November 29, 2005

Happy Anniversary

Dear Maggie and Mumin,

One year ago today, you came to live with me.

It was fraught. You nearly died. I worried about taking you away from the home you'd known. I worried you'd miss X Partner Unit, that you wouldn't know how to react to your new Stepfather, that you'd hate being here. But I needn't have worried. One year on and you're the most adjusted babies I have ever known.

I love that you don't run or twitch or move when we come near. You know that we'll step over you. You know that we'll never hurt you. And so when you're laying down, you just blink lazily at us, knowing that no harm will come. That kind of trust is priceless, and I will never do anything to destroy it, ever.


Trusting Maggie.jpg


You took to Angus cautiously. He was someone new, someone unknown, but someone that you thought you might like. I think in time, you have all gotten used to each other.


The correct way to hold a cat.jpg


I know there was a bit of a protest, Maggie, when he and I decided that you'd been gaining far too much weight and took you off Go Kat (Friskies) and put you on Iams. I know that you were even angrier when he presented you with Science Diet's version of diet cat food. But you're about to be 6, which is 42 in people years, and you will understand like we do that the middle age spread is to be fought with tooth and nail, and you can even resort to vicious girl fighting if you need to.


Angry Maggie.jpg


I know that when you gave in, it was with plans to shred our favorite clothes when we weren't looking. Thankfully, you're a pretty forgetful cat.

I know I sometimes piss you off, Mumin, by taking too many pictures.


Angry Mumin.jpg


But sometimes you girls annoy me at the number of places you get to where you shouldn't be.

Like toilets.


Bad Maggie.jpg


Or the linen closet.


Linen closet.jpg


Or Angus' trousers.


Mumin wears the pants in this family.jpg


Or on bookshelves.


Girls on the shelf.jpg


I know that you love the bathtub, Maggie. I know that there's nothing that pleases you more than making us turn on the faucet so that you can drink from the tap. You sometimes sleep in the bathtub, waiting for someone to come in and magically flick the wrist and make your dreams come true.


Maggie in the bath.jpg


We never let you down.


Maggie has a drinking problem.jpg

I love that you play.

Playful Maggie.jpg


I love that you relax. I love that one or both of you is often in the room.


Maggie and Angus.jpg


And even though you're a real cat, Maggie, that unlike Mumin you won't be picked up and you won't sit on a lap most of the time, when you do give in and allow yourself to be loved on, it melts my heart every single time.


I love them so much.jpg


The three of you are my family, and I love you so much.

Here's to one year together, and hopefully many more to come.

-H.

PS-the picture posts will stop now.

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November 28, 2005

DIY For Dummies

"We need to talk about your behavior!" I shout. "I am so tired of these backhanded comments, I feel our relationship has denigrated to the point where it cannot be rescued, to the point where there is no justification for our feelings!" With that, I administer a slap to the pale flesh of the one I loved. I stand there, steaming and full of anger.

Angus looks stunned.

I don't blame him-he has just walked in from going to the shops to find me screaming into the ass cavity of an enormous turkey.

"Are you ok?" he asks.

I have my sleeves pushed up to my elbows. I blow a loose strand of hair off my forehead. "It's Joseph. I just can't deal with this anymore."

"Who's Joseph?" he asks, shifting the shopping bag to his other arm.

"The turkey." I say patiently. "We've been talking while you went to the shop. It started off well, while I removed any small pin feathers we talked about how things have been, his experience of Norfolk farm communities. But once I had to wrestle out the neck, it really went to hell. I just don't like his company anymore. I don't think our relationship is constructive anymore."

Angus nods nervously. Joseph the Turkey and I continue our dialog of love lost with me shouting up his back passage, and when I finally slide him in the oven it's with the knowledge that our relationship has truly run its course.

I find it fun, anyway.

Thanksgiving was Saturday. It went well, actually. I had overestimated the eating capacity of our 8 guests and bought a 10 kilo turkey (said Joseph, whose outer wrapper confirmed that he could feed up to 18 people. As long as I live, I shall never go hungry again!)

This is Joseph, after I had slapped him the final time and coated him with my traditional Thanksgiving basting.


Joseph.jpg


We'd pre-set the table, with Angus' homemade starters (hors d'ouvres) on the table (which we'd accidentally forgotten to include ourselves on, so we had to hastily set another couple of places). You can see our vintage French street sign on top of our cookbooks, as well as a chili pepper wreath on the wall.


Thanksgiving table.jpg


I served homemade biscuits, which caused much distress.

"I'm serving biscuits." I told Angus, my arms covered in flour.

"Cookies? You're serving cookies with dinner?" he asked, confused as "biscuit" means "cookie" in England.

"No. Biscuits." I replied.

"What are biscuits?" he asked.

"They're like bread rolls, only not bread rolls."

"So they're scones."

"They're not scones. Scones are sweet, these are biscuits."

"So...what are biscuits?"

I despaired.

But the pride and joy of the evening was not our lucious dinner, but our living room (Angus calls it the lounge, which to me conjures up images of us swanning around in silk pajamas and paisley cravats a la Hugh Hefner). After we lost The Blackberries, we had to sign a new lease on this house for another year. We did so, but decided it was time to make this place a home, instead of a stopping point between selling a house and buying another.

We were full of dreams and decided that the industrial magnolia walls, the hallmark of a rented property, had to go. We would re-paint them back to industrial magnolia when we moved out, but for now, we wanted to make this place a home. We decided to paint the walls a light green shade called Wind Chime, and buy shelves which were painted a dusky purple color.

It took a week.

I painted.


Helen Painting.jpg


No, I have no idea why I was standing on the ladder that way.

And Angus constructed.


Angus and Helper.jpg


And naturally we had lots of help.


Helper.jpg


Our Quality Assurance specialists inspected the new work carefully.


Too Much Help.jpg


And after loads of effort


Angus Effort.jpg


we got to the finishing touches.


Nearly There.jpg


And now we have a space that we are utterly in love with.


The right hand side of the room.jpg


The shelves hold Angus' old encyclopedias, pictures of us, DVDs, and dried artichoke flowers that Angus' Mum gave me. On our Victorian pine box resides a Christmas moose we bought in Paris and a vase I filled with glass Christmas bulbs. On the wall are two small shelves we fill with candles to make the wall light up with warm light. An antique chamber pot holds scraps for the fire, and our TV hangs from the fireplace, out of the way now.


The left hand side of the room.jpg


The other side also has dried flowers Angus' Mum gave me, as well as a framed print from the London Underground in the 1940's. The red star is a Christas candle from Paris, and our surround sound and satellite receiver lines the shelves above more DVDs. On the floor, an antique enamel pitcher and a side table we use to rest laptops, feet, or wineglasses on.

And on the wall behind our newly covered sofa, we hung three pictures I brought back from Sweden with me nearly a year ago, pictures that I love.


New pictures.jpg


My pictures.jpg


They read "Dream", "Sanctuary", and "Magic".

Kind of like what this house is for me.

-H.

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November 23, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving

So on Saturday we have Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving comes on a Saturday in our world, as the world goes on for Thanksgiving Thursday, as Thursday will be spent quietly curled up on the sofa, with me thinking about what it would be like-football (real football!) playing on the TV. We would have woken up to the Macy's Day Parade and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. In the afternoon, the smell of turkey in the air, the dance of light on the shiny pecan pie. It would be cold outside, and daylight, and we would dig in about 3 pm and keep snacking throughout the night, where good TV plays good movies, and the next day we wake up with visions of sugar plums in our heads.

I really miss those Thanksgivings. I do love our Thanksgivings Saturdays here, where people come over in the evening and we stuff them with Thanksgiving traditional food and ply them with wine. But someday I'd like to have a traditional one with you Angus, and I promise not to subject you to the football. This year, on Thanksgiving Thursday, I will work in the city in the morning. I will then head home and curl up in my pajamas and eat macaroni and cheese and watch my yearly favorite Home For the Holidays, and as per usual, I will feel more than a bit sad, and just a bit homesick.

Because the truth is, despite my settling in home in this foreign country, I still fucking adore Thanksgiving.

A few years ago an American in Stockholm came to my Thanksgiving. She was the sweetest of sweet, the most innocent person I think I have ever met. She looked around the table with her big brown eyes and said that her family had a tradition, in which they would go around the table and each person would list the things that they were grateful for that year. I felt a bit stupid at the idea of doing it, it was a little too Hallmark for me, but I gave it a shot.

And I loved it.

And I have kept the tradition up every year since.

This year I have many things that I am grateful for. So many that I don't want to go around the table with them all but I want to list how special things are to me. So here goes.

I am grateful for my cats' safe arrival almost one year ago. They continue to be a source of pure joy and laughter, their antics continually amaze me. Bringing them over was one of the best things I have ever done, and I just wish I had my dog, too.

I am grateful for the job I have, as it's given me back my self-confidence. After losing my last job I thought I would never feel good about myself again. The work I do now is hell and stressful and undeniably difficult, but I am at least sure that I can do it, and for that, I am grateful.

I am grateful for the little house we live in, its quiet walls encapsulating the barest of my dreams. I know it's not where we will be forever, and I accept that, but it has given me a feeling of security and belonging that I never knew I could have.

I am grateful for the traveling we do. You are the best travel companion in the world Angus (if you could make sure you don't lose your temper during the actual journeys, it will get even better), and the list is long for places we have still to see.

I am grateful for my therapist. Falling through the cracks is a scary idea as I know I am not the kind of person who has good prospects in the mental health field. He listens and offers ideas, and when he does that I know that I don't have to make it through this alone. With the combination of him and the makeup counter at Sephora, I am slowly feeling confident and good about myself.

I am grateful that I am cancer-free, perhaps more grateful about that than you can imagine.

I am grateful for this blog, and for anyone that ever reads, comments, takes comfort, agrees, or just smiles because of something here. I guess it's just good to know I am not alone in the world.

I am grateful that not all my memories are gone, that I had a long hard laugh when I saw this and spent time massaging my thumbs in memory afterwards.

I am grateful that somewhere in a database is the name of a woman that will go through IVF with me.

And finally, I am grateful a thousand times a day for you, Angus. As time passes I continue to grow more in love with you, and just when I think it's impossible, I love you just a little bit more. It's not as good as I thought it would be...it's better.

Happy Thanksgiving.

-H.

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November 22, 2005

Here's To the Mundane

The world outside is a sea of mist and fog, frost dancing on the ground and tickling the leaves around the train ties. For this time of day, the commuter service is quieter than usual. It should be packed with people who don't know where they're going and don't know why they're going, but it's just a few people dotted here and there, taking seats, taking air, taking weary moments of tired. The overhead racks are spaced with briefcases, heavy jackets, and gloves that will someday get lost.

I am on my way into London for a day of meetings, a day of traveling on lines and lines of London transport, which I will get to escape from when I have a visit with my therapist this afternoon. Once that is done, I get to meet my team in London, as we have a pre-drink for a work event this afternoon that takes place on a boat, an event I nicknamed the Good Ship Lollipop. It will be so dark and so cold by the time I take the train home that the stars will shine like beacons.

My grandmother sent me a letter a few weeks ago, her handwriting strong and curling, the envelope sealed with happy face stickers. She tells me about her life and laughingly dismisses it to me, telling me that I couldn't possibly be interested in her stories about warm weather and trips to Albertson's. The truth is I'm very interested in it. I love the little stories about the everyday life that I remember, too-shaking the plastic wrapper off the Dallas Morning News in the morning. Gloria Campos on Channel 5 news, her hair an immobile helmet. Loud announcements from obnoxious newscasters that the Central Expressway is gummed up again. An Eggo Waffle for breakfast.

These are things that I know. These are things that I remember. These are things that I hope I never forget.

My family still has a perception of me that is no longer the case. When they talk to me, it's clear that they don't know me-they seem to think I am flash and severely status conscious, when that's simply not the case. I'm not even the person that they used to know. I wonder if they know that I am much calmer and quieter now. It's not so easy to make me angry, I don't go off like a spout of rage anymore. I don't have to talk all the time, I don't have to play parts that aren't mine to play.

I have tried to tell them this, but once you cast a mold of someone you're unlikely to want to try to change it. My therapist once asked me who I was. I told him I was whoever the people I was around wanted me to be.

So it's clear that no one expects me to be tranquil. I like to sit and look out the window. I can wait in a queue without losing my rag. I try not to ever play parts, this is me, this imperfect, awkward bottled up creature is all that I am, I can't be anyone else.

In return, I sent my grandmother a thick envelope of pictures of my life, filled with the mundane of my everyday-our kitchen. Me laughing at the BBC Proms in the Park. The view from my walk to work, the view over Westminster. My arms around Melissa and Jeff, my arms around Angus, my arms around Maggie. My desk in the study, with a view of the field and orchids obstructing the window.

Everyday life can change. I don't sit on the 635 in traffic anymore. I don't run from air conditioned spot to air conditioned spot. I don't go to Dallas Stars games, and I don't know the stats for the players. I don't go to Borders and I don't get to eat Mexican food near as much as I'd like.

My everyday is just as mundane. Buying tickets for the train. A cup of coffee at one of the many hundreds of Starbucks. Hunting in a conference room for a LAN connection. Rinsing out the coffee pot at home. Padding around in pajamas after a long day of work. Carrying a yoga mat to one of the things I love most in the world, and curling inside of my own muscles as I stretch and move.

I'm not special or unique, this is perhaps a common metamorphosis. Maybe this is what all of us find, when we change the very structure of who we are. Lives are often spent wondering what's on the other side, what's life like if I were different, what's life like if I could only just be there. And when you get there, you find that the there you managed to sneak into changes you so much you don't recognize the you on the other side of the fence. The shape of the world has changed, and with it, you have changed.

Sometimes I wonder'¦if I ran into Kim again, what would he think about my life? What would he say? Would he approve?

And I think I knew him well enough to know that he would disapprove wholeheartedly about my work. He would despair of my job stress, my income, and the hierarchy. He would lecture me about the bourgeois and the workman's role.

He and Angus are so radically different that I don't think they would get on at all. But I do think Kim would look at my feelings for Angus and be glad for me. I think he would be pleased that I was so madly in love, and lucky enough to be so madly loved. I think he would smile and tell me he was happy for me, and I think he would mean it.

And above all, I think he would look at my mundane and look at the quiet me that I have become, and in my mind I see him nodding, a small smile on his lips, as he tells me how he is happy that I have finally found peace. He would remind me that life with me was always such chaos, something I thought was normal, something I thought life was until my therapist told me otherwise, and now I have a new shiny brass ring to reach for.

I have found peace. Job aside, I have found peace. And for that, I love my mundane. I love my train ride with the silent stiff commuters, I love the progress with my therapist, I love my view from the window, I love my cat curling around my ankle and I love my personal furnace that I curl up next to in the soft bed every night.

Here's to second chances.

And third.

And fourth and fifth.

As many tries as it takes to get it right.

-H.

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November 21, 2005

Just an Average Day at the Rugby Stadium

Yesterday most of my technical team and I met up in the cold and frosty afternoon to watch a rugby game in Twickenham, a suburb of London. The day dawned utterly frozen and cold, so I decided to try to look "sporty" and donned a few layers, a bright pink hat, and striped gloves (maybe less "sporty" and more "I have no idea how rugby is played", but I tried anyway). I made my way to the train station to try to catch a train to London. Once there, it was a no-go. Trains weren't going in to London from our line due to engineering works. The ticket machine had been gutted by some vandals as well, and since there was money about and not an official in sight I decided to earn my merit badge and put the money back in the machine, attempted to close the door, and rang the police to tell them that various Southwest Trains monies were lying about.

That ought to get me a few hours out of purgatory.

I drove to my other project manager Ron's house and parked my car there, as he was a stone's throw away from the stadium and said we could just walk there from his place. I met his fiance and his 9 month old daughter, who was so cute and perfect it ripped whole new walls into my uterus. She sat in her bouncy chair, pumped her legs, and giggled with manic delight. When they let me hold her I played with her feet and as she shrieked with laughter I marveled at the utter perfect smoothness of baby feet, and the delightful smell they emit from the tops of their heads.

Ron and I dressed for the Arctic winter and, with two others from the team, we made our way to lunch and then to the rugby game.

Now, I have absolutely no idea how rugby is played. To me, it looks like a lot of strong thigh muscles and grunting as they crash into each other and hurtle themselves across throngs of other men. There seems to be a whole lot of ass-grabbing, not a common thing in most manly sports, and in general it looks like the closest you can get to rough-housing without getting sent to detention for doing so. Lucky for my complete ignorance of rugby, Rolf, one of my closest mates on my project team who joined the outing yesterday, is an ex-professional rugby player who retired when he felt he was too old and was getting injured too much. Rolf has a heart of gold and a nose that looks like it has been broken one time too many (he confirmed it was broken four times on the rugby field.) He's missing a tooth or two and, since retiring from rugby, has taken up extreme mountain biking, proving that once an adrenaline junkie always an adrenaline junkie.

I bought him a beer and, in exchange for it, he promised to explain the game to me.

(This was necessary. I was so utterly clueless about rugby that when Angus called and asked me what time the scrum up was, I told him I hadn't started drinking yet. He sighed and explained that a scrum up is to rugby what a kick off is to football. I despair.)

We made our way to the stadium and sat about 10 rows back from the field. The game had the local London team, the Harlequins, playing the Penzance Pirates (I swear to you, I am not making that one up. Many, many times I had on the tip of my tongue the song I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major-General but nothing says "ass kicking" like a smart mouth singing a song from a musical the Cornish probably find a bit insulting, especially seeing as we were seated in their section.) Some of the Cornish players were very tasty looking indeed, and I found myself fantasizing about tasting a bit of Cornish pasty.

Rolf settled in, and started explaining. He really had to, as from minute one the questions came out of me. Are they allowed to pick up people like that and hold them in the air to catch the ball? Doesn't that hurt when they do that? What does that referree signal mean? That guy's out cold! Will they let him back in the game if he comes to?

Rolf explained it all to me. I learnt about props and backs, handbagging and forwarding. First row and second row got explained, as well as defensive tactics and offensive rushing. There was great activity on the field just in front of us, so I got to see how scrums really work-the amazing thing is, men reach underneath the bollocks of men in front of them and hold on to their shorts. Seriously. Now, a woman? If she so much as twitches a leg muscle in a 5 mile radius of a man's crotch, he does the defensive jig and covers the crown jewels without thinking. But these guys? They have grown burly men reaching under their sacs and holding onto the waistband of their shorts, and they don't even flinch in fear of getting racked. Amazing.

I found I actually really enjoyed myself. Rolf's explanations had the game make sense, and as he explained the tactics people were using, I could see how the players' locker room coaching unfurled on the field. It didn't mean I didn't embarass myself, however.

The Cornish fans in front of us would invariably shout things to the players on the field. A Cornish accent isn't as difficult as some to understand, but it's not always easy. At one point, the man in front of me shouted to the field.

"The ref's a homo!" he shouted. "The ref's a homo!"

"Well," I said, my feathers ruffled. "In this day and age, that's completely ok! I don't see what his sexual preference has to do with his referreeing at all!"

Rolf was convusled into laughter. "Helen," he wheezed, tears coming out of his eyes, "I have to set you straight on this one. He said 'The ref's a home man.' Home man. A local. He wasn't calling him gay."

"Oh," I reply weakly. "Well, I guess that's all right then."

The game ended in a slaughter-the local team won 50-6. It wasn't a game so much as it was a sheer stomping. The rest of my team decided to hit the pubs, but I walked back to my car to come home to Angus, excited about my day at the rugby field-I'm still pretty hopeless and understanding all of it, but Rolf's tutelage helped me to enjoy the game and I don't think I'll ever forget the sound of grown men's collarbones smacking into each other at full pressure.

-H.

PS-to the bint who sent me the hate mail about Santa Claus-it's not even Thanksgiving yet, what are you doing surfing Santa Claus sites? I know Santa Claus isn't real. It's called irony. Go ahead and look it up, it might make your day. You're the kind of person who cheered when they shot Bambi's mother, aren't you?

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November 18, 2005

My Hatred of Spaghetti Westerns

Living in England has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that I can have all the curry options a person could want, plus I have the happiness of complete and total access to a whole world of cheese goodness from England, the continent, and beyond. The problem I've found is that if you don't pick up English terms, you get picked on. If you do pick up English terms, people from home pick on you.

I saw an episode of Friends once with that weird fish-lipped chick from Legally Blond, where she was an American living in England, but when she visited the trio of far-too-thin women in their flash New York pad, they took the mickey out of the fact that she called it a "mobile" and lived in a "flat". This was viewed as utter pretension, pomposity, and any other high-falutin "p" word that means someone is pretending to be way above her station that you can think of. Apparently, when you is an American, you is expected to talk like one.

The thing is, if you walk around in London calling it a cell phone and an apartment, you will get the piss taken out of you here. The looks you get here by sticking with Americanisms, you might as well wear a hat with the price tag still attached and bunk down in a bed of straw with Cletus the Wonder Porcine. Just as Americans seem to view the English as being a bit stiff upper-lip la-di-da, the English can have the tendency to view the Americans as beloved country bumpkins, not unlike kidnergartener Care Bears.

You begin to incorporate words that the English use simply to try to salvage any self-esteem that you may have. Most of the time people aren't in any way malicious, but after a long hard day it's pretty damn exhausting to get made fun of because of the way you pronounce "tomatoes". You assimilate, simply because it's easier (but I will never, ever say "aluminium". There has to be a line, people. There has to be a line.)

So I do call it a mobile phone. People live in flats (although you can wear flats, too, especially cute ones with a saucy bow on it). You fill the car with petrol and you go to university. A doctor's office is a surgery and London is nicknamed the Smoke. But there are things I don't say that drive Angus crazy. The car does not wear clothes, it has no boot or bonnet. Things get spelled with a "z" and not an "s". It is not Happy Christmas, it's Merry Christmas. A nappy is something that I would like to do daily in the afternoon, not what I would choose to stick on an infants' butt. He gets exasperated sometimes with my expressions-things that are not cool are "gauche". Something fantastic "kicks a clown's ass". And he despairs of the use of the word "so" to emphasize a point-I am so not interested in this TV show, I am so over big hair. I love the word so, and feel it's an important use for focusing a sentiment. Or, should I say, it's so an important word to use in focusing a sentiment.

People tell me I don't sound remotely Texan, and I suppose that's true. Yesterday, I met one. He handed me his business card, and I noted his office was in Richardson. He asked me for my card.

"Sorry, I didn't bring them with me. Mine are out of date, and I need to order new ones." I replied.

His mouth gaped open. "But...but how will I get your contact details?"

I smiled. "Got a pen and paper? I can write them down."

He stared at me like I had grown a third ear in the middle of my forehead. "How can you not have business cards?"

I don't have a home circumsion kit either, mate, and yet somehow without both the kit or the business cards life goes on.

I look closely at his card. "Oh!" I exclaimed. "Dallas is my hometown!"

His brow furrows. He looks angry. "You don't sound anything like an American."

I smile. "Sorry, I am a card carrying American."

His brow becomes that of a Neanderthal. I look anxiously at Frank, a Scottish teammate of mine.

"Why don't you sound American?" barks the Texan.

"I've been out of the States a long time, but sorry-I think I DO sound American." Texas Boy stares at me like I have personally been responsible for every anti-Patriotic remark made against the States and stalks away.

"You know Heeeelen," coos Frank in that charming Scottish accent while munching on a biscuit (cookie), "I'm not sure if he was angrier that you were lacking a business card or lacking an American accent."

But I DO have an American accent.

And the bad news is, Angus is trying to get one, too.

He is encouraged by the fact that she told him he can be an honorary American, when we met the lovely couple in Paris last weekend.

I don't know where Angus is picking up his Americanisms, but they're doing my fucking head in. Thank God I am madly in love with this man.

He has a palate of favorites. If something is good, he will announce in his best American accent that "Everything is cherry pie!" And I should clarify here-his best American accent sounds like someone has shoved a plug up his nostrils, and they are reaching up through his anus to try to remove it. I have attempted to explain that we don't say this expression, but it only further cements it for use in his vocabulary.

If something is cool/ready/interesting/any version of adjective, it's "rootin' tootin'". I shout at him in exasperation that we don't say that term, it went out about the time that Yosemite Sam stopped being cool and started doing anger management, but it only seems to encourage him. A salad can be rootin' tootin' good. Dinner can be rootin' tootin' ready. We can take the rootin' tootin' train.

I fucking hate the term rootin' tootin'.

But far and away my least favorite expression of his is his very favorite "Americanism". He uses it a dozen times a day, all in that tone of voice in which he squishes his face up not unlike when you are about to rip a good one out. And my darling uses it for everything.

The term is "cotton pickit".

Which isn't even used correctly, it should be "cotton pickin'".

And it gets used so much it makes my teeth shatter. And every time I try to correct my beloved boy, that it should at least be "cotton pickin'", he looks at me and gets his French conjugation ready.

"Helen, you are wrong. It is cotton picking. I am cotton picking. It has been cotton picked. I will cotton pick." He looks at me as though this explains it all. Suffice to say, I am not convinced.

So I get asked where the cotton pickit remote is. He burned his hand, cotton pickit. Can I put the cheese back in the cotton pickit fridge? We need more cotton pickit cat food.

I have no idea where he picked the term up, but I wish he'd put it back.

One of us will assimilate and become part of the others' culture. The other one will be on tranquilizers shortly. Personally? My money is on me re-enacting The Valley of the Dolls.

-H.

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November 17, 2005

The Smell of Winter

There's a layer of frost outside on the grounds turning everything pastel when I'd still been marvelling at the hot lushness of the fall colors, but in truth I'm glad.

I love Winter.

I love the downhill slope into Christmas, the small ledge of Thanksgiving. I have been away from the States for almost 6 years now, and Thanksgiving is something that I continue to celebrate, albeit on the last Saturday of the month and with people that come to enjoy the food and company, as opposed to having the day ingrained as a precious and much-loved holiday. I love the cold and I love the snow, and sometimes I find myself missing Stockholm and the cold clear crisp evenings walking the dog in the darkness. I miss the snow. I miss having a fireplace in the bedroom. I miss the dog.

But I am glad to be living in England.

The hardest part of Winter is when it slowly wakes up into Spring. When the boots are muddy and the days are confusingly just not warm enough to go jacketless. The daffodils may have sprung up, but daffodils are notoriously stupid and forget to put their mittens on. The side of the house lights up with electric wisteria, but it doesn't do it soon enough. The entrance into Spring is a host of impatience, but this time I will have something to keep my mind occupied.

This time, it will be IVF that watches the daffodils with me.

Suze asked the question about what this type of IVF I am doing is all about. It's a basic IVF cycle with a twist, basically. I will undergo the usual cycle, which starts off with a hormone suppressor. It's a nose spray that you have to take about twice a day, depending on the brand, and what it does is it sends your body into menopause. Your ovaries stop producing, the period stops. The worst part is, this is when you go crazy. You cry constantly, you have hot flashes and you sweat, you think everybody hates you and everything makes you angry or sad.

It's a horrible time.

The clinic will do a blood test, and once they see whatever it is that they are looking for, it's like throttling an engine out of reverse and into fast forward (all I can think about are Top Gun metaphors here and I'm in serious Tom Cruise dislike mode). You start daily injections in the stomach that send you hurtling out of menopause, while simultaneously issuing a wake up call for your sleepy ovaries.

You start producing eggs, as many as you and your clinic discuss is best for you or that you can do. My clinic worries about what is called hyper-stimulation (which the term itself? Yeah. It sounds like such a good thing, something you can have on a Friday night with a glass of wine and never need a man again), so they will cap me off at around 18-20. The clinic believes I was hyper-stimulated when I did IVF years ago, and they postulate it may be one of the reasons why I lost my babies. I try not to think about it,not at all, as the "what-ifs" can make me crumble. This egg production time shows a switch in the mood-you become very earth-mother like, your breasts swell, and each time you go in to have an ultrasound to count eggs, you allow yourself to dream more and more each time.

It's a dangerous time.

Once the eggs are fully developed, you take one last shot, a special shot that forces your eggs to develop follicles around them, which means that they are ready to be fertilized. They go in and remove them (in England they put you under general anesthetic, and all I can say is thank Christ they do that. The pain? Yeah, it's like waking up and having a colonoscopy up the wrong end.)

They mix the eggs with a milkshake of the partner's sperm (my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard), which has spun out all the little spermy dudes that would rather sit on the couch and watch football. The burgeoning embryos are watched and there's a grading scale for which ones can be implanted, which ones can be frozen, and which ones have to be thrown out. No more than two can be implanted back into the mom, and when the embryos look good, they are transferred back inside the woman and you have daily injections to try to make the uterus as homey a place as possible, a place where the egglets will want to hang up a sign that says "Home is Where the Placenta Is".

Then you wait. You make deals with religious deities. You take every single physical complaint as a sign. You will do fucking anything to make these babies a reality, you drink raspberry tea, you avoid long walks, you cry.

This next cycle is different, because while I am going through the nose sprays, another woman will be, too. She will be supressing her system, prohibiting it from producing eggs. When my ovaries are then stimulated to produce as many eggs as safely possible, her hormones continues to be supressed. Then, as we know how many eggs I will have, her body will start to take the nurturing uterus drugs. She will be getting her body ready to take eggs that, for whatever reason, her own body can't produce.

So say I produce 18 eggs. I will be giving her half my eggs, and she and her partner will fertilize them, check the quality, and return no more than two of the embryos (composed of my eggs and her partner's sperm) into her softly-lined duvet-covered uterus. From the moment she takes the eggs, those babies are hers. I have no claim to them, nor would I try to do so.

Angus and I will be working with my half of the basket of eggs. My remaining 9 eggs will have a wild date at the drive-in with Angus' sperm, and when they are tired of eating popcorn, they get put back inside of me. So there are two of us that will be going through the cycling together, although we are prohibited from meeting. All they will have of me is that green form that I still haven't figured out what to say on.

That, and hopefully, a baby.

So I watch the frost on the trees. I think about the darkness of December, of mince pies, Lucia Day, crumpled Christmas paper and candles. I think about January, with the cold promise every morning, the gingerbread lattes on hustling London streets. February has a holiday away with Angus and his kids, Valentine's Day, and the longest short 28 days.

And March? March smells of promise. March smells of sweaty prayers to gods and tears and nervous hand-holding. March smells of companionship, as another woman I will never meet goes through IVF with me, and takes half of my eggs so that she can have that baby of her dreams, too.

I think I'll start knitting those daffodil mittens now.

-H.

PS-the internal hemorrhoid is what's causing the bleeding, but now they're going to have to switch my medication, so the bleed may continue for some time. Thanks for the nice congratulations, but I have to ask-what the hell is a sitz bath?

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November 16, 2005

If You Need to Reach Me

Dear Very Nice Biopsy Receptionist,

Thank you for ringing me late Tuesday. You can send me the lab bill to:

22 Ass Bleed Continues
c/o Suppositories Not Working Way
Polypsville
UK12 7UK
Hemorrhoidia.

And you can address it to:

Miss Cancer Free.

My friends call me Benign.


-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:15 AM | Comments (31) | Add Comment
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November 15, 2005

Allons-Y!

After Ass Bleed, colonoscopies, horrid work situations (that aren't improving in the slightest), general apathy and depression, the loss of our beautiful home and amorphous Christmas plans, we decided we needed to go away for a weekend. Catch up on sleep, shag a lot, and just try to get away from life for a few days. So Angus had arranged for us to go away for a weekend, and it was as we were about to go that I learned we were going to the land of Le Fromage du Stinky, the City of Lights, and home to the world's largest Sephora.

He had booked us Eurostar tickets and a hotel room in Paris for the weekend.

And I'm just a girl who can't say no.

We bought picnic foods and wine in Waterloo and got on board the train-the train is very easy, from the center of London to the center of Paris in two and a half hours. Apart from Immigration, it was painless-I had one of those guys. One who looked at my visa and looked at me.

"What do you do?" He barked at me.

"I work in telecom." I replied.

"Typical," he sneers. "Dream Job laid off so many people and yet they have the nerve to bring in new people."

This actually isn't true, but the biggest rule is never mess with Immigration. At that moment, at that gate, they have all the power. It's totally possible to meet one of them on a dance floor and throw a drink in their face some other time, but never, never fuck with Immigration.

He angrily stamped my passport and handed it to me.

Angus piped up. "I work for Dream Job."

I looked at the angry Immigration Man as we started walking away. "And so do I."

People make me tired.

We ride the train into France, and into Paris.


Paris.jpg


Once in Paris it's chilly and a bit rainy. It's the November 11 Rememberance Celebrations, so all along the Champs-Elysees French flags dot the road, and all around are hundreds of gendarmes watching protectively over l'Arc du Triomphe as a Veteran's celebration is taking place.


Remembrance.jpg


It was beautiful, and we stood under the largest flag either of us had ever seen under the Arc. Ironically, of all the times I've been to Paris, this was the first time I'd ever seen the Arc without being covered in scaffolding for renovation. It's a truly impressive landmark, humbling and inspiring at the same time.


Arc.jpg


The Stila counter at the Sephora on the Champs-Elysees was pretty beautiful, too.

We went back to the hotel room, shagged like bunnies, and then slept for nearly 12 hours.

The next morning we woke, had a nice breakfast and another shag, then walked our way to the flea markets in the northern Paris suburbs. It was a long walk but relaxing as we talked our way to St. Ouen. And once we got there, I was amazed.

French antiques of every size and shape were there. It was incredible. And they were so inexpensive! The French are, apparently, not that big on vintage furniture. It showed, as 18th century chairs sat exposed to the rain. 200 year old armoires were stuffed in the back of a warehouse, dusty and forlorn. Art deco vanities sat there, their mirrors longing for someone to look in them. It was absolutely incredible-huge massive wooden staircases lined up against walls, easily a few hundred years old. Coat racks with such detailed inlaid woodwork that I couldn't even being to guess at how old they were.

We were also riding a train back to England, so none of it could come home with us, but we've sworn if we ever do manage to get a house we'll come back with a van and buy French antique furniture, to love and cherish forver. We bought a vintage French enamel street sign, though, which is now hanging in our kitchen, close to my Swedish and American street signs.

Angus hadn't been to Paris in over 20 years, so we agreed to take a look at the Eiffel Tower. We made our way there, and beheld the Tower in the afternoon's drizzly glory. The surrounding courtyard is amazing as well, something Ursula Andress would throw over Rome for.


Eiffel.jpg


We hiked back to our hotel, passing the Louvre, took a shower, had a glass of wine and another shag, and then took the metro to meet some folks for dinner (who I haven't asked permission to post about yet, so will wait!).


Paris Metro.jpg


Where we had a lot of nice French wine.

Dining out.jpg


Sunday morning we nipped into a local grocery shop and loaded up on le Fromage du Stinky. We are big fans of stinky French cheese and, hey, my colon was still empty, so why not add a mucus factor? We bought a baguette, some French wine, and had a picnic on the train back.

Even though Angus hadn't been to Paris in many years, he says he thoroughly enjoyed it. I too love Paris, for the same reasons I love New York-big cities with endless possibilities, cities I love to visit for a long weekend but always feel that, while it's great to be there, it's great to be able to check out of there as well. Paris and New York have a way of making a person feel so invisible, so tiny. I think living there would make me so small I could crawl underneath the door to get into the room, and even then someone could easily step on me.

And as we sped into the English countryside, I put my book on my lap and enjoyed the feeling of coming home.

-H.

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November 10, 2005

I Feel Like I've Been Sucker Punched With Daffy Duck's Anvil

From a child through to today, if I have any kind of fever, sedation or anesthetic I hallucinate like it's going out of style. I never remember these episodes but I understand that it's greatly entertaining to those around me. Many years ago when I had to have two of my wisdom teeth surgically removed I kept repeating "Oh thank heaven for 7-11." Not being an enormous fan of the Slurpee, I cannot explain why this was my advertising slogan of choice.

Apparently yesterday was no different. After waiting bloody ages I was asked to bare my butt to the world and get into the hospital bed (the same bed in which Angus found the X-rays of the previous patient who'd used this bed tucked under the bed frame. Nice.) I got a quick kiss from Angus, who ignored my halitosis (they don't tell you in the bowel prep brochure that a completely empty stomach = dragon breath. Nice again.) and they wheeled me into the room.

Once there, I was greeted by an Irishwoman, a Scottish woman, and an English woman (somehow I feel I should follow this up with the words:all walked into a bar.) They were all well over the age of 40 and all were extraordinarily kind. I smiled gratefully as the Irish nurse took my hand.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm awfully glad that none of you are are 25 year old male models." I say sincerely.

This elicits a round of laughter. "Ah, no, but I'd surely like to get myself one of those, so just tell me if you know where I can find one!" comes the Belfast accent reply.

She laughingly talks of all her experiences of Americans, and they all chirp in at the right times marked for the need of distraction-when the IV goes into the back of my hand, when they get the scope out, when they move me into the curled up fetal position. They administer the drug, and the last thing I remember is my arm getting extremely warm and tingly.

I awoke towards the end-the procedure took longer than expected. Without my glasses, I couldn't make anything out but I do remember seeing the screen reflecting back the probe inside of me, and I though it looked like a pumpkin carving. The black area next to the pumpkin carving, which I imagined just showed coordinates of where in cyber-colon space they were, was a laughing dancing skeleton.

And it hurt. When I was coming to the cramping was incredible. I begged for more drugs but they kept telling me it was almost over. Almost over. Almost over.

In recovery I woke up again, massive cramps throughout my body. The nurse patted my arm and told me I did fine. She told me they'd get that chicken sandwich for me.

I removed my oxygen mask. "Chicken sandwich?" I asked.

She smiled. "Yes, you've been requesting one."

"I'm a vegetarian." I replied, and then fell asleep.

I remember very little, but apparently I slept most of the afternoon in my 1980's chintz hospital room. According to Angus, I threw out many instructions in my sedation-based delirium-I told him to check the lights, what are we going to do about Dorset?, instructed him a few times that his Mum had rung, and yes, the "I want a chicken sandwich" delirium showed up with him, too. I remember none of this. Angus worked quietly on his laptop by the bed, not commenting once on the enormous amount of gas that was being depleted from my oxygen-filled bum. We got home and I dozed in and out on the couch. Angus made me homemade macaroni and cheese which I devoured the whole pan of (hey-I hadn't eaten in 36 hours!) but which simply made its way right back out again, the medicine still stuck in my system.

What I do know is that I am now in a holding pattern. They found a few things. The first is, by my gastro-enterologist's words, a very large internal hemorrhoid. They were going to remove it while in the enterology scope room only suddenly my heart rate apparently got way too fast and they decided not to risk it. I've been given medication to see if we can control the hemorrhoid (suppositories! Waxy bullets! Fun for the whole family!) and if that doesn't work, surgery will be possible.

The other issue is that they found polyps. Many of them. So many that they weren't able to remove them all-the smaller ones were cauterized. The larger ones have been removed and sent off to biopsy. Apparently, it's strange that someone my age should have polyps at all, let alone so many of the fucking nasty things. Larger polyps, over time, can turn cancerous, so if my large polyps are benign it still means I am going to be on a maintenance routine for good now, one in which I get to go get my ass scoped every couple of years. If my large polyps are pre-cancerous or cancerous, then I will have a bone to pick with God because I got the seriously short end of the stick.

In the meantime, I wait to hear from the labs, and I will lay on the couch and watch TV. Because I can. Because tomorrow I should hear whether or not I have my promotion (which my bones are telling me that the promotion? She will not be mine.) I feel bruised all over inside and very, very tired. Angus has arranged for a weekend away for us, and I am utterly delighted to do so. And so my insides-which feel like they've been used as a punching bag-and I will continue to chill out and rest.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:52 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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November 09, 2005

It's Like They've Been Jogging

Right now my intestines are panting. Seriously. I have them pictured as looking like Paul Sorvino, dressed in gauche velour sweatpants and wearing a headband, panting and bracing himself against a light pole. In his choppy New York accent he pants: I'm working out muscles I never knew I had! I tell ya! It's all I can do to not think about meatballs and salami!

Because that's what my intestines are like right now. They're like a meat-eating Italian New Yorker that hasn't worked out since the goldfish in his platform shoes died.

So yes-we can say that the bowel prep was successful. My bowel, she is prepped. She is so clean that....well, I can't really use that analogy of "so clean you can eat off it" as...ew...but so clean that I am down 3 kg in weight, anyway. There was quite a bit of mad dashing to the toilet last night, including episodes where felines flew out of the path as I shouted: Move! Move! FUCKING MOVE! and clenched the butt cheeks together. I even wore knickers to bed as I couldn't help but worry that the medicine would completely wipe out sphincter control, and if I had an accident in the bed, we're talking years of therapy ahead. I know Angus wouldn't hold it against me, but if there had been leakage I would have had to set fire to another area of the house, so that when Angus evacuated he would never ever learn that I had already had my own version of evacuation.

And the advice to just hole up in the toilet was great, because me and the new Anita Shreve I can't seem to get in to spent a lot of time with a lit candle and silent prayers that please, please let the damn thing be empty already (I am probably not into the new Shreve as there's a new Tan and a new Maguire out there. I feel like I am cheating on them. Amy! Greggy! I love you, I would never leave you for bog standard formulaic woman's fiction! Come back!)

So I sit here in my stocking cap that Stinkerbell knitted for me (why am I sitting indoors wearing a stocking cap? Who knows, really.) My appointment is in a few hours, and I am prepared to ask for extra sedative, because, a la Kirstie Alley, "I hurt much more than all those other women", because I am a big chicken when it comes to having a beam focussed straight on my ass, and because I am petrified of probage, because I am still emptying my intestines this morning and I would rather not be awake if there is leakage on the table. Shame can be avoided if one is not conscious!

I am also hoping that all the people in the room are either gay males or females with old crusty fannies, as I worry that attractive heterosexual male nurses could be looking up my ass thinking: Dude, look at the mucus. It's like someone blew their nose up there or something. And that, my friends, is not conducive to the healing process!

So it goes. I think I will take a bath now. I will remove said stocking cap while doing so, but I will quickly replace it. It will be nice to smell of Lush bubbles, as really, who wants to smell like Paul Sorvino's jogging clothes?

-H.

PS-actually, I like Paul Sorvino.
PPS-but I can do without the meatballs and salami.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:54 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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November 08, 2005

Oh God, She's Discussing What?

When I was a little kid I already had the makings of an IBS recipient, and all at the age of still being attracted to dungarees. IBS found me, gripped me, and decided to mark its territory all over me, and all while I was just wanting to grow in adult teeth. Think "severely constipated 6 year old" and you get the picture.

From an early age, I've been at war with poo. Seriously. Think nightmares where you're chased by what looks like a giant Baby Ruth and you get the picture. Truthfully, I think a lot of my phobia lays at the feet of IBS. I do also proportion a tiny bit of the blame at the feet of my father, a la "on the couch with Oprah Winfrey and not taking responsibilty for your own destiny".

I have the particularly cruel type of IBS, in that if I do not regularly monitor myself and keep my diet in a straight line, I get more clogged up than a lactose intolerant woman at a French cheese board. I can literally go for weeks without using the toilet. And before people protest that it would kill a person to go for weeks, the truth is, it won't-it takes a lot longer than that for a body to go toxic. The longest I have ever gone without using the loo is one month.

That's right.

"Impacted" is not even close to describing the misery.

Now, when I was a little kid, my mom caught on to the fact that sitting on the toilet and straining my life away was happening. As a kid, there's no option but one-the enema. The enema, the enema. Facing down the pointy end of the bottle and suffering what people in 1980's California determined what was a spiritual calling. As a constipated 6 year old, I can tell you-there is no God in the flushing of the toilet. I'm just saying.

I remember running pell mell for the toilet, praying and hoping I would make it in time (I always have. There has never been a breaking of the seal, not a prairie dog in sight, and long may it be so). But I also remember running for the toilet and having my father laugh mercilessly at me. Not only that, I remember him telling dinner guests about it and making fun of me.

Since I am already the queen of oversensitive, you can imagine the impact that had on me. From then on, poop was my phobia. My phobia, and my complete and utter shame.

It still is.

As a teenager I got to move away from enemas and into the tantalizing world of laxatives. It was an instacure for IBS, and not only that-one day I determined that a total clean-out equated to looking thin. It didn't matter that it was only water weight, that a diuretic can only work so far. The fact was, it would make me look thin. Thus entered the days I think of as Dabbling in Eating Disorders, the days before I moved into the intermediate stage of Avoiding of the Food before becoming a pro at Anorexia for the Certifiably Insane. I not only took laxatives to help my IBS, I would take the entire box to try to look thin. Sometimes it was a Friday night deal-I would cancel all my plans and stay home just so I could take down a box of Extra Strength Ex-Lax (none of that Senokot or Metamucil stuff for me, thank you. I play with the big guns).

You can see why I'm in therapy.

But any doctor can tell you that laxatives have a cyclic effect-use them long-term, and damage will be done. What perhaps saved my intestines was a move to Sweden. Sweden, land of nature and happiness and drinking songs, Sweden, land of Are You Constipated? Have Some Prunes. You couldn't get laxatives there, and so it was I was weaned off of them, and welcomed into the world of drinking water, loving coffee, and yes, being the occasional geriatric and eating prunes.

My body is normal now. Coffee, water and prunes continue to do the trick. I often have problems when travelling, but for the most part, those days of boxes of laxatives are gone.

Well, until today that is. I have been provided with three batches of medication to take today. Said medication is not a laxative, it's called a purgative. A purgative, the for real medicine. Think Exorcist, only from the anal passage. From the time I start the first batch this afternoon, I am not leaving the house again today. I know it's going to be awful, I know it's going to taste awful-I remember a colonoscopy when I was a kid, and I had to drink this nasty stuff from a jug called Colace-the prescription varient of it, the kind that meant you and Charmin were about to be very good friends.

In case you were wondering why I've spent an entire post discussing my rectal habits, here it is-I start the cleaning out today. The insides need to be sparkly clean in anticipation of the world's longest fiber optic viewing my posterior tomorrow. I will wearily stare down my demons today (well, not stare exactly. That's gross. But you get the analogy.) I had an enormous Indonesian meal last night with the theatre group (then we saw Woman in White, where we had third row seats. Simon Cowell was in it, the funeral one from Four Weddings and a Funeral. He was great, and I bet he's never had a cable up his ass.) And I had an enormous fuck off breakfast because I can, because now I am on a fast for 24 hours, because what the hell it's going to come out anyway.

Wheee. On second thought, we only have 4 rolls of toilet paper in the house. Better go buy more.

You know.

Just in case.

-H.

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November 07, 2005

Not an Ordinary Wednesday

Two Wednesdays ago I was in the pub with my work mates, ostensibly trying to shake off the work doldrums and the stress and just relax. Into my second glass of wine, the jokes flowing and the hatred of our jobs melting away under the ale-soaked base of a beer mat, my phone rang. I glanced at the number on it, and, not recognizing it, I very nearly didn't answer it. But my thumb was already under the flip, and with one motion I pushed the clam shell open and answered without thinking.

"Hello this is Helen." I said, mindlessly twirling my wine glass and making a cross-eyed face at Peter, who was laughing at me answering the phone while in the pub.

"Helen?" came a woman's voice.

"Speaking." I replied.

"Sorry, it's hard to hear you. This is Catherine with the Egg Share Clinic."

I stand up rapidly. "Hold on, Catherine. I'm just walking outside. Sorry for the noise, I'm just having an afterwork drink with my colleagues."

I walk outside into the cold Autumn night, and with a swing of the glass door I leave behind all the sounds and smells of the pub and of my day.

"Sorry about that. Can you hear me better now? I was just having a few drinks. Not like I drink much, I really don't, I just am having a social evening." I ask, my heart racing. I worry I will be disqualified for liking my grape juice.

"Yes, thank you, no worries. Sorry for ringing so late,"-we are obviously both very apologetic people-"but I had some news. We have all your test results in, and they're all ok, both you and Angus, and so we entered you into our database."

I listen, not surprised that our test results are ok but surprised they would call so late on a work day.

"And the good news is, we've matched you with a donee." she says, a smile in her voice.

My knees go weak. "What?" I ask.

"That's right! We have found an absolutely perfect match. We've already discussed it with her and she's ready to proceed when you are, so we just need to talk about timings."

I feel I need to sit down. They have a match. She has accepted. I feel like crying and laughing and throwing up and saying a quiet thank you into the night.

"We're going to start the process after our holiday with Angus' children. They have to come first-they have school holidays and we go away with them for two weeks during them. Since I can't do any long haul flights while getting ready for IVF, I need to make sure it's done after their holidays, which I will get back to you on the dates for. It's not until after the New Year, though, as we can't go through this process over the holidays, it's just too difficult."

"That's absolutely no problem," she replies. We agree to talk in a few weeks time, once the kids' holiday schedule is firmed up.

And just like that, there's a woman out there in a quiet corner of England whose name has been taken off a list. She's been waiting for two years to have eggs donated to her, and with the click of a mouse and a few criteria, a lot of patience and a bucket of tears, she will have half of mine. A phone call made to her linked her life and my life forever, in good luck or bad luck.

I wonder how she reacted. I wonder if she's angry I want to wait until after the holiday season. I wonder if she cried, if she hugged her partner, or if she smiled to herself.

I raised my wine glass to the busy London road, and I said a toast to the woman who is going to be going through it all with me, and then I went inside.

-H.

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November 01, 2005

In Case I Wanted Another Reason To Not Get Out of Bed In the Morning

We are trying to keep from tumbling into a depression the size of Montana.

Yesterday afternoon Angus' estate agent for his home near Brighton called.

The couple that were bidding on his house have pulled out of the sale. In fact, they'd been secretly bidding on another property for a few weeks now and just didn't have the cojones to tell us. I hope their new house buying falls through and they are forced to live in a Travel Lodge for months, in punishment.

And the reason I am so vengeful as, since his house sale has fallen through, so then has ours.

We have lost The Blackberries.

-H.

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