. Then I tried to log in with my library card number and pin number and it didn't work. I did it roughly ten more times, checking the number carefully, and it still didn't work. Was this a big huge deal? Not really. I could read books on my Kindle app. I could read books on Libby (the NON-express ebooks library app). I could read books from, like, the shelf made of actual paper. But NOTHING ON MY IPAD WAS FREAKING WORKING and it was bugging me.

Before the technology irritants, I had to drive my mom to her dental surgery appointment. I believe I have mentioned that it's never a super fun time driving my mom somewhere like this, when I'm nervous about finding the place and she's nervous about me finding the place and she's nervous about the procedure and, well, this time, she had also been fasting, so imagine that. 

I said I'd pick her up at 12:20 for a 1:00 appointment. I picked her up at 12:22. At 12:40 she said "I feel like we're still quite a ways away from it" (she had no idea where we were or where we were going). I said "it's a 25 minute drive and I picked you up forty minutes before the appointment". She said "You didn't pick me up QUITE forty minutes before". "........"

I dropped her off (a good eight minutes early, thank-you). I did that weird thing where I tried to knock off a few errands, but it wasn't my usual neighbourhood and I didn't know exactly how long I had and I was nervous about missing the call from the office when she was done, so I was a bit on edge. I went to the drugstore, picked up a couple of grocery things, then went back and parked near the dental office. It was around the time they said she'd be done, but they were a few minutes over. I was low on gas, and I had seen a gas station just around the corner, so I started to drive back towards it. Then the phone rang and I answered and they said my mom was ready. I was right at the gas station. Could I have taken five minutes to fill up? Absolutely. Did I? No I did not. I pulled a U-turn and went back to the office, thinking I had plenty of gas to get home and I would just fill up there.

I fetched my now-effusively grateful (also mildly stoned) mother and started for home. The low gas light came on just as we got back on the highway, with no gas stations in sight. 

I have no idea how far I can go with the low fuel light on. I have no idea why I didn't just say "I need gas" and pull off. The goddamned CAR said "This vehicle is low on fuel, do you want to search for nearby fueling options?" and I said NO. 

Anyway, I talked to my mom normally while keeping one anxious eye on the gas gauge and screaming internally WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS to myself, until we made it almost home and I saw a gas station and pulled over and felt massively relieved. And dumb. 

I had talked to Collette about going to the House of Cheese and the One Plant store next door after my mom's appointment was done. My mom's house is really close to Collette's, so I texted her that I was ready and drove over to her house. We had also talked about going for a walk this week and when I got to her driveway she had texted back "want to walk over and kill two birds with one stone?"

Where we were going was far. Like, really far. Further than I've ever walked on a normal walk. I know Collette's been walking a lot lately, so maybe she thought it was a normal walk? I waffled briefly, but I need more exercise and Collette is a really good friend and a very strong personality and I might have a small problem saying no to her. So I said "okay". She said she'd put some sunscreen on and be right out.

I googled how far it was. It was eight kilometres. EIGHT KILOMETRES. ONE WAY. CARRYING CHEESE.

I am a grown-ass woman, and I steeled myself to say "I do not feel like walking sixteen kilometres today, Collette." 

She came out of the house and got in the car. I said "Um, so..." and she said "yeah, we're not walking, Rachel just reminded me where it actually is, I thought it was by Walmart" (more like one kilometre away). 

Collette is a really good friend with a really bad memory.

We bought a triple-cream brie, a cheddar with claret and a smoked gouda. We went next door and bought, as my niece always says, "some weeds" (which is pretty much as intelligent as I sound while trying to ask for anything there). Then we couldn't find the exit, but that was okay, because we had a ton of cheese. 

I have gotten so much better at being less weird and hesitant about speaking up for myself. By the time I'm, say, a hundred and forty-three, I'll be perfect.