Humiliation For Beginners

Goaded by a "friend" and tricked by another, I went to play volleyball on Monday. I am only writing about this now because until this morning I had no sensation in my arms, apart from searing agony.

"Go play with the ladies team on Base," I was told.  "It's just a fun league," I was promised. "They're all beginners," I was lied to.


It is really very sweet and quite lovely to think of the ladies on the Base Volleyball League as beginners. Lanky and tanned, to a woman, they each of them arrived with knee pads and ponytails and far more muscle tone than I. I arrived with a water bottle and an adorable sense of naivete, both of which were gone before the end of the 30 minute warm up routine involving squats and burpees done continuously and at speed for 20 second intervals.

A brief side bar on the burpee. Invented in the 1930's by Royal H. Burpee, a physiologist and complete dick, it is only slightly different from the Flub Gub Tuck (FGT) exercise, in that the FGT finishes in the fetal position and "focuses on the tensing of one's buttocks."(Wikipedia, 10-10-13). I mostly just stayed in the fetal position, sobbing quietly.

I didn't intend for what happen next to happen to me, ever, at any time, in my life. It was horrifying, bizarre and awkward for everyone involved.  What happened next was... team sports.

Honestly, I just showed up for a little indoor v-ball and some laughs. I thought there might be funny team names and we would all plan to get together and tie-dye t-shirts and do Jello-shots or something.  Instead I was doing drills. With athletes. For an hour. 

Pictured here: I have no idea. The map to Narnia?

The coach took pity on me and made certain no one hurt me, nor did she place me in a position where I might hurt others, although so help me I tried.  I did not successfully send the ball in the proper direction even once that night. However, I was given the rather unique opportunity to experience life as one of my students might. For, despite my utter lack of skill, each attempt I made was greeted, much to my shame, with a chorus of "good for you" and "good try"! Sincerity is all about tone. I've since been practicing mine in the mirror.

I left just before the skills game began and slightly after the earth threatened to open up and swallow me whole. I have since, and with growing alarm, watched as great dark bruises bloomed on my arms, knees, shins and (yes) chin. Watched, that is, but failed to react as, thanks to Professor Burpee, I haven't been able to move more than my eyebrows for three days.  

Is This The Real Life?

There is nothing more satisfying, more delicious to the soul in all the Universe, than waking up on a Saturday morning just for the sheer pleasure of going back to sleep. 

This is never more true than on rainy Saturdays, when you crack an eye to peek at the dawn, see nothing but drizzle, scootch closer to the cat, squirm a bit and drift back into dreams of Jason Statham holding fluffy bunnies. 

Close enough.

All of that is true but what is more true is this: waking up for a second time to the sudden recollection of the night previous, which was bizarre bordering on surreal and is now a jumbled blur of police interrogation rooms, disastrously mixed up sushi orders, the physics behind the failure of aluminium to bounce adequately for a decent game of Beer Pong, Fresca, a deadly game of Spoons with Newfies and Swedes and, probably too late, Benedryl. 

All of which results in the realization of the final truth. That bed surely, truly, is the best place to wait out the day and perhaps the rest of this posting. 

Keeping Score

With few exceptions do I rarely answer my cell, should it happen to ring. The reasons for this are deeply rooted in my experience as a receptionist, for which position I seemed to be uniquely qualified in that, being a sociopath, I could, with little or no effort, generate a chipper persona I called Dealing With The Public Tam who could be relied upon at the mere ring of a phone, to blow sunshine up anyone's arse.

I also enjoyed wearing the pumps. 

However, as enjoyable as the pumps and the deep personal satisfaction I received from assisting a client while using my own pen which no one else was allowed to touch, were, the job did leave me with a strange sense of powerlessness when confronted with a ringing phone, one that must be answered at all costs.  There was no escaping it, it was my job, I accepted it and Dealing With The Public Tam excelled at it. 

And here we come to the root of it. I am no longer a receptionist, at the mercy of Alexander's shrill invention. Free to do as I wish, I have in my possession a phone which can follow me everywhere, can interrupt me at any time. It rings when I am watching Doctor Who, when I am walking my dogs, when I am at the beach, when I am in line to buy groceries. It rings and I, luxury of luxuries, ignore it. Bliss. 

Except.

Except for when Husband is out being dangled over wreckage or flinging himself into the ocean in the black of night, risking his life to save others from the grip of Death's cold fingers. Then, only then, do I answer this phone when it rings, should it ring. For what if the heart that was beating it's last was the one I can hear in my sleep? What if the breath that whispers my name in the darkness was calling one final time? When Husband is out risking that life more precious than my own to save someone else's one and only, I will always answer, will always respond. 

Which is why I was so thrilled to discover, upon answering my phone this morning, that I have been selected to receive a free trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Well played, Mystery Caller. Well played. 

One Big Happy Family

Meeker joined our family about a year ago and things are going far more smoothly now than in the beginning.

It was last October when we spotted the add on a trading website, "Toby, retriever cross, 1 yr old" and there was a picture of a sweet face with ears back, shy of the camera. When we rolled up to the hobby farm, we were greeted by a boiling mess of fur, paws and slobber. We counted not less than 7 noses and 27 feet but, since one dog turned out to be named Lucky, the math is actually accurate if a bit cliched. From out this seething horde shot a muddy orange torpedo which proceeded to pin ball it's way off three fences, the barn, a goat, two cows, a chicken coop and a hay bale before stopping to roll in a cow pat. 

We were told he was "about a year old" and from a good home that could no longer keep up to his "special needs". Guesses were made about his breed but the best information placed him at a mix of Golden Retriever, Rhodesian Ridgeback and Atomic Weapon. 

 

"Great with cats," we were told, as he chased two up a tree.  "Easy going around other dogs," we were assured, as he catapulted over a horse jump and landed directly on top of a snoozing canine. "Loves to explore," as he disappeared into the distance, "and to swim," when he returned soaking wet and trailing duck weed. 

Standing in the middle of the chaos, watching chicken feathers drift to the ground, Husband looked at me with that big beautiful smile of his and said "He's perfect."

I watched Husband watch this insane orange dog wreak havoc in the farm yard with big tears in my eyes.  I knew he was looking 16 years into the past and seeing a yellower, goofier puppy, coated in mud and chasing chickens. And I knew that this bullet of a canine would never replace him but would go some distance towards healing the big sadness in our hearts left behind when JD's footsteps disappeared from our lives.

"You're right, honey," as we loaded the squirming puppy into the van and watched him shake mud and straw all over the inside, "he's perfect."

 

Husband's Hierarchy of Swears

Husband is the reason I wake up smiling every morning. He is the cheese on my Mac and  the extra whip on my pumpkin spice latte. He brings joy to my days and fills my world with music. He also swears like a sailor at inanimate objects, shattering the boreal stillness of an Albertan afternoon and it's usually at that point that the dogs and I make for the sofa and consult:

Husband's Hierarchy of Swears (ominous thunder)

From the bottom up we have:

"Dammit" - This is a DEFCON 4 situation.  Something has disturbed the zen master in his practice of the subtle art of trying to fix stuff/leave the house/find a tool.

Action: Spouse and canines may choose to ignore or investigate without risk of stepping on debris.

"Oh for f*ck sakes" -  DEFCON 3, examples of  which include things which beep, bounce back or "are stupid". May easily become a DEFCON 2 if the volume is anything above what one might use to call their loved one for dinner. 

Action: Canines mobilized for retreat to sub-couch territory in less that 15 seconds. Spouse continues with normal activities, locates first aid kid in readiness.

"You stupid (a word which, being a lady, I have never used. Ever. Rhymes with stunt.)" - Here we find ourselves at DEFCON 2. Something has catastrophically failed/exploded/jammed or remained lost despite desperate searching.

Action: Everyone is under the couch at this point, enjoying a quiet read and giving the dust bunnies names and  a back story.

"(Yosemite Sam-style regression into garbled snarling)" - Here at DEFCON 1 it is most likely that whatever broke, bounced back or took too long to be found is now either scattered in a million pieces across the driveway or flushed down the toilet.

We've all been here

 Action: Move the couch across the road and set up camp until the mushroom cloud dissipates. See also: The iPhone Incident

Nobody Home

Dear Mystery Caller, 

Still no.

Blow me,

Remote

Mystery Caller

For those of you not following along at home, I have a strict "not answering my cell phone" policy which I seldom, if ever, break. Exceptions include NEVER.

Just scanning through my missed calls over the last few weeks it would seem that there is a very persistent person or group of persons unwilling to infer, from my continued refusal to pick up, that I want them to die a horrible death, pinned under that bus that has them all riled up and chat-happy. Seriously, if the person you are attempting to reach hasn't picked up after 43 attempts, it's possible they are using your misery to fuel their own petty amusements. 

Or  something. 

It's not that I hate talking on the phone. Husband will testify that I can happily spend the better part of a day on the phone with family or friends, and often do. It's that I specifically hate talking on my cell phone. I can and will happily answer a text at my leisure, confident that Emily Post considers anything up to four hours a reasonable length of time in which to respond. A ringing phone, and more specifically a ringing phone while (at the bank/ in the library/on a jog) or any other euphemism for coitus interruptus that you can imagine, really steams my broccoli. I find the ubiquitous use of cell phones for conversation in public one of the most obnoxious social developments of the 21st century. 

That and people who don't plan their order while in the line up for coffee.  

My cell doesn't even have voice mail or caller id. If I had my way, it wouldn't even vibrate when a call is coming through. Instead it would order me a selection of lacy things from the Victoria's Secret online catalogue and charge it to the Mystery Caller's card.  

How do you feel now, Mystery Caller? Dirty? Wait 'till the mail comes in...