Sunday, 4 October 2015

Lying in the dark last night, both hands wrapped around Ben's neck I fell asleep so fast when I woke up my arms were rusted and my neck was painfully stiff. Ben was smiling in the post-dark. Teeth bright. Eyes black. Cool skin, warm heart. Tightest hold he could keep me in without crushing the air out of my lungs.

We never ever sleep like that. Something's wrong. Maybe he felt one more piece of my puzzle snap into place and he got scared. Maybe he realizes he drifts farther than I do sometimes. Maybe we don't make enough effort but I don't want to weigh him down and he doesn't want me to worry.

Maybe we're dumb about that and we probably already know.  I pull myself tighter into his arms until I can only breathe a little bit and I feel his arms leave me as Lochlan presses himself against my back. Ben's arms make a cage as they wrap around Lochlan's shoulders and I close my eyes and sleep a little more. Something's right.

This morning things don't look so bad. Lochlan and I may be sorting things out but we're making sure Ben stays on the same page with us. He's keeping up quite nicely.

And because of that I slept like a baby, until after ten this morning.

Saturday, 3 October 2015

Saturday morning cartoons.

I'd have loved you with grace
Caleb made us cheese toast for breakfast round nine o'clock when he wandered over as I was gathering up the dishes we left in the grotto last evening. Loch offered to bring them in but I was wanting to go out and greet the sun anyway after the rain yesterday.

I jumped fifty feet when Caleb spoke behind me.

Have you eaten yet, Princess?

OH. You scared me. No, but I want to bring these in before I forget. 

Come over for some cheese toast and tea? 

Sure, okay. Just let me put these things away and I'll meet you there. 

When I arrive he makes breakfast and we take it outside to the bistro table on his front walkway, fifty feet above the water. It's delicious. I never turn down his cheese toast. Not sure I could, that's how good it is.

He waits until I finish and then tells me he spent most of last evening watching me dance in the rain with Lochlan, wondering if Lochlan finally won the game.

The magician saved his greatest trick for last. 

What trick was that? 

Time travel. Year in, year out. He was so patient. He didn't rush and eventually you came back to him. I really didn't think it would end this way. 

What did you expect? 

That you would eventually grow up and realize he is rigid, controlling and stubborn. But you didn't grow up and he turned out to be less controlling than I somehow and you are the stubborn one, as it turns out. Unwilling to take your eyes off him for a second because every time you do something bad happens. 

God, I really hope you're right and maybe things can be okay now.

Friday, 2 October 2015

Tidal flux.

(One of those magical days.)

The two jellyfish found each other (and made a bloom!) in spite of the fact that they have no brains and painted a mural on the tiny wooden shed this morning, in the rain with a haphazard tarp rigged up over the roof and attached to some garden stakes. It was like a yard fort only it was necessary instead of purely recreational and yet we got some neat effects when the paint began to run. It's like a surrealist masterpiece in some places, as weaker colors bleed out over strong ones and the first crisp lines soften and blur.

Sam put his fall construction on hold but he still put on his surrender plaid and came and helped Loch add more wood to the pile near the house from the pile behind the garage and then he asked if he could steal me away for the remainder of the afternoon and he did. We painted and went for coffee (too much coffee, here I go again but the headaches, you see) and then we sacked out in the theater and watched a little television and then we napped, my head jammed against his bony shoulder cap, his arm flung wide across my back. I missed dinner. Which was called off anyway on account of a lack of participants and the fact that Caleb took Henry and Ruth out.

When I did wake up on my own Loch was back and the plaid jellyfish was telling him about our antics putting up the tarp. Loch said he'll help us finish if the weather clears up over the weekend and then he stole me back, not content to leave me there in Sam's arms, but loathe to take me out of a place that was some of the best comfort I've had all week.

But it was a means to an end. The rain was heavier than earlier in the day and he took me out front, across the yard and into the tiny wood to the grotto where he had candles blazing and dinner for us laid out on the tiny writing table. It doesn't rain in there, the tree cover is so thick above. There was some cheese melted on bread, wine, olives, sliced tomatoes, warm chicken pasta salad and there was chocolate cake.

And there was music. He slow-danced with me as a prelude to eating because it was one of those nights where you forget you're hungry because the company is better than the event. Because his green eyes had gold flickering in them from the light and yet he is the constant, a beacon that brings me safely home when I drift so far away I feel like I'll never get back. He's the lighthouse, Ben is the storm. Why I try to force them into roles they aren't suited for I'll never understand but I try to do it less.

We did eat, eventually. All of it. Until we were too stuffed to dance anymore and had to go inside and fall asleep with all the windows open and the sound of rain pouring down outside. Only I've had coffee and so I can't sleep yet. Maybe later. I'm going to go back and watch him do it though. He makes it look so easy.

Thursday, 1 October 2015

It's too cold for you here.

PJ is miffed that I don't like the new Megadeth single. I'm fine with his attitude problems. He's bitchy because mercury is in retrograde so I fed him a chocolate bar, turned the music up and slowly backed away.

I went for a walk on the beach with New Jake because no one else would go. It's my favorite time of year, the jeans, bare feet and a sweater time when I'm never too warm to be in the sun but the sun is still so bright when I open my eyes that the inside of my skull is bleached and whitewashed and all of the dark shadows vanish. The autumn sea is louder than in the summer and the water itself darker and warmer. It will be my favorite until at least April.

New Jake doesn't say much. He's quiet today, content to let me prattle a little or not at all and we collect a multitude of ready-glass and eventually he motions for us to go back. My phone is ringing off the hook in his pocket and his own phone worn down with messages returned to let everyone know where we are. I'm ready for my GPS microchip if it lets them track me without the noise and formalities of having to reply but Sam said it would have to be more like an astronaut suit in which they would be able to see a readout of my body temperature and heart rate too or it wouldn't be good enough.

He thought he was being clever until I said, then next time don't be busy when I want to go to the beach. 

Ow. We're stinging each other like lonely satellite jellyfish lately and it isn't fair but he tries to be objective and helpful and I need him to be my affection friend before all else.

Ben says Sam just wants to be useful, that he has some training and he's always felt bad for not being able to manage me the way Jacob could.

That makes two of us, though Jake had a lot of help behind the scenes from God, Claus and Joel, ironically. They're the holy trinity now: The father, son and the holy pest. I don't think I would love Sam as much as I do if he pulled hard-nosed-counselor-mode on me most of the time. But he did let New Jake off the hook to join me. New Jake was supposed to be cleaning gutters and furnaces today with Sam. He took Keith with him instead as Keith has Thursdays free.

Ben went to a meeting with Duncan. They're two big peas in a giant pod. Two big dry peas who aren't much fun at parties and we're very grateful for that but at the same time Ben seems like he's still flickering in and out of a room when he should be a fucking beacon, a lighthouse by now. I guess I have to remind myself that he falls harder, because he's bigger.

And as PJ told me, I bounce.

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

First Ghost Problems.

They're like first world problems, only they're about ghosts. Claus brought up Jake this morning for the first time unbidden, and I took Jake from him, turned him over in my hands, shook him like a snow globe until all of his values began to rain down on the pretty scene inside the glass and then I tucked him on the shelf behind me, words scattered around his feet like faithful, loyal, adventurous, nurturing. Courageous. 

Claus waited for me to say something and instead I changed the subject. I asked him about his future travels and past lives, anything so that I didn't have to disturb Jake again. Not right now. He seems happy where he is. Peaceful even. He's probably dead. I should go check but I'd rather pretend otherwise so just leave me be.

Claus asks about the new house.

Again I change the subject and ask him if he thinks the collective is a healthy environment for us. I know it's fine for the children but I worry about things like PJ's emotional health as a monk and Duncan's sobriety as a monk, too. I worry about Ben's attention span and John's bottomless plaid flannel wardrobe. I worry that days and days go by and Christian doesn't check in but then he's right here and everything is fine. I worry about the Devil breathing down my neck,  snapping it by mistake.

I worry, period. Always will, always have.

The snow globe makes me dizzy. It's fragile but compact, an ecosystem of all the things about life with Jake distilled down into this beautiful little decoration. The glitter is our emotions, like fireworks but in water instead of air. The base is our foundation that we thought we built that caved in. It still looks sturdy from here though. Four feet and a tiny gold key that you turn and it plays Dust in the Wind. I'd throw it at the wall if I wouldn't miss it so it's still surprisingly intact.

Have you ever thrown anything, Bridget?

Whoops. Yes. I throw food if Ben starts a food fight (or a snowball one) and I once threw an entire set of dishes, one at a time, at Sam, coating a room with shards of stoneware. 

Boy, did that ever feel good. Not. Here, you can read about it. Some days I've come to question why I'm detailing my own slow-motion demise, here. I can't even read that. I remember that.

And I'm not a thrower by nature. I bring the tears like the tide in the Bay of Fundy. We've established this time and time again.

Claus finally let me off the hook. He'll find some other way in to those places. Perhaps there's a trap door under a table or a loose board in a fence that will let him in. Until then I'll leave Jake covered with heaps of glitter and drowning in my need to keep him so close.

When Claus hangs up at last I turn and Jake is not a snow globe any more, but a tall memory, fading into the sunlight as he continues to refuse to be confined to the places I try to stuff him into, like the garage, or the snow globe, or, you know, my head.


Tuesday, 29 September 2015

Roser, Jasper, Opal.

Regular season hockey starts in ONE WEEK! What a long summer.

My car arrives on Thursday. Why so long? Yeah, that was my question too. It will be worth it though.

Ten Days until the premiere of season six of The Walking Dead. I've been so patient. I even caved and watched Fear the Walking Dead. It's really good but it's not the original.

Eventually Outlander and Game of Thrones will return too. Oh and American Horror Story, though I didn't like Freakshow all that much after the first episode and am not excited about Hotel either.

I started Christmas shopping, if you can believe it.

My head is still so congested when I sniff really hard my face contracts and makes a sound like a very sweet duck and then the resulting sinus pain is tremendous. At least the coughing has lessened a little. I fought to be functional right through the weekend and I think I mostly succeeded. As they say, I'm a little trooper.

Indeed.

Caleb and Lochlan locked horns about my condition on Sunday. Caleb insisted we bring the doctor back in and Lochlan told him if he knew anything about being a parent, he would have some instincts as to what is a regular cold and what isn't getting better. She's run down, she doesn't sleep through the night, so it takes her longer to recover. That's all. That's Loch's reasoning. Caleb didn't appreciate the parenting dig, and thinks any illness that extends past a day is bad for business and should be fixed with money.

I'm not sure how. Do you boil the cash and make a poultice? Steep coins and drink the tea? Invest in eucalyptus extraction companies?

Don't be a smartass, it doesn't become you, he said to me.

Sure it does. And I sneezed on his lapels and he shook his head and removed his jacket and Loch picked me up under both arms and wrestled me upstairs. I had a hot bath and a long sleep and what do you know, I actually am feeling a little better today for the first time in over a week.

Saturday, 26 September 2015

Pizza Pizza.

Out running errands today. Might be buying a car. Still didn't feel well enough to do a lot or be out in the first place, frankly so by two in the afternoon I was mighty hangry and PJ and I were looking for a place for lunch. We wound up at Little Caesars, and walked in where they were just taking fresh pizzas out of the oven that were baked already and then to top it off they were all, hey you want some fresh crazy bread too? and I was like, they have fast food pizza things?Already made? with very wide eyes and PJ nodded and laughed in that way that lets me know that he knows pretty much all of the secrets of the universe and I know nothing at all.

Friday, 25 September 2015

How much money do you think it would cost to cure the common cold (and maybe the uncommon ones too)?

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond
Matt is singing in a broken voice this afternoon and we're dissolving into regular gusts of laughter from his efforts to soldier on. He's as sick as I am so Sam has corralled us in front of the fire with hot chocolate drizzled with caramel sauce and whipped cream and all the music we can cram into our blocked and congested ears.

I'm ignoring them in favor of reading. I'm halfway through Voyager and it's so fucking good I want to hit that big imaginary pause button on life and finish it in one go but I'm such a slow reader that by the time I would finish my joints will have rusted over and the children will have children of their own. So I also soldier on with small breaks to read anywhere between two and fifteen pages a night and eventually I will get to the acknowledgements in the back, which I always read with jealous curiosity.

Great, Matt and Sam are going to leave me here for a 'nap', they say, which means more like a little rainy fall afternoon delight and I'm jealous of that too, but frankly Ben strung me out on his own desires last night and I couldn't keep up with him at all.

(That's how you know I'm really sick)

But I feel good enough for mascara and tights today and Lochlan is going to take me out tonight for dinner (maybe sushi) and then we'll come home and watch a movie while I grab a little nap and swear I didn't miss anything good and then do all this again tomorrow except with everyone home. Hopefully I'll feel a little better or at least less bad by then.

Thursday, 24 September 2015

Perfectly lucid.

(Dayquil is an equal-opportunity fuckupper.)

The time machine still exists, more than five and a half years on, as a source of endless curiosity and frustration.

The time machine is the dishwasher, for the uninitiated. It's the first one I've ever had. I don't know if it works right and I don't know if we're loading it properly, I just know that people who put steak knives in it blade up and small bowls right behind big plates frustrate me to no end but I always try to remember it's new for everyone else too.

I think the space where it lives in the kitchen would make an amazing bake-station with a pull out pastry marble pocket and sliding shelves to store my Kitchenaid mixer and maybe the bread maker.

I look at new dishwashers and wonder if they would have more space and be a little quieter than this one that sounds like a 777 coming into the kitchen for a landing for a straight forty-five minutes. I wonder if the cutlery basket is even on the right side. I'm wondering if it gets a leak if I would ever know until the kitchen was ruined and I wonder how exactly it's supposed to be a time saver when we have to clean all the dishes, load it, run it and then beg each other to empty it, half of the dishes needing to go into the dish drainer anyway to finish drying because I won't stack wet Tupperware away.

So yeah..not any sort of massive time saver. I guess it's useful as a sort of autoclave if you're terrified of germs (being sick right now, this is becoming a thing I think about) or have an infant or two and only one free hand at any given time to rinse bottles but otherwise just...no.

I don't like it or need it or want it. So when it breaks it gets retrofitted as a bakery station.

Caleb shakes his head. No one is going to buy a house this size without a dishwasher, he says. We always have half an eye to real estate. Otherwise all the staircases would be slides and the pool would actually be a ball pit. But I've sold a big house in a hurry. You can make it yours but in a pinch it's easier if you make it easily imaginable as theirs, too, without a lot of work in between.

However since the pool is being drained this week it's TOTALLY going to become a ball pit.

WIN.

Though last time I was in one, someone had peed in it. YES I KNOW.  I never let Ruth and Henry in one ever again.

What if the dishwasher was a false-front and if you pull it out there's a secret staircase to an underground bunker made up of caves cut out of the cliff? 

Bridget- He pinches the space between his closed eyes. I'm so aggravating.

Hey, it's practical as fuck. 

For what, exactly?

The End of Days, Diabhal
. I tell him with wide eyes, between coughing fits.

The End of Days is going to come even sooner if you don't soon go rest instead of walking around questioning the usefulness of things people have come to rely on for the past sixty years. 

I've had this for FIVE years. I rely on myself! *coughs*

It appears to be going well, too, I see.

You don't know my life. I once washed dishes in a hotel bathroom sink for a month straight. With shampoo. I tell him proudly.

Yes, well, unlike Lochlan, I choose not to force you to live like a vagrant. 

Hey, at least we had dishes. It was better than the place before that. We wound up reusing paper plates. 

Jesus Christ. 

It was actually pretty fun. 

Bridget-

What? 

Can you stop?

Fill the pool with balls and we'll talk, okay? 

Wednesday, 23 September 2015

Whatever happened to John Frusciante anyway? He heard I wanted to marry him and went underground, that's what happened.

(So tired today and very sick and I have a weed hangover (not our weed) (wait we dont have any weed) so this will be short and sweet.)

We got to see AC/DC again last night! Indoors this time at BC Place instead of at the old football stadium in Winnipeg. My first stadium show here in the big' city.

It might have been louder last night than 2008 ( I was going to link you to an entry for the show in 2008 but there isn't one because I took a four-month internet break after the wedding.) This time the whole thing seemed very final and amazing. So much love, such a loud band. Twelve hours later my ears are still ringing and I'm a little bit alarmed but I had earplugs in my bag and refused to bow to the wisdom of age that manifested itself in a little voice that was all hey, don't drink that vodka, and you're going to regret those salty nachos, wear your earplugs you moron, and yet congratulated me in the next breath for wearing sneakers.

(I definitely don't fall into the cocktail-dress-and-stilettos-for-concerts category. I wear sneakers, jeans and a t-shirt. Always. What the fuck, why would you not want to be comfortable? Someone please explain. Is it a place people pick up dates? Are they going clubbing afterward? Do they hope to get pulled out of the crowd by a roadie and taken backstage?

Only the second one makes sense, and if that's the case, power to you! You have so much more energy than I.)

What a loud crazy show. So much fun. Vintage Trouble was very rolicking, motowny and retro. I loved their set. But then yeah. I bided my time and AC/DC played Rock n' Roll Train which is my FAVORITE song of theirs and I took a shit ton of video and when we got home my phone was at 12% and asking me if I wanted to shift into low power mode.

Yes, yes I did. And I slept hard as a rock (no they didn't play that.)

Bonus things no one cares about but me:

-I hit every red light on a 49 km drive yesterday. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. In a standard. With a full bladder.
-I drank a vodka and cranberry very fast at the concert so I could suck on the ice. The ice. I don't usually drink at concerts because I have a microscopic bladder but this was necessary because I was sick.
-Last time I was this sick for a concert was almost ten years ago for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Go read about it and I'll see you tomorrow.
-Frusciante has technically retired, if you're interested. What a travesty unto the music world, for he's a fucking genius.

I mean, seriously.