Sassymonkey

Scurry

Jan 062012

A few years ago a friend of mine did a weekly series called “What’s This Doing in My House Monday”. I played from time to time but since I was living one of the smallest apartments I’ve ever lived in there wasn’t a lot of stuff lying around. Then one afternoon I was minding my own business when I found something in my apartment. Something that did not belong. There was… a mouse. A mouse which Piper didn’t notice for a long time — until it ran directly between her legs. At that point she chased the mouse out of the apartment, though she didn’t realize it. I watched the mouse run underneath my door and was on the phone with my landlord about what the heck to do about it (it was now in the common area and happily his problem, not mine) while Piper was still staring at the last place she saw the mouse and would stay there for the next two hours. Piper has many skills but that day it was decided that “mouser” was not one of them.

Flash forward six years to 2012. Piper and I have added Lee to the family, have moved a few times and now have this house that you could fit my old apartment into four or five times over. That’s a lot of domain for a cat to own and she thrives on owning every inch of it (except perhaps that place where the vacuum and steam cleaner are stored). Anyone who has ever owned a cat knows full well what I mean when I say that our house is actually her house, she just allows us to live here as long as we keep scooping the litter and open cans of food at regular intervals.

A few days ago after I finished work I went downstairs to play with the Wii. While I was down there I heard something moving around in the ceiling. Now, in the basement we have ceiling panels and I could have easily popped one open and peaked inside but are you crazy? You know darned well if you do that you are going to discover a gremlin that someone fed after midnight and it will launch itself at your face. No, thank you. I much prefer to stick my fingers in my ears and go, “Lalalala I’m not listening. Nothing to see here. Move along.”

When Lee got home that night and joined me downstairs I didn’t say anything. It was quiet and he already thinks I’m nuts. I hear things all the time and he doesn’t. Granted, I work from home so I’m here a heck of a lot more than he is and probably a bit more in tune to our house noises. I don’t know if it’s because I lived alone for so long but I’m very tuned to notice “not normal” noises (that is probably why I sleep like hell the first night in any hotel). I didn’t forget about it but over the next couple of days I convinced myself that the noises I heard were outside, not right above my head. Denial, it’s a wonderful thing.

Last night we spent some time emptying our bedroom of just about everything because today we are starting the great De-Popcorning of the Ceiling and Overall Master Bedroom Makeover of 2012. (Yes! A project! That I meant to take before pictures of and then forgot until almost everything was out of the bedroom. I rock at this blogger thing.) It’s going to be a busy weekend and we’re going to be tired. We’ll be spending the next couple of nights sleeping in on our mattress on the floor of the office. We were looking forward to a good night’s sleep before everything began.

2am. Everyone was tucked asleep in their bed and no one was scurrying… except for the mouse and the fourteen pound cat chasing after it. Now, when the banging and the sound of a fourteen pound cat running around on the main level woke me up at 2am I didn’t know it was a mouse. I just suspected. And kind of hoped. After all, a mouse is better than say, a rat. Or mole. Or a squirrel. I sat straight up in bed while Lee slept on soundly, not having heard the cat sound like it was destroying the kitchen. Lee sleeps through everything.

I heard Piper run down to the basement (the fake cat has a bell, we can hear her move around which I’m sure annoys her but it means we step on her a lot less). It got quiet. I exhaled but stayed alert. Minutes passed and I started to relax. I rolled over and began to ease my head down to the pillow when I heard it. Piper was moving around. She was no longer hell bent on destroying things but I heard her come upstairs and into the bedroom.

My brain at that moment was saying, “Oh shit. Shit, shit, SHIT. Turn on the light. I don’t wanna. Piper, please do not jump up on the bed. Please, please, PLEASE. Shit. TURN ON THE LIGHT.”

I turned on the light. I took one look at the corner and turned to Lee, who was still sound asleep and oblivious….

“WAKE UP! WAKE UP! MOUSE! PIPER’S GOT A MOUSE! WAKE! UP!”

Lee bounded out of bed, stood in the middle of the space between our bed and the corner with his hair standing on end, his arms outstretched and ready to tackle an intruder. “What? WHAT’S GOING ON? WHAT’S HAPPENING? WHAT DO I DO?!”

I pointed at the cat, the mouse told him to take care of it and then hid my head under a blanket. But not before I grabbed my phone and tweeted, “Omg. Mouse. Fake cat. Mouse. Fake cat. Bedroom. HALP!”

I sure as heck didn’t know what to do. Lee didn’t know what to do. The cat was looking at us as if to say, “WTF? I brought you a present.” Our commands that she recapture the damned thing were met with silence and glares. Possibly because we were shrieking them at her. If it got more than a few inches from her she slapped it down but mostly just looked at it and then looked at us with a smug expression.

There was a lot of banging (which I didn’t want to think about too much) and a broom seemed to come out of nowhere (ditto) and then next thing I heard were words that I did not particularly want to hear. “Where did it go? I can’t find it.”

I cautiously peered around the end of the blanket and found… nothing. Just my husband standing in his underwear in the middle of the room with a broom at the ready and nothing around him. No mouse. No cat.

I peered around the edge of the door and there was the cat staring at the linen closet. “It’s in the closet,” I said. Lee started to open the doors to our bedroom closet and I stopped him. “No, the hall closet. The one the cat is standing sentry in front of.”

Confirmation quickly ensued followed by, “So… I’ve got it cornered. What do I do with it?”

Damn good question. It was decided a shoe box was the answer. Once it was obtained the mouse was captured and somehow Lee managed to flip the box over and get a cover on it. Then he had the fun of putting on clothes in the middle of the night and running the box outside to the woods and releasing it. Then he came in, washed his hands, gave the cat a few treats (much deserved) and promptly fell back asleep.

Meanwhile I was on high alert and jumped at every noise. Piper had done another few laps of the house by that point and I took the fact that she was now curled up at the foot of the bed, very proud of herself, as an all clear and finally fell asleep sometime after 4am.

Today, Lee is at work and tired. I am at home working and tired. Piper? Is doing what she does every day. Sleeping. I’m thinking about running the vacuum but I fear that she would retaliate by bringing the mouse into the bed next time. You win Piper. We will add “mouser” to your skills. But please, keep them out of the bedroom.

14 Names

Canada 3 Responses »

Dec 062011

Today, December 6th, I remember:

Geneviève Bergeron – civil engineering student
Hélène Colgan – mechanical engineering student
Nathalie Croteau – mechanical engineering student
Barbara Daigneault – mechanical engineering student
Anne-Marie Edward – chemical engineering student
Maud Haviernick – materials engineering student
Maryse Laganière – budget clerk
Maryse Leclair – materials engineering student
Anne-Marie Lemay – mechanical engineering student
Sonia Pelletier – mechanical engineering student
Michèle Richard – materials engineering student
Annie St-Arneault – mechanical engineering student
Annie Turcotte – materials engineering student
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz – nursing student

May their names always be more important than that of the man who murdered them.

Does It Really Get Better?

Canada, Things I Don't Understand No Responses »

Oct 282011

I’ve been thinking a lot. I’ve been thinking about Jamie Hubley’s death. I’ve been thinking about Rick Mercer’s rant. And I’m wondering, does it really get better?

Rick’s not outing anyone. He’s not threatening to out anyone. He wants bullying to stop and he’s hoping that if some GLBTQ in the community, with public lives or not, step up and say, “I’m GLBTQ” that maybe it will get better. Maybe it will help. Maybe it won’t.

He wants everyone to stand up, no matter who they are, and say that bullying isn’t right.

Because telling kids it gets better isn’t making it better right now.

But this is the part I’m struggling with — does it get better? If Rick is, essentially, urging people to be vocally out… why aren’t they out already? Are they worried? Is it a threat to their jobs? Have they been harassed? Do they fear harassment?

The Canada I grew up in isn’t the same Canada these kids know. When I was growing up in small town Canada you did not talk about people’s sexuality. No one was out in my town. I mean, I had graduated university before same-sex marriage was legalized in Ontario. (Civil unions, of course, predated this in many provinces but in terms of marriage, 2003 was when it started.) This generation of teens barely remember that. Today’s 15 year old was 7 when same-sex marriage was legalized in Ontario.

Today’s out teens and adults… they aren’t fighting for rights the way people were a decade ago. They are fighting for something else, something perhaps much, much harder. They are fighting for social acceptance and the ability to live their lives freely. Openly. Without fear of harassment or, at least, no more fear than their straight peers.

My Canada, my Ontario, is one in which it is fine to be out. It doesn’t matter if you are out or not. You are just you. But I know this isn’t everyone’s Canada. I know this because kids like Jamie Hubley are bullied because they are gay. I know this because Rick Mercer is urging GLBTQ people to stand up and be role models. I know this because I’ve read about the suicides of too many GLBTQ kids AND adults.

Do we need it to get better for kids right now? Yes. Do GLBTQ kids need GLBTQ role models? Yes (though I’d argue that straight kids need GLBTQ role models too…). Do we all, no matter who we are or how we identify ourselves, need to stand up and say that bullying, no matter why the kid is being bullied, needs to stop? YES. Emphatically yes. Does it get better for everyone? Goodness, I hope so.

But before we tell kids it gets better, we need to ask if it really does. Before we ask GLBTQ adults to stand up and be role models, we need to ask why they aren’t already. These kids deserve our honestly as well as our help.

Stepping Back

sometimes I ramble 11 Responses »

Sep 292011

Over the last few years I stepped away from this space. I stepped away from writing. I had lots of excuses but the truth is I was a bit lost.

Things had changed. I had outed myself. Kinda. When I moved to Ottawa I met a lot of people who knew me only online and then met me in person. I got a local job through my social media connections. The people I worked with knew I wrote. Every now and then someone would comment that they had read something or other and it was… disconcerting. I felt exposed.

My real name got out there more. I had been hiding behind a pseudonym online for years. Suddenly I was Googleable. It was a little bit scary.

[Aside: My apologies to the other woman out there with my name whose Google juice I am eating. It probably sucks for you.]

My stories weren’t just my stories anymore. Not all of them. There was this other person whom I’d attached myself to and some things were mine and some were ours. I need to be clear about something — Lee has never asked me to not post something. He has never asked me not to write. I had blogged for three years before I met him. A certain amount of exposure came with the territory and he’s been nothing but supportive. I needed to figure out the new line was for myself. I wasn’t sure where my boundaries were anymore.

I stopped writing. I stopped sharing. I floundered. Added to that is the fact that well, I’m pretty boring. I thought about doing one of those memes where you document your day for an hour but let’s be honest, hours 7:30-6:30 generally find me at my computer. It makes for dull pictures. I’m a homebody who works from home. I don’t really go anywhere and I rarely leave the house during the week unless it’s go to for a walk on the trail or check the mail.

[Lee hates it when I say this. He thinks it makes it sound like he locks me in the basement or has a Bluebeard-esque chamber somewhere in the house.]

It wasn’t that I had lost my voice — it was that suddenly didn’t know what I wanted to say. I stepped away from this space until I had figured it out.

I haven’t. Not really. But I’ve been writing more lately and I realized I’ve missed it. I’ve missed the simple act of putting words on paper or on the screen. I’ve shut down the voices that have been yelling in my head about how people have themes and niches and reminded myself of the main label and the tagline for this blog — “Sometimes I ramble.” And you know what? That’s ok.

When we step back we usually mean that we are stepping away from something. If we’ve already stepped away, stepping back sometimes means we’re moving toward something. Sometimes stepping back means going in the right direction.

I’m stepping back.

Function

Health 2 Responses »

Sep 242011

At the beginning of my last year of high school I started to get horrible headaches. I’d describe them to people as it feeling like someone had stuck my head in a vice and was slowly tightening it. At first I tried to ignore them. I’d pop some Tylenol and keep going about my business.

After a couple of weeks my mother made me go see my doctor. I think the final thing for her was when, on a Saturday night, instead of going to a party I went to bed at 8pm. My mother knew there was a party. She knew I was planning to go. This is back when I had no curfew (she tried, I just didn’t follow it) and at any other point would have easily been out until 2am. Ok fine, 2am would have been an early night. Yes, I was that kid. (Though to be fair to teen-aged me, I was usually the DD making sure everyone else got home.) It probably did not help that in the 10 foot walk to my bedroom from the couch I walked into two walls.

So I went to the doctor and I was told I had migraines. I rarely had an aura but the headaches would mess with my equilibrium and make me really sensitive to sound. I was given meds and I learned how to function. Unless I was particularly stressed, the migraines only manifested seasonally. September and October were the worst. March and April could be troublesome as well.

I could work, even write most term papers, with a headache. I’m sure I probably would not want to read those term papers today but it was what it was and I functioned. Sometimes if I had something to focus on, like a Sudoku puzzle, I could distract myself. As the seasons rolled on I found they were getting less and less. It’s been a few years since I’ve had a particularly bad season.

I always think I like September. It’s a month of new beginnings, of fresh starts. I conveniently forgot this year that it can also be Headache from Hell season until they started to hit. I have had a headache for 10 days now. I can’t get rid of it.

Most days, I can work through it. Most days it just makes things a little bit harder. It’s harder to focus. It’s harder to write. I make more typos or use the wrong word. I click the wrong button. It takes me longer to do tasks.

Then there are days like today. Days where I go to bed with a headache and wake up with a worse one. Days where I can’t be in the kitchen because the humming of the refrigerator makes me want to punch my own face. Days where I want to tell the neighbour four houses over working on his fence exactly what he can do with his power tools.

It’s building and like Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture it’s going to crash down in a crescendo. It’s going to build to the one or two days this season where I find myself curled up in a ball in the dark thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I bang my head against the wall it would release some of the pain and pressure.

It will build until one day I cannot pretend to function. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Satisfaction

House stuff 2 Responses »

Sep 202011

When we bought our house we were determined not to be those people. You know the ones I mean. The ones that buy a house and promptly spend all kinds of money filling it with new furniture, changing things, decorating… It’s not that we didn’t want to decorate or change things. In order to that we’d have had to lay it out on credit. We were doing our best to avoid that.

That’s not to say we did nothing. We replace the 20 year old carpet on the upper level of the house with hardwood. We also replaced the furnace, which was equally as old. We did both within the first six weeks and it was expensive. So we did things like not getting new baseboards installed when we had the floor done. We’ll have to do those at some point. For now we’ve lived without baseboards on the upper level for over a year. I can’t say it’s been a hardship.

We bought things like a table and chair of the kitchen. A lawnmower. Shovels. We ripped down the burgundy blinds in the living room and replaced them with white curtains. We de-fairy-stickered and repainted the spare bedroom (it was a shade of what I call “pepto princess pink”). We replaced a couple of faucets. All fairly minor changes done slowly over the course of the year and a bit we’ve been here.

We didn’t add much and we didn’t remove much either. Shelves that were up stayed up. Curtains that were up mostly stayed up. We knew we’d take down most of the stuff eventually. Some day.

Some day arrived for our kitchen this weekend. When we were started looking for a house we told our friend and real estate agent that we had fairly simple demands. We didn’t want to share a wall, floor or ceiling with anyone. We wanted at least 1 and a 1/2 baths. We wanted a garage. We’re not fixer-uppers. And I wanted a real kitchen — one that allowed you room to move, had ample workspace, had space for a table and please for the love do not show me a galley kitchen. There were other things we wanted, of course, but these were the things that we were really looking for.

Our kitchen met our criteria. It’s not a perfect kitchen. It’s a bit dated. I could use an upgrade. But it’s functional and big.

My dream kitchen would have built-in bookshelves. Not just a single shelf but room for a pretty decent cookbook library. What’s not given to us, we create. We stuck an older bookcase in the corner of the kitchen and promptly overfilled it. We’ve been meaning to replace it. It was never the most sturdy of bookcases and the movers damaged it when they brought it in.

So this weekend we braved the messed up Ottawa Ikea parking lot. We grabbed a Billy bookcase. We did a traditional impulse purchase (at Ikea it’s not so much whether or not we’ll do an impulse purchase but what it will be and how much will it cost) and grabbed curtains. We came home and Lee put together the bookcase while I did a bit of work. Then the two of us curse and swore our way through the shortening of the curtains. (I swear, the bottom of those damn things aren’t straight). We had to take down a shelf that was here when we moved in.

But we got it done. And now when I walk downstairs in the morning the light coming in through the new curtains on the patio doors lights up my bookcase in a soft glow.

It feels right. It feels like ours.

And who knows, maybe some day we’ll put art on the walls. Stranger things have happened.

Random Thoughts on BlogHer’11 and San Diego

Blogs, sometimes I ramble, Things that are made of awesome 5 Responses »

Aug 102011

- I really enjoyed the weather in San Diego. It was a lot like a hot PEI summer the days we were there. But with a warmer pool. And palm trees.
- I was sad not to get to the Maritime Museum but happy to play on the USS Midway.
- Except sick bay. Sick bay smelled like the dentist office and gave me an adrenaline spike. I had to sit on a bench a drink half a bottle of Gatorade after that.
- I don’t understand why most people didn’t just walk around the zoo instead of going on the buses. And you can’t really see anything from the Skytram thingy so I don’t understand why it’s so popular.
- I’m glad I packed a lot of flats. My feet were not thrilled with all the walking at the conference center.
- I still wore heels one day to test out the Dr Scholl’s high heel gel inserts I got in the expo hall. They worked great. My wonky toe didn’t hurt at all. The shoes still gave me blisters. Not the insoles fault. Dr. Scholl’s did not pay me to say this. I just really liked these and want a pair for every pair of of heels I have.
- There were really good snacks. I like snacks.
- If you sit by me at a conference and I know you well, I might kick your butt. (I was nagging someone else online at the same time. Multitasking!)
- I sucked at introducing people. I did a really good job at Book Expo America but at BlogHer I kept assuming that everyone knew the same people as me, which was stupid.
- I knew this already but sometimes I really suck at making small talk, especially when I’m eating. And you want me to eat. If I don’t eat I get stabby.
- I really wanted to take Ashleigh Burroughs home with me and did not get to spend nearly enough time with her.
- I took less notes than usual. I think because I knew the liveblogs were going to be awesome which let me experience more in the moment.
- Let me preface this by saying anyone who knows me knows I’m not anti-kid or anti-mother but I’m happy to not have to say “I’m not a mom” or “I don’t have kids” for a few days.
- I dislike freight trains.
- When downloading e-books for the flight home it is important to make sure they fully download before packing your iPad. Once you actually get on the plane you will not want to read anything BUT those books and you’ll be really annoyed with yourself.
- Cancelled flights rot.
- Having friends live in the city your flight was cancelled in take you home and let you grab a few hours sleep there rocks. Bonus if they have prairie dogs.
- My wrist was happy about my computer-lite week.
- Sometimes it’s really good to unplug… even if you are doing it at a blogging conference.
- I really, really love my own bed.

Hello BlogHer People

sometimes I ramble 2 Responses »

Aug 032011

I’m Karen, but lots of people call me Sassymonkey or Sassy. I’ve been blogging here since 2004. I’ve been blogging about books on Sassymonkey Reads since 2005. I’ve been blogging about books (and a smattering of other things from time to time) on BlogHer since 2006. I’m currently also the host of the BlogHer Book Club.

I’ve been told that I don’t look like my profile picture. Here’s a more recent photo of me with BlogHer alumni Joanne Bamberger at a signing of her book Mothers of Intention in New York city.

I’ll be in sessions, though I don’t know which ones yet because I’m lazy like that. Between sessions I’ll be running around trying to find people I know that I only see once a year and occasionally hiding in corners, which you’ll be invited to join in me via Twitter or Chatter. I’ll be going to parties, but probably not staying very long. You’ll find me with this guy, who does not have a blog. Or a Twitter account.

If you are looking for us at a party, chances are we’ll either be near the food or wherever it is quietest… possibly in the hallway.

Looking forward to meeting you!

Upper Canada Village

ottawa, Photos 4 Responses »

Jun 222011

I love working from home full-time. I really do. I could honestly be quite happy never working in an office again. Ever. That being said, by the time Saturday rolls around I kind of start to twitch. A few weeks ago we had beautiful weather. I’d look out the window while I was working, wish I could be outside, sigh and go back to work. Sure, I’d sneak out for five minutes here and there but I was dreaming of sitting outside in a lounge chair and reading for hours. When the weekend rolled around it was cold and threatening to rain. Lee suggested a day on the couch. I glared. I was not spending another day inside this house. Was not, was not, WAS NOT.

(I was also perhaps a tad cranky because he woke me up that morning. One of the rules to a happy life with Karen is that you DO NOT WAKE HER UP unless it’s absolutely necessary. Like if there’s a plane to catch or something.)

I went to the internet, clicked around and then told him he had two choices. We could go to the new exhibit at the Canadian War Museum or we could to the Medieval Fair at Upper Canada Village. Upper Canada Village won and we hit the road armed with snacks and our camera.

There were jousting knights.

jousting

For reasons I’m not entirely sure I understand, there were camel rides, which we did not do.

There was a lady selling pickles on a stick.

Which Lee made look like they were hard to eat. (They were really very good pickles.)

And then were were feeling kind of done with the medieval fair part of things. It was fun for a bit but overall there wasn’t a whole lot to do that didn’t involve buying fake medieval ~~crap~~ stuff.

So we ventured into the village part of Upper Canada Village. Having not grown up in the area I had never been there. It’s a popular place for school trips and I can see why. It was fun and well run. I liked how almost every building had someone in it who could speak to the building, the role of the person who would have lived there and just had interesting tidbits of stuff to say. We had a great chat with the gardener and learned a thing or two in the print shop.

We ate at the village hotel. Our meal was served with bread that they make in the village with flour from their own mill.

That’s a lot of flour.

They sell the bread in their gift shop but we got there too late in the day to grab any.

Knitters would have loved the woolen mill. And the sheep.

The rain managed to hold off until we were on our way home and all in all we had a really good day. Much better than a day spent on the couch.

Garden-ish

sometimes I ramble 7 Responses »

May 102011

This is my herb garden. Isn’t it impressive?

So it’s empty — well not entirely empty. You can see the watering can sticking out of it. I have dreams that I’ll actually get around to filling it up with dirt, planting herbs and never having to buy cilantro again… or at least until the end of the summer. Hey, a girl can dream.

Of course, I haven’t the first clue as to what the heck I’m doing. I also have a tendency to kill plants, though I do much better when there is a reward at the end that involves eating the things I’ve grown. Food is a great incentive.

Of course I don’t know when I’m going to get around to doing this but hey, it’ll get done sooner or later. Probably.

Older Entries

Sassymonkey

Scurry

14 Names

Does It Really Get Better?

Stepping Back

Function

Satisfaction

Random Thoughts on BlogHer’11 and San Diego

Hello BlogHer People

Upper Canada Village

Garden-ish

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