In Conversation with...Myself

Where once my days were filled with countless meetings about strategy and market segmentation and revenue projections and yield management, forecasts, executive commentary, ROIs, package inclusions, SWOT analysis and marketing plans, here on the island my days are filled with

• Writing a (almost) daily blog
• Uploading it to Facebook so my friends and family can read it
• Checking my blog traffic stats a billion times a day
• Checking my email a billion and one times a day
• Surfing the "jobs available on PEI" website
• making the bed
• emptying the dishwasher
• daydreaming about the day when the recession ends and freelance marketing is once again a viable, sought-after career
• weeding the gardens
• and wondering now that it's 8:30am what will I do until dinner?

What follows is the Q&A I had with myself after I hit the "send" button on an on-line application for a job that I am infinitely over-qualified for, but likely won't get because of lack of direct experience.

What the hell will I do if I ever get a serious job offer ever again? Panic? Celebrate? All of the above? None?

Will I be able to make the transition back into the world of the working? Not without some new clothes, because, honestly, your wardrobe is so 2007!

Will I resent not being able to sit on my sofa, in my PJs at 3 in the afternoon with the Young & the Reckless on the TV while I do serious research and writing? Count on it.

Will I still find the time to write? Questionable.

Will I still be able to put a gourmet meal on the table 6 nights out of 7? More like 4 nights out of 7, but who's counting? But isn't that what left-0vers are for?

How will the dogs cope? What will they do without me by their side all day long? Um, I'm thinking they'll continue to sleep 23 out of 24 hours like they do now!

And will I be able to shirk the laundry off on the one whom I adore? Sweet Mother of Pearl, I hope so.

But a girl's got to keep trying, right? Duh, yeah?

Because if I didn't keep trying to find work on this island in the Strait then the islanders win, right? Do NOT let those mo-fo's win!

Because if the islanders win, it means that this move was the worst career decision I've ever made, right? Bad for career, but an absolutely brilliant move for your life and love.

And if it's the worst career decision I've ever made, how will I ever recover from it? I'm thinking slowly, and with deep breaths and baby steps.

How will I get back "on track?" Possibly with a book offer so you don't actually have to get back "on track" at all, but forge a new path altogether.

Or is it just the thing I needed to focus my talents in an area I've longed to play in? You betcha sista!

If only I knew how to get a lit agent. Jeeze - it's always something with you, isn't it?

Good thing I'm a excellent researcher - I must be able to figure this out somehow - at a girl...

Mork Calling Orson, Come In Orson

I think it happened this week. It must have. I have way too much compelling evidence to suggest that it didn't. Oh, there were no headlines on the front page of the Globe & Mail. CTV Newsnet didn't carry the item either. Nor did CNN. Unless you lived on an island in the Strait, in the heart of the OBB you might have missed it too.

But despite the empirical evidence that is so sorely lacking, I am 99.99% sure it most certainly must have happened.

I am convinced the one whom I adore has had a lobotomy. Or that little green men from Mars have scooped down upon the OBB and taken what was formerly the cerebral matter that occupied the space between my husband's ears. That, or he's concussed from the fall he took last week, I'm not sure which.

It started innocently enough. As is his usual practice he emailed me from the office with a mid-day flash - an update on his day and the state of our financial forecast for the next quarter. He included some thoughts on how he was spending the evening, on the John Deere, trimming up the acreage. Buried deep in his email, somewhere between the state of our finances and the fact that he would be cutting the grass he casually, almost imperceptibly mentioned he'd like me to leave out some sunscreen so he could protect himself while cutting the grass. I fell over from the shock. I gasped so hard I needed to take a few hits on my inhaler to restore normal breathing patterns. When I crawled back up to my chair, I gave my head a shake for it could not be so! My eyes must be deceiving me! He wants me to leave out sunscreen? To protect himself? From like, The Sun? The man to whom I am married? This same man who has never willingly worn sunscreen in his life? You can understand my confusion, I'm sure.

We don't argue much in our house. But when we do, you can count on one thing and that is his patented refusal to use sunscreen is likely at the root of the issue. This man is a sun worshipper. No matter that too many ultra violet rays can give you skin cancer. No matter than he has spent untold hours basking in the sun, here, there, in the tropics, in the mountains, wherever there's a sunbeam, you can find my husband baking. No matter that at the tender age of five years younger than me he's beginning to get all leathery from too much sun. No matter that after every sun-baked afternoon he spends the next day picking flecks of peeling skin from his cheek. No, none of this matters. Not to he who bakes.

So, yes. I was taken aback, just a little.

That same day, the day the aliens invaded and sucked the very brain out of the one whom I adore? The very same day this same person volunteered to actually throw something out. Oh, it might not seem like such a big deal to you, but you try living with a man that attaches sentimental value to every little thing he's ever been given, whether he likes it or not and then packs it away in a box, never to see the light of day again, but yet, never to be thrown away either. The personalized golf balls, personalized with his name on them? Yes, they reside in our basement. He loves them and yet, there it is, he'll never use them. What about that pair of boxer shorts? The ones I lovingly refer to as "Holy Underwear"? I am forbidden from disposing of these in their rightful place. We won't even talk about the 20 boxes of "stuff" that sits in our storage room. Those same boxes that sat in a storage locker in Jasper for two years. The same ones that admittedly sat, unpacked, in boxes in his bachelor pad for five years prior to that. THOSE ONES? I'm not allowed to dispose of those or their contents either.

So, the other night, when he volunteered to actually throw something out of his own accord? Without my asking? Something that could maybe, in say, oh 20 years or so prove to be useful? Something that might save us 99 cents - someday? Throw away? You can understand why I ran for the digital thermometer, because obviously the guy was running a raging, hallucinogenic fever.

Here's the thing though, given that I am the housekeeper in our humble abode and given that I hate anything that resembles clutter (because having to "dust" is a big enough bitch without having to move a bunch of chachkis) and the words pack-rat will never be used to describe me...well, you've got to wonder how we two get along? I do too. I mean, it's not like I don't have some faults (very few) and it's not like I haven't been known to schlep stuff from one home to another, to another (countless photos that have to be archived in an album, but yet I can't find the time to do it...even as an under-employed with way too much time on my hands former professional). It's not like I don't have a pair of underwear or two that haven't seen better days and therefore could and probably should be thrown out. It's just that, really? Really? I hate clutter. So unless the next place we live has equally as much storage space as living space, all I know is, that before we leave this island in the Strait (should we ever be so lucky) and before I enlist the aid of a moving team (should we ever sell this house), there will likely be a showdown in the OBB, for we will not transport useless, dust-collecting, never been used nor will be used junk from these crimson shores. No fucking way. No way. No how.

And, if I have to use our two satellite dishes to guide those brain sucking aliens back to the OBB to help me with this task...well, nothing's too much to ask in the name of purging, now is it?

Diamonds Aren't a Girl's Only Best Friend

Just about a year ago, the only bright, shiny and sparkly thing I was focused on was buying my wedding ring. With a mid-August wedding quickly approaching, the one whom I adore and I trudged to the jewelry store in mid-July to begin the negotiations. It proved to be fairly painless when he who manages money for a living realized the jeweler was having an early summer sale...besides me, he loves nothing more than finding a great deal. I chose a classic, all the better to offset my solitaire engagement ring. Not one for overly flashy jewelry, I chose an eternity band with diamonds spanning the bridge. Timelessly elegant. Elegantly timeless. Classy even. And, for the benefit of the one whom I adore, on sale!

A year later and the shiny thing I'm focused on?

That shiny disc hanging from my cherry tree? An aluminum pie plate. It and many others are hanging there to dissuade the ravens from ravaging my cherries. Now that sounds a bit naughty, doesn't it?? Ahem. When we bought our little piece of paradise in the OBB we were informed that we had several apple trees, a pear tree and one cherry tree. Well, the apple trees were pretty easy to figure out - the grizzled old trees take up much of our side yard and what with the dropping of fruit from July to October, we most certainly knew where they were. Ditto the pear tree. The pear tree actually looks a lot like an apple tree and in fact it sits amidst our apple orchard. But the fruit is most definitely not apple, rather nasty little woody baby pears that never seem to grow bigger than elf-size. Whatever, I like my pears from a can anyway.

Our cherry tree was a tad more elusive. The one whom I adore informed me the other day that we have over 100 trees on our property! I didn't believe him until I counted for myself (under-employed, I like to keep my mind sharp with strategic and mathematical exercises throughout the day) and he's right - a hundred trees! So yeah, finding one cherry tree amongst 100 possible candidates was more difficult than I would have imagined. Especially because being a city gal, I had never seen a cherry tree that was anything but ornamental with champagne pink blossoms that bloomed every spring...helloooo. We definitely did not have one of those on our property.

One day last summer I was in the garden picking the daily harvest of never-ending zucchini when I looked up and what to my wondering eyes did appear? One bright little cherry hanging in the tree by the shed! One. Cherry. Alone. By itself. With no others. I quickly called to the one whom I adore "Hey! I've found our one cherry tree! Here it is. With one cherry on it!" From that day forward it was forever known as our One-Cherry Tree.

That is until this summer when early on we noticed that our One-Cherry Tree had LOTS of cherries on it. We weren't the only ones to discover the bounty of our cherry tree - so had those ravaging ravens. On the advice of my sister-in-law, a farm girl from way back, who suggested stringing a series of bright, shiny aluminum pie plates through the tree to help keep the bird population at bay. It worked and last weekend we were able to harvest a bunch of cherries from our One-Cherry Tree! Voila!

I made a delightful cherry galette with ground toasted almonds to give it a bit of a it's good for me and really it's not crap healthful benefit. It was mighty tasty. I would make it again if we only had more cherries.

The other bright, shiny and sparkly thing I've been focused on lately?

That's right, ladies & gents, it's a bright, shiny and sparkly Kitchenaide.

I have lusted after this machine ever since I first saw the Barefoot Contessa whipping up her blueberry coffeecake muffins in a Kitchenaide in her beautiful home in the Hamptons. I just knew that anyone worth their weight in cookie dough would have a Kitchenaide. I'm not only worth copious amounts of cookie dough, but maybe brownie batter too, and so the longing for this "grown-up, maybe even slightly professional" mixer began.

I longed and I longed. I had hoped that last Christmas Santa would deliver one under my Christmas tree, but alas, Santa was obligated by the price limit imposed on gifts and the oft-stated criteria of "no appliances for gifts" that has so ruled our household since we two first became one...and so... with lips parched by my thirst for a Kitchenaide, I continued to knead bread by hand and whisk by wrist.

You know what they say about good things coming to those who wait? Well, last weekend, I must have waited long enough because the bright, shiny thing for which I longed for, thirsted and lusted after? It went ON SALE. The eagle-eyed financial guy I'm married to found it in the weekly sale fliers. And just because I've been good and patient and had GIVEN UP MY DREAM of ever owning one, he suggested that perhaps now was the time.

It's not a diamond. It most certainly isn't an aluminum pie plate. But it is bright, shiny and very, very sparkly. And it's mine.

(okay, yes, so not my "best" look, but I was just fresh from the shower and ready to christen my Kitchenaide when it occurred to me I should document it in all its bright shiny-ness before I made my first batch of bread - just to ensure I remembered what it looks like with all its sparkleness once it becomes well used)

Gettin' Ready for Spaghetti!

What now looks like this:

...started out looking like this:

So yeah, I guess all that freaking rain has done some good.

This is my spaghetti garden - full of everything you'd need to make the perfect putanesca sauce - lots of different varieties of tomatoes, peppers, celery, carrots and fennel. We even have spaghetti squash in our spaghetti garden!

We're on day three of sunshine and I dare not bring it up for fear of jinxing it and having to endure 30 more days of rain like last month. There's an off chance that summer might just have made the long trek from the tropics to rest on our crimson shores a while. Just in time for us to leave on vacation. The irony does not escape me.

The Fat Bastard & His Chubby Little Sidekick

He's a handsome lad...but he's a Fat Bastard!

I'm not talking about the one whom I adore (but if I don't lay off making butter tart muffins, he might just become a Fat Bastard)!

No, I'm talking about the other one whom I adore, my constant companion for the last 11 years, my own Maui Boy, Snickers Cameron.

Last week we went to the Atlantic Veterinary College for his annual check-up and vaccination update. We LOVE going to the AVC - their level of healthcare for animals is second to none. The AVC is a teaching hospital and as such, you are always surrounded by keen, eager to learn residents and animal lovers. Usually, you are met by two 4th year residents who do a thorough work-up, taking history, doing a preliminary physical exam, discussing any behavioral issues, identifying anything you may have missed but might be worth mentioning to the teaching vet.

This year, though, our annual visit coincided with summer reading week, so there were no 4th year residents on hand. Instead, we spent three hours - yes, three hours, with the senior teaching vet who went over every hair on both dogs heads, not to mention every lump, bump and slightly smelly ooze coming from one little dog's ears.

Three hours!

I do not joke.

Three hours! To have the dogs examined, toe-nails trimmed, and vaccinations administered. I ask you - when was the last time you went to a people doctor and spent three hours one-on-one with the doctor?

For me, the answer is - NEVER! (and I've spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital!)

I am not complaining that it took three hours - indeed, I am overwhelmingly impressed that a doctor of any sort would spend that kind of time with a patient.

You would think that it took three hours because there is something seriously wrong with one or both of them. Nope. They're both healthy as can be. Which given that Snicks has had a leaky ass, thus leaving identifying ass prints wherever he lay for the last month, I thought for sure he had anal cancer. Turns out, he just needed his anal glands expressed. And the Gidge? She's been making herself and everyone else crazy scratching at her right ear for the last month. Turns out the poor thing had an ear infection. Both of them have rotting teeth which need some follow-up surgery, but other than that - we can expect the Snick Dude & the Gidge to hang around for quite some time.

So yes...three hours to learn they're healthy. Three hours to be granted piece of mind that all the things I thought might be, could be, probably were wrong with the dogs are all fine...normal even. That was until the crucial moment when it came time for them to be weighed.

I don't know about you, but the worst part of any doctor's appointment for me is that moment when I'm asked to step on that scale to update my charts. No matter that I hold my breath, or lean this way or that, the damn scale always comes back with a number higher than I think it should be. But, when it was time for the dogs to be weighed I was confident that each would be within a few ounces of where they always are. Gidge, although large for her breed has always hovered around 10 lbs and the Snick Dude, he's been a consistent 51-lbs for over 10 years now.

So imagine my surprise when the vet came back with Snicks weight at 66 lbs! That's a 15-lb jump in one year! Gidget wasn't much better - she jumped 3 lbs in the last 12 months. I'm sorry to say, sad to report, the spreading ass disease I've had for the last 20 years has now gone viral and spread to the dogs.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. They are about the laziest animals I know. They spend their days following sunbeams around the house and flopping down for an endless series of naps. In between naps, they snooze. And when they're not napping or snoozing, they're catching some zzzzz's, curled up in a dog bed, of which there are no less than 3 in our 2000 sq ft house. When they're not napping, snoozing or catching zzzz's, they're lounging about, lurking around the dinner table...hoping against hope that a little something-something might magically jump off our plates and come their way. Their routine is only interrupted to go outside to chase a mouse or explore the potato fields out back. Then, in for dinner and more napping, all the better to help with digestion don'tcha know. When they're tired of napping they go upstairs to bed, where after a good 9 or 10 hours of sleep they get up and start it all over again.

I don't know why in the world they've put on weight, do you?

Suicide is Painless

We've been on a suicide watch for the last few days here in the OBB.

Snickers started it all. Every time he'd go out he'd make a bee-line directly to the window well at the back of our house where he'd stand and stare...stare and stand. Occasionally he'd lift his front left paw and cock his head. He'd always have a string of spit hanging down from his lip as he'd sit, ears pricked, head cocked and whining at the window well.

Curious, I finally sauntered over to the window one morning and that's when I discovered we have a little field mouse (or shrew, I'm still not sure) hunkered down at the bottom of the well.

The one whom I adore and I have an unstated deal. I will take care of most things inside the house related to the maintenance, cleaning and cooking while he gets domain over the great outdoors... mowing, shoveling, trimming of hedges, etc.

It hasn't always been this way. We didn't used to have such a 'traditional' marital arrangement...back in our Jasper days it was equal opportunity when it came to keeping of the house and cooking of the meals. Each of us had our areas of expertise and preference and so, with equality for all, we divided the chores.

But here, on the island in the Northumberland Strait, my asthma has risen to a twenty-five year high and as such, I can no longer mow the grass. I used to enjoy riding the John Deere all over our property, over hill and dale, around trees and shrubs. It was a great way to get a tan without actually having to sit out and soak up the rays. But, given that my asthma is exacerbated by mowing of the grass, I have been forbidden to mount the JD. So, by attrition, we slowly migrated into this arrangement whereby I take care of things indoors and he does the manly stuff outside.

Which is why, when I spied the mouse seemingly stranded in our window well, the first thing I did was call the one whom I adore. "Honey, we have a MOUSE! And he's trapped in our window well! He's making Snickers crazy! Can you do something about it?"

Now, the one whom I adore is a busy guy. Not only does he have all this land to maintain, but also? He's the one with the big career down here, so understandably, getting "right on it" might not have been his first priority.

The next day both Snickers and I checked and there it was...our little buddy still at the bottom of the window well. Well. What to do...what to do? I thought he was dead, afterall, he was laying there burrowed into the dirt and not moving, with a fly crawling over his prostate little body.

"HONEY! The mouse is now dead...can you do something about it? I don't want the smell of rotting rodent permeating our windows and stinking up the house!"

This time he got right on it. But instead of disposing of a dead mouse carcass as I thought he would, he came inside with the news that the little guy wasn't dead at all - he was alive and well, albeit stuck at the bottom of the window well, and so the solution? The solution was to give the little mouse a hand up as it were. The one whom I adore took a wooden plank and constructed a mouse pedestrian walk-way so he could scale the heights of the metal well and escape. There was no food down there in the well, so if it was going to have any hope at survival, he'd take some mighty mouse initiative and climb the path to freedom.

You've heard of the road less traveled? It's a plank in our basement window well. That mouse ignored freedom's path. Instead, he just burrowed in deeper to the other side of the window well. You know the old saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink"? It also holds true for field mice.

It was still alive yesterday morning, but surely to God with all the rain, he was cold and hungry... but probably not thirsty.

Now, I'm all for saving animals and such, but if a mouse sets up shop in my window well, whether by accident or by design, I'm not about to feed the little booger, because remember last January? Yeah, some cousins and maybe an uncle or two of this mouse had set up shop in our kitchen. So, yeah, not going to help the little varmint, not me.

Last night Snicks and I did our usual check of the window well. Buddy was still there. So was his walk-way. Untouched.

I picked up the plank that was his road to freedom and gave him a tentative little poke. I did the same thing the day before and he scampered right onto the window sill while I jumped back ten feet and checked if I needed a pair of "Depends". So Saturday, he was alive and well. But not last night. Last night when I lifted the plank he did not respond when I poked him. Instead, when I poked him he rolled over on his back, stiff, with four little mouse feet sticking straight up in the air. Dead.

I really do believe he committed suicide. He may have fallen into the window well by accident, but his staying there was most certainly not. Instead of a life running the abundant fields that surround our property he chose to starve himself in a dirt hole at the bottom of a window well. We gave him ample opportunity to scale the heights of that window well and attain freedom. He chose death.

After last January's incident and yesterday's suicide the score is now Kim 2 - Mouse 0.

The Real Housewives of...

First it was the Real Housewives of Orange County…with their dark tans, blonde highlights, botoxed beauty and let’s don’t forget size DDD breast implants.  Then it was the Real Housewives of New York with the Yenta, the Social Climber, the Countess and the requisite Single Girl Making it all Work, followed closely by the Real Housewives of Atlanta with their big hair, long acrylic nails, enormous houses and an even bigger affinity for drama. 

Topping it all off is this year’s entry in the series…The Real Housewives of New Jersey.  This one is by far my most favorite and I really I don’t know why.  Yes, their houses are bigger than the wives of Atlanta and their fortunes appear bigger than the wives of both NYC & the OC.  But I think what intrigues me most about the The Real Housewives of New Jersey is that they are just soooooo over the top and yet, are completely oblivious as to how their excesses are perceived by those of us not fortunate enough to have a lifestyle funded by mafia money.  Their days are filled to the brim with such things as getting their hair done, renovating their mansions, pushing their exceptionally untalented children into acting careers or making pasta for their spoiled and still at home 20-something kids.  Boy do they make a lot of pasta on this show.  I haven’t seen all the episodes because Bravo TV has not yet imported the series into Canada, so I can only speculate on what I’ve seen while traveling to the US.  Suffice it to say, I was hooked on the first episode and just like when I am craving something salty or sweet or starchy, I just cannot get enough of this show.  Please, Bravo, please - ditch the 3 year old reruns of the Housewives of the OC and bring us the Jersey girls!  I'm begging here!

So, while I was ruminating on The Real Housewives Of (fill in the blank) series, it occurs to me, that what with my under-employed status, that really? what I am?  Yes...you've got it.  I'm The Real Housewife of  Oyster Bed Bridge.

Here in the OBB I don’t have a big house…just a ghost.  I don’t have DDD breast implants but I do have enough excess baggage on my ass, that if it were transplanted to my breasts would make them EEE.  Here, I don’t believe in acrylic nails, instead I spend my time cleaning the dirt from the garden out from under my nails.  In the OBB the biggest drama I have is whether or not the one who rides the John Deere can get the grass cut before the next rain storm.  In the OBB I don’t have hair and make-up artists at my beck and call.  Instead, I roll my own.