"Let go and lighten up" my new motto

Monday, September 26, 2011

I will keep the details on this short and to the point.

He is handsome, romantic, kind, and the epitome of a gentleman. He pays attention to AND hears me. He loves my dogs and all creatures great and small, and he can cook.

But I stand firm on the age-old saying “Once upon a time, I had this place so neat and tidy. And then came Man.”

A brand new flood plain has arrived in my neck of the woods and it’s called “Jon’s Stuff.”

Yes folks, the dating phase is passé and we are now living together here on the banks of Frog Creek under one roof.

I will admit right now that opening my heart to this guy was “no problemo” but giving up control of what comes with him to this neck of the woods and where he can put it, is a whole other can of worms and beans.

And quite frankly as I see it, also will result in at least a dozen personal trips to my mental health counselor.

I’ve been the “President-Elect” in my neck of the woods for some time now and I like it that way. But on the same hand, I love having Jon around more than one or two days a month.

After all, he fixes what’s broken, takes out the garbage, buys groceries—and did I mention he could cook?

But he now has “stuff”—and that stuff is the stuff of an organized and somewhat bossy woman’s nightmares.

Have you ever seen the television series “Storage Wars?”

On that fateful day, when love and commitment meant welcoming his stuff into my life, Jon opened the first of two storage units to grab “a few things”.

My jaw dropped below my knees and wobbled there for a moment.

I was the modern poster child for the famous painting “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. Come to think of it, maybe the poor emotionally distraught soul in that 1893 capture also was standing in front of a partner’s storage locker.

As read in an article I could relate to on the Internet, I suddenly wanted to start changing all the rules. After all, the female always makes the rules, right? And if she suspects the male knows any of the rules she may immediately change one or all of the rules. She can change her mind at any given moment.

I was going to have to make an executive decision and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Do we really need that?” replicated from my lips.

We were the stars of next year’s new television reality show “What’s Mine is Fine,” and we would walk all over “Jersey Shore” in the ratings.

“I already have one of those,” followed “I don’t think I have room for that.”

(Except for the cool stuff in Box #6—which included his new Kitchen Aid mixer, a rice cooker, and 2 mixing bowls that would round out my collection.)

But Jon is the best thing that ever happened to me in a moment like that and will be the ones to come. He understands my wacky womanhood status and he makes it okay.

That’s the love that lies beneath all moods.

It’s been about two weeks since that first lesson in learning to share again and I am happy to report that my control freakiness is gradually graduating to something more suited to a life with someone else in it.

Jon’s stuff continues to make its way here in trailer loads and each time I take a deep breath and chant to myself, “Letting go is not loss, it’s lightening up.”

Then I open a box, take out what I want, and put the rest back on the trailer.

You are a good sport, Jon. I am lucky to have you (and your Kitchen Aid mixer) in my life.

Bear in mind I attract all kinds

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Maybe it was the recent solar flare that messed up the earth’s magnetic field and caused my neck of the woods to suddenly attract wildlife or maybe it’s just that, yes, I live in the country and this is what happens in the boonies.

Or perhaps the Universal Plan was bored and having some fun with me. Whichever way, it’s been animal astray around here.

It all began when five little grandchildren came over to play on the weekend and to say good-bye to their Auntie Heather aka “Daughter #3,” who will be hitting the college scene in southern Ontario next week.

Six little peppers were unleashed here on Saturday in the tradition I now liken to a game of billiards where they scatter like the break shot after the eight ball and burst out in all directions.

My little hurricane tribe wasted no time hauling their toys out into the sunshine, playing tag around the barn, and squealing with delight in the cold water that shot across the lawn from the misplaced sprinkler, which invariably soaked the mothers resting in lawn chairs as their children terrorized the outdoors.

Pieces of uneaten hot dog wieners, ketchup-soaked buns, and potato chips where strewn about in full view of crows, chipmunks, and dogs—a sight worth a thousand photos as the trio stalked from sky and land to be first on the scene.

The “Dirt Cake” (a mixture of cool whip, cream cheese, chocolate J-ello pudding, and crushed Oreo cookies) lovingly supplied by “Granny down the way” was vacuumed up by kids, parents, and grandparents alike and begged seconds and thirds from all of us.

To a stray kitten, I’m sure the “happy time audio” emanating from this place that day was as enticing as a bowl of warm milk.

And ‘Poof’ two of the little darlings showed up that afternoon in the back porch—just sitting there as if delivered by the stork.

The kittens’ timing was well received here, as we were still in a sad place after losing our “purrfect” pet “Oliver” to an owl or some such night creature two weeks earlier.

My little hurricane tribe were all a-glee over the bundles of newfound fur and did what most kids do and nearly squeezed two of the nine lives out of each welcome stray.

We all assumed some coward stranger had dropped the poor felines off at the driveway, thinking this neck of the woods was the answer for unwanted pets.

We adopted them in with much love and hugs. They slept in our beds and chased balls of rolled up foil across the kitchen floor and provided much entertainment for two days. Unbeknownst to us, they had wandered over here from next door for a weekend getaway. And then as quick as it had begun, the kitten cuddling was over. Adios! It was fun.

But I digress.

Some of those nubbins of hot dog and ketchup-soaked buns had made their way into the barn and had rolled off into the undiscovered recesses of the horse stalls and gutters just long enough for “Mr. Skunk” to catch wind of his dessert. Of course, as Murphy’s Law would have it, this occurred on the very day when the caretaker forgot to close the barn door before dusk.

And to top it off, Mr. Skunk had eight empty beer bottle boxes left in the barn from the Drennan Reunion to hide amongst during the scurry to shoo him from the premises—which of course was not successful before he lifted his tail.

Thankfully my dogs were nowhere to be seen. They were busy chasing the chipmunk down the driveway that had found the last potato chip under the picnic table.

But the wildlife, yet, gets bigger.

It was a quiet mid-week summer day. I was in Heaven—by myself at home, off work, in the sunshine, enjoying my little life as I painted window trim.

“Cash” was in the house out of the sun, as his black fur sometimes gets the better of him in the heat of the day. “Dot” in her perpetual chipmunk patrol, was parked in the shade about 30 feet behind me.

So when the slow-moving black thing came around the corner of the house and into my peripheral vision, I thought to myself, “How did Cash get outside?”

I turned my head ever so slightly. A bear was standing there not two feet from where I was taking up my latest summer project. I could see the snot oozing from his nostrils and without effort I easily could have painted big white circles under his eyes with my paintbrush.

But oddly that didn’t seem like a viable option at the time.

I just stood there staring at the hairy beast staring back at me in a dead stop dual, wherein I experienced that microsecond of racing thought that included silent yet very bad swear words inside my head and a wish for a portable black hole I could jump into.

The bear must have had better meals up his sleeve, as it promptly turned around and sauntered off in the direction it came, stopping once to glance back at the stupid person who’d started to follow it across the back yard.

And then it was gone.

I snapped back to real time and realizing Dot hadn’t made a peep, turned around to find her sleeping under the tree.

I won’t repeat what I shouted to her, but it sounded something like this.

“@#!%^$&$#! You’re supposed to have my back!”

While I do possess a certain animal magnetism that I know has caught the attention of Mr. Right, I’ve decided it’s off limits to skunks and bears.

And if I were a drinking woman, a shot of whiskey would have gone down nicely.