Went to the Canucks game last night....

it was fun, tooo fun, and then they lost, I'm afraid I should have stayed home, I am far tooo loud, with screams of, "CRUSH THEM," and "GO THE FUCK BACK TO EDMONTON." We had an Edmonton fan in our row, a younger man, bald, with a fringe that he's choosen to grow out and put into a pony tail. It's not a good look. He has tatoos of knives, sabres, and wore a leather vest over a white muscle shirt. He was fat. We were in the aisle seats. The Edmonton fan passed by to get a beer. I asked, smiling.

"Are you from Edmonton?"
He shook his head and checked out my tits.
My husband sighed, heavily, and closed his eyes, wondering, he told me afterwards, if he could take fat man on when he eventually said something to insult me.
"I'm not from here either lady," fat man said.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," I whispered into fat man's ear, still smiling like Mary Tyler Moore.

We left our seats and went to the concourse level for beverages. $7.25 for a beer and $8.00 for a three ounce plastic glass of wine. Phil waited in line for drinks while I went outside to procure standing room in the smoking area.

I made it through the throng, a tiny, pretty woman, dressed in black wearing hooker boots and lit my smoke. I smelled an aroma, a forgetten, yet fondly remembered aroma and raised my head, sniffing out the source.

Three guys, early to mid twenties, stood in a circle passing a joint. Not obvious to the thousands of security guards who carry clubs and took my water bottle from my purse upon entry to the stadium and looked in the tampon section of my bag.

"Excuse me," I said to the guys. "Is that skunk weed?"
They exchanged looks, one guy I'm sure, thought I was his mother and he was overdosing right there on level three.
"No. It's hash weed," One guy in a ballcap wearing a canucks jersey said. They all chuckled. "Do you want a hit?" he asked.
"Sure," I said.

Phil found me in the centre of the group, now sharing the joint I brought, comparing tastes, and well, Canadians are conoceiurs and pride ourselves on the ability to grade marijuana and hockey teams.

He joined us, the guys kind of backed away, especially the older of the group, Kurt from Whistler whose intentions towards me I could tell were more of an intimate friend nature than hockey fans sharing conversation.

I introduced Phil. Doug, the guy in the jersey, nice, very, had a camoflauge bandaide across the end of his nose. The camaflouge wasn't working.

We chatted about nothing. Phil and the guys talked hockey while I looked on, smiling, happy to have met new people.

"What happend to your nose?" I asked Doug. I do this, say what's on my mind without filtering it. I have been known to ask overweight women, "Are you pregnant?" tell strangers, "You've got something hanging from your nostril," "You have something between your teeth," "Your shirt doesn't go with your pants," and other nice things, "You are very helpful." "You have most beautiful hair." "You should be a model."...anyway..last night, Doug's nose was in question.

The other guys backed off more. The OD guy coughed and turned around.

"It's melanoma," Doug said, and touched the bandaide. "It's the second chunk they've taken out. I'm still waiting to see." Doug is twenty-three.

We talked more about the Canucks and UV rays and Phoenix were Doug worked for six months roofing and he told us, "Sunscreen expires." Everyone started to leave the area, we were the last group, lingering on the starry night at the Georgia Street exit, smoking, talking, listening to Doug.

"We should get back to our seats," Phil said, under his breath. I nodded.
Doug nodded and smiled, a little smile. "Have a great time," he said. "It was nice talking to you."
We all smiled and started walking away. I hung back, a pace, out of step. "You're going to be fine," I said to Doug, looking at him over my shoulder when he let me pass through the door first.
He tipped the bill of his cap and touched my back. "Go Canucks!" he said.
"YEAH!" I said and we dispersed into the crowd.

Fat Edmonton fan made it back to his seat. He came down the opposite end of the aisle. I gave him a mean look. He didn't cheer again.

Mildred

I called Mildred the day after her interview. I called and called. When she left here Wednesday night she had an interview with another family the next morning that needed her part time as well. If both jobs jelled, which it seemed, well, it felt so right and real and some kind of global destiny that she had arrived in this country to care for my family. Mildred would come and live with us, she would stay with us for years and years and become part of our family. When I went to bed Wednesday night, I was smiling and happy and felt weight leave my body. The days the other woman wanted would jive with our schedule. I had every faith in the world they would.

They didn't.

The other woman needs part time all through summer. Mildred declined her offer, which worked around our part time needs, but had to turn it down based on the fact we need full time in the summer.
It's a logositcal nightmare between my work shifts and hockey and art class and the dentist and sleepovers and time just to be us, together, my family, hanging out.
When I finally reached Mildred, it was awful. I was soo sure, so sure, and then when I started talking to her I knew from the moment, following a heavy sigh and a very long delay, she recognized my voice that something wasn't right.

"Oh hello," she said. I heard deep sadness.
"How did it go with the other family?" I asked.
"Well, good, they are a very nice family..." She went on and gave me the details..."But," she said. But, I thought, the word I didn't want to hear. Tears came to my eyes and Mildred continued. "I need to work full time all the time," another very long pause, and then "In my heart," she said, and started to cry. "In my heart, I so want to be with you and your children.. but I cannot and... I must send money to my family," she said, and was silent. I felt her closing her eyes and gathering her strength. I closed my eyes and asked for some. "I have an appointment tomorrow with an agency," Mildred said. "They think they will have a family for me right away and....I'm so sorry."

I was sitting on the love seat, the same one I had sat on the night before while I had my wine and chatted with this lovely woman who I envisioned teaching Helaina and I to make Philipine food and bring a new culture, a calm serenity that she posessed, into my home and then I thought about her children who will see their mother sooner if she makes more money to sponsor them to finally come and live with her.

"Oh Mildred, don't be sorry. I understand, I do, and if we could afford it we would want you to be here all the time, it's just we can't and with both kids in school for a few more months...but I understand. You have to do what is best for your family. Don't be sorry. I am the one who's sorry."

We didn't speak for a time. I could hear her crying, softly, missing her family, I thought, homesick and alone in a new country, working for stranger.

"I wanted so much to come, I did," Mildred said, "...You are good,"

The thing inside of me that had attached itself to Mildred swelled.

"I know...so did I," I said. "But I think, I believe," I couldn't stop crying. Phil came over and sat with me and held my hand. "I believe," I said, "that our paths will cross again one day. One day they will."

"God bless you Pah-tea," Mildred said. Pah-tea, just like that, with a French lilt. "God bless you."

He did.

We need a new nanny

again.

Kasia, my angel from Poland is going home next month to apply for landed status to return to again to Canada, six to nine months from now so she can move to the sticks of Alberta with her now fiancée, Ryan. I think he's lying to her about everything and she's headed for huge heartbreak with this...person...and well, it takes everything in my power to not tell her this and the days I have left to tell her are numbered. I'm anxious about keeping her friendship or protecting her and perhaps losing it. I feel I can only make sure she knows I am here for her. We told her we would sponsor her to live in Canada. She's so great, so great, you can't imagine, so lovely and smart and worthy of more than red haired, too early Ron Howard, Ryan will ever have to offer. Anyway, she is leaving. She is not my daughter. She is my employee and I have to not get involved. I love her. I want the best for her. I will tell her, somehow.

So, we're on the hunt again and this is the leading contender.


Mildred: From the Philippines, new to Canada. Has five children ranging in age from twenty three to ten that she has not lived with for 7 years, seven years! As she was a nanny in Taiwan, I imagine she could visit them from there, but now that she’s moved here, that won’t be possible. Mildred is shy, catholic, soft spoken, 43. She is spelled by Erik. Everyone loves Erik. He drew her a dinosaur picture on an envelope. Mildred held it to her heart and he flashed his toothless grin and blushed. Helaina sat at the kitchen table while Mildred shot her, "I'm very kind,” looks. Helaina did not smile, once, and said when Mildred left...

NO WAY IS SHE LOOKING AFTER ME!!!

She says this every time we need a new babysitter. In order for Mildred to care for my family when I am not here, to do homework with them and tuck them into bed, she has to do it in a way that I know in my heart is true. Helaina is the one to win over. Hold your ground. Find a common one, and Helaina will call you her friend for the rest of her life.

Mildred was an elementary school teacher in the Philippines for eight years. She is kind, has lovely hands and held mine for a long time when she left.

If Mildred takes the job, she will be living with us. I freak out thinking about this expense again, BUT...we are screwed for the summer, which is only three months away when I need full time, so...maybe we bite the bullet now and take off some stress, that, and we've only had two other applicants. They are,

A call from a son whose mother had experience but didn't speak English. The other from Ashley, who Helaina thought by the sound of her voice on the message "She's great Mom!! I bet she's really clean!" She tried to sell me on this girl and put post its in the bathroom with, "Ashley," written on them for three days. Ashley, who is 20, thinks everything is....cooooooool, she said, during my phone interview, "like, you know?" about everything and referenced directions to our address to local pubs and no...I don't have a license...yeah...cooooool...don't you just love kids? Which I swear was said while she was taking a toke.

We need someone in exactly two weeks. In thirteen days now.


Mildred will be getting back to us tomorrow, and well, the Helaina thing, I talked to her tonight. We're addicted to Suduko, or whatever it's called. Have you done it??? It's fun. It's mind bending. We're into it - and I asked her what she thought, which I knew the answer to, watching Erik she doesn't always do and she is too shy and loyal to her brother to get the attention that generally falls to him. The smiles and laughs and "Oh Erik, you're a God," they might as well just say it, which he is, with his two front teeth gone and his cleft chin and his entire demeanor, and then, there's this part of me that looks at Helaina acting all jealous and adamant, all mad because she has been through too many nanny interviews and I wonder whether I am doing the right thing or whether it is just a kid who wants her mom to not work.


"What do you think?" I whispered to Helaina during the first part of the interview with Mildred, ten minutes after she walked into the house and joined us in the family room where I sat drinking wine in my jammies, in front of the fire, my motto - This is the way I am and this is the way I'll be when you are here too. Helaina refused to join us. She sat at the kitchen table and declined, twice. I vacated my seat when Phil was talking to ladies, imagining, I'm sure, Pilipino massage and total subservience, which is evident and not sexual in any nature and made me laugh inside with delight.

I went to the table and stood next to Helaina.
"So, what do you think," I whispered in her ear, my nose in her just washed slicked back hair. She sat in her hockey jammies looking down at her Suduko book, pencil and eraser read, and shrugged.
"I don't know either," I said, and looked over at The Canadian Male Adoration Society, and smiled.
“Well," Helaina said and set her lips, "I...don't...like....her," she said, and continued to pretend to figure out Suduko.
"Yeah...." I said, looking over her shoulder, "a two goes there," I said, and pointed at the page. She penciled it in and I caught a grin. "Why don't you like Mildred?" I asked.
She shrugged again.
"She likes you."
She stopped waving her pencil over the page.
"Humph," she said. She's an acorn.
"I think she'd make a good goalie in street hockey."
At this point, Helaina stopped moving entirely. She raised her eyes and literally game me a "do you take me for a fucking idiot here???" look.
Panic began to take hold. Helaina you see is an excellent judge of character, excellent. She is seldom wrong and takes forever to trust NEARLY EVERYONE...so....was she then being difficult, or....right?

We hung out at the table, finished puzzle nineteen while my mind chased my gut to hear what my gut was trying to tell me. I listened harder.

"I bet," I said. "That Mildred can make great noodles."
"REALLY?" Helaina said, and turned to me, her eyes shining, a smile beginning on her face and closing quick.

Her pencil dropped from hand, rolled cross the book, off the edge of the table and dropped on the hardwood floor. Everyone looked. Helaina looked at Mildred.
"Great noodles," I said, "But...well....I suppose...," I rubbed her back and walked back to the loveseat.

I sat down, laughed appropriately at something being discussed for three seconds and called over my shoulder.
"Honey, why don't you come and sit with us?"
She didn't answer. Helaina stood up, didn't lose her stare with the Kasia, Eva, Marilyn, Harmony, Jody, Annette, don't even get me started on Annette who left my ten month old baby alone in the house while she took Helaina for a walk, Auntie Crystal, Grandma, Sister, Mom stand in. She sat down next to me,her arms at her sides, her legs straight out on the ottoman. And so began the one sided squinshed face Helaina/Mildred stare down.

Al I know for sure, is that's it's me she's mad at and this confuses her. She does not understand her anger. She's mad that it's not me and is mad because she's coming to understand why it can't be me, you know??....and this is the only part of my life I hate.

Mildred will get the job if she wants it. When she held my hand when she left, my gut was loudly quiet. She will love Helaina. They will have a special relationship.......xoxoxoxo

In need of new appliances....

My dishwasher has so much white noise I start to imagine it's not really happeneing. The noise is in my brain, trying to get out, which I think, is the result of some drug related incident of twenty-seven years ago...and then...it stops.

I'm going to turn it off before I shot myself in the head.

Mommy Yummy

Being the tooth fairy is the best...xoxoxo

changed my blog template again...I like these colors better, pink, for girls...the other one was getting toooo much in my face...now...I have to link all my lovely friends again..xoxooxoxo

Come to my window

5:47 p.m. view from my kitchen window...I have a very clean kitchen...xoxoxo

I got tagged by Myfanwy!!!!!! xoxoxo

I LOVE THE GAME OF TAG!!! I LOVE IT....and I tagged Kelly Flaniganxoxoxo


OKAY...7 THINGS....THERE'S LOTS OF SEVEN THINGS LISTS....I have to think about this....thanks Myfanwy...xoxoxo


SEVEN THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE

1. know without any doubt that my children are secure about how incredibly wonderful and special they are in every way.
2. Go to an all inclusive resort/spa place on one of the Rivieras with my family for an indefinite period of time, like forever, scuba dive, which is 2a.
3. Confront someone.
4. Forgive him.
5. Have my mom teach me how to make cabbage rolls and homemade bread. This is a fantasy picture I've been keeping to myself for too long.
6. Slow dance on a deck near the ocean with a man wearing khakis
7. Finish my novel.

SEVEN THINGS I CANNOT DO

1. Have another baby.
2. Run.
3. confront someone.
4. Forgive them.
5. Bring back the dead.
6. Jump out of a plane.
7. Drive a 5 speed.

SEVEN THINGS THAT ATTRACT ME TO MY MATE

1. He's funny
2. He's loyal and true and honest and forgetful, especially about things I TELL HIM!) which drives me nuts but is an honest mistake...lolol
3. He's very sexy
4. He laughs at my jokes that no one else gets and gives me this look sometimes when he doesn't think I notice that I adore.
5. I fit in all the crooks of his body like a puzzle piece.
6. He can build things.
7. He keeps in touch with his family.

SEVEN THINGS I SAY

1. Fuck off! (mad)..Fuck off? (in an, are you kidding me way)..Fuck off! (lolol)
2. I love you so much.
3. Ahmen
4. Thanks
5. I was just saying.....
6. I don't need any help
7. I'm sorry

SEVEN BOOKS I LOVE

1. The Hours
2. Ethan Canin, Emperor of the Sun
3. Goodnight Moon
4. Are you there God?. It's me Margaret.
5. A Whale for the killing
6. I can never think of these things I am not well read...but am well travelled... over...xoxoxoxo

SEVEN MOVIES I LOVE

1. Brokeback Mountain
2. Splendor in the Grass
3. The Hours
4. The Way We Were, I know, I know
5. Paint your Wagon, okay, okay, I'm being honest...I love the song at the end...
6. On Golden Pond
7. Shrek

Woman in Training

Woman in Training



I've had thirty one years of experience inserting tampons, yeast infection nodules, that are like popping a white chocolate Easter egg up your snatch, dildos - one latex number that gave me the worst, the worst allergic reaction causing other items to be inserted to get rid of said reaction - I've had speculums, that, if not done accurately have edges like a sharp fingernail, two ultra sound wands that came close to causing orgasm, benwah balls, not what they're cracked up to be, and one, okay, eight grapes, the bearing down is totally not worth it, and penises, the number of which I'm unwilling to disclose due to the slut versus stud double standard, (who do these guys think they're fucking anyway?) in my vagina.

My mom inserted my first tampon. That was before I could find my vagina, which seems unrealistic at this point, and sad in a very unmasturbatory way. I knew my vagina was there, at least I was sure it was, but the cardboard cylinder of the tampon itself and the book of directions the manufacture put in the box, more than likely written by a man, were what had me confused.

There was an illustration of a woman- a nice white and blue pamphlet. Very crisp and clean - the legs of a woman, with one foot planted firmly on the ground, the other foot on the lid of a toilet seat. She was bent slightly at the waist allowing easy access to her vagina. I couldn't find it.

While holding the string with one hand, I was to push one cardboard cylinder into the other, discharging the tampon into my uterus or cervix or where some bone was, and remove both parts, which could, they said, be disposed of in the toilet. This was to be accomplished while menstrual blood coated my fingers and dripped down my legs making it impossible to get a firm grip on anything let alone coated cardboard.

"Did you get it?" asked Mom, pressing, I'm sure, every ounce of her one hundred and twenty five pound frame against the door trying to activate her, what I thought she once possessed, X-ray vision.

"No."

"Well, try again."

"I am trying!"

Silence.

Seven tampons later, I caved.

"Mom...can you help me?"

"Of course I can," she said, and burst through the door, beaming.

"It's easy," she said, and held a cylinder in the air, slipped one part into the other while the tampon fell on the floor

I tried a dry run. It was easy.

"Okay," I said. "I'll keep trying.

Mom left the bathroom and remained outside in the hall, the door ajar this time, her face becoming more and more visible as she strained her peripheral vision to the max.

I still couldn’t find it. I’m a failure as a woman I thought, a loser who would never lose her virginity because she couldn’t find her own vagina. I reached for, what felt like a twenty-pound Kotex pad, the ones worn with a belt, and started to cry.

"Oh honey," Mom said, bursting in again, arms stretched out to hold me and perhaps nurse me again back to babyhood. "You'll figure it out."

"I know, but I want to figure it out now. I hate wearing these pads," I said, and whipped one through the air. "Everyone sees them. It's embarrassing."

“Oh, sweetie. No one notices,” she said. This, I’ve since determined is part of the secret language of women. She hugged me and I gasp cried the way I do with certain people, her being the only one, and fell into her.

“Why don’t you,” she said, and held me by my shoulders, “tidy yourself up and come sit with me in your room.”

I washed up, stuffed a wad of toilet paper in my underwear, slipped on my robe and went to get what I hoped would be hot chocolate or money for a new outfit. Mom sat poised at the edge of my bed, her legs crossed looking somewhat like the legs of the woman in the illustration. She held a tampon, a wand of womanhood, between her fingers.

"Lie down," she said, and patted the bed. “I’m going to do it for you.”
“What?”
“It’s perfectly fine,” she said. “You came out of my vagina. It only makes sense I do this.”
I wanted to die. Die. This was worse than the humiliation by association caused by her loud, very loud, protests of high prices told to every cashier at every check out stand as we went through. This was worse than shopping with her for my first bra when she called the sales clerk, two sales clerks into the dressing room to measure me, to measure me, for a training bra! This was worse. The only thing I had going for me, was that we were alone.
“Well, if you don’t want me to....” she said, and started to stand up.
I felt a drop of blood roll down my thigh.
“Fine! Fine! It’s fine. You can do it.”
I lay on the bed in my robe. Mom knelt on the floor.
"Now raise your knees and spread your legs."
"Mooooom!"
She looked up at me, her face like an oversized baby. "Do you want to do this or not?"
I closed my eyes and spread my legs. There was slight pressure, and then, nothing.

"There you go,” Mom said.
"That it?" I asked, raising my head looking at her between my legs.
"That's it," she said, wrapping the remains in toilet paper. “Now you can go swimming,” she said and smiled.
“And bike riding,” I said, and we laughed.
She turned to leave.
“Mom.”
“Yeah,” she said, and looked back.
“Thanks.”
She smiled and winked and walked off to make dinner, to do the laundry, pay the bills, wash the floor and clean the toilets, and, when my mind allows me to think of her as a woman instead of my mom, to go horseback riding.