Woozy Wednesday: Jericho

I picked my favourite red wine for its artsy label. I don't know a thing about wine. I've never been to a winery, I've never read up about it and I've never once cared to. I know that I don't like white wine because it tastes like chilled crotch rot. But red? Divine. It tastes like creation, like sex and poetry. It blows my trumpet and brings down my walls.

Bear Flag Red Wine Blend from California

A few years ago, my dreads and I paraded into the liquor store and gravitated to this bottle for its colourful design. Most likely I brought it home and shared it with Jane cross-legged on the polka dot rug of the room with the orange walls and the prayer flags. What do I say about it? How do I describe it? It pairs well with chocolate and wet faces from laughter and heartache. It chases down dreams and settles into the crevices of earth not yet discovered. We tip toe around it with our first glass cradled with ladylike fingertips and then back-flip into it all with our second. Shy eyes, break bread, hold hands, nod heads.


 

Woozy Wednesday: Strength in Numbers (of drinks)

Self-regulate. Have you ever heard that term? I'm not sure where I picked it up but I say it often. It refers to the process of moving from the feeling of being totally exposed, suspended in mid-air and freaked right out toward the feeling of having our feet planted firmly into the ground, chin up, chest open and strong. We self-regulate several times a day without even realizing it.

Being naked tends to demand self-regulation. Think back to how you last felt at the beach or at the pool when you had to peel your clothes off down to your bathing suit and parade yourself down to the water's edge. How did you get there? You self-regulated. You told yourself that your body is just fine, that nobody is looking, or that the size of your ass is exciting and your husband is enjoying the wobble. You gave yourself grace, you let yourself be, and you made it to the water.

Anyway.

What does this have to do with Woozy Wednesday? Have you heard of the term, "liquid confidence?" It's self-regulation in disguise. It's an imposter. However, it comes in handy when we need to cross over into uncharted territory like our first nude beach experience, or when we're asked to MC at a wedding. Sometimes we need to be under the influence of a boozy drink to take all our clothes off and march our fat white asses to the ocean just to get a notch on our (imaginary) belt so that next time it will be that much easier.

But I'll tell you that my favourite night ever was when Tracey and I sang karaoke at a bar on Davie Street and I had not one drink before I got up to sing "Waking Up in Vegas" because I wanted to develop that mental muscle that helps me self-regulate.

For the majority of the population, the self-regulation muscle is a lot weaker than our beer-pouring muscles. But hey. I don't judge.

Andrew started this project where he's going to post video blogs on Facebook every Friday for the next three months. He's terrified, and so with much encouragement and tequila shots, he successfully completed his first post. It will be up on Friday.

May your liquid confidence be rapidly replaced by the strength of self-regulation, and when it is, send us your leftovers.

Tequila!

BFF: The Textbook

Just like everyone else, when I first became a parent I didn't have a clue what I was doing. We don't get manuals with children. It's like we're given a map to where we are going and then all of a sudden we find ourselves in New Mexico with bum rash and a missing finger. It's not much different when we become stepparents. I can't count how many times I've asked myself, "where's the textbook?"

There is none. I mean, there are books that we can read and people we can ask about the cold, hard facts of any kind of parenting but figuring out humans is much more complex than following a recipe. What works for one combination of people won't work for another. We typically need to feel around in the dark and just do whatever works to help us get around. And even that tactic can change from person to person, day to day, moment to moment.

So all I can really share is what works for me, which happens to apply to all of our kids, biological and step.

The first and most important? Love them. I love them when I don't feel like it, when they need me to. I love them against wind and through fire when it burns and bends my body until it breaks and heals and breaks again. I love them under water can't breathe give them all the oxygen love. I love them when they hate me, when they interrupt my sleep, when I give too much and have nothing left. I keep loving them.

And then I laugh. There are more awkward moments in a blended family school function than at a grade 9 dance. If we can't laugh at ourselves (not at each other... that's the next rule), then we won't survive.

Be kind. Any of my kids will tell you that I say this to them all the time: that we are hard enough on ourselves; we don't need anyone to help us. And that when we say something hurtful to someone, it says more about who we are than who they are. We are to never speak poorly of each other, especially our ex-spouses. Save it for counseling, or the running trails, or whatever. Saying shitty stuff about people just makes us shitty people.

And lastly, fart together. Compare them. Do them and lock the windows of the car and laugh. Let a hot one go and walk into the room while they're watching a movie then plunk down a bowl of treats so they're stuck there, and then leave. Farting brings people together because it crosses cultures, generations, stepparents or biological. And if I ever get to write the textbook, I will be including this chapter, with a CD.

Woozy Wednesday: Split Wiener

It was a chilly night in January, snowflakes dancing slowly through obstacles, making their way down to the ground. Andrew was over and we were keeping warm inside, drinking wine and planning out our night. We were going to be taking a cab to the Fort Pub to meet his colleague and his wife for supper.

The taxi dropped us off at the curb and, after spotting the couple seated at the window with the pub filled to the brim with people behind them, Andrew proceeded to press his bare bum against the cold, snowy glass.

We made our way to their table and ended up having a great time eating and drinking and comparing outrageous life stories containing all sorts of incriminating evidence that will never leave those pub doors. We experimented with shots, hydrated with beer and sipped on wine. At one point Andrew and I both got up to visit the loo and when we tried to reenact a previous romantic moment outside of the bathroom doors, we opted out as we both felt like we might be sick. Not exactly romantic.

Once our fun night came to a close, Steve offered to give us a lift home as he hadn't been drinking. He has a vintage Porche 911 (I really hope I'm getting this right, Steve!). It's a fantastic car, but not meant for carting around a bunch of adults. His wife and I smashed our bodies into the backseat and Andrew tucked himself into the front passenger side. It took us a while to get sorted out, and Steve pulled away from the curb just as Andrew started to panic: "Pull over! Pull over!"

Steve pulled over and Andrew unfolded his body like an accordion just in time to get out and throw up his dinner: a double bacon cheeseburger topped off with a split wiener. Once we got dropped off at my place, Andrew stayed outside and kept throwing up. I guess he hadn't been sick in a long time because he was convinced that he was dying. At one point he begged me to phone an ambulance. Trying not to laugh, I coaxed him inside, got him some water and tucked him into bed.

I do realize that by my telling stories like this I am opening up the vault, which I'm totally okay with, just as long as nobody remembers in the morning.

BFF: Gonch

See, I have this post all set up for auto publishing for Blended Family Friday but it's boring as hell. All of my posts lately have been so serious and sentimental, and it's time that I just really tell it how it is.

You know what it's like over here? Here's a perfect example of a typical blended family. I got a text from Jason (ex-husband, father of Jake, Freddy and Katie) telling me that he found a pair of women's underwear stuck in Jake's shorts that he packed in his bag. And because I had Callum balancing on one hip and a pot of pasta boiling on the stove in the kitchen, I couldn't totally freak out and instead could only stare at the texts on my phone while my blood pressure rose to a deafening roar. It's those moments where I visualize the years of my life dropping off the edge of a cliff: there goes year 73, now 72, 71 just took a nosedive, and so on and so forth.

Because Jason knows all of this, he gleefully sends me a picture of the underwear and they look hauntingly familiar. They're mine. It's a Victoria's Secret aqua-blue lacy thong and I want to die right there at age 36 because a) my underwear is in the pocket of my 14 year-old son's shorts and b) my ex-husband just took a picture of it and it's at his house. Jason's grossed out, Jake is mortified, and I want to die. And then of course Andrew is like, why is Jason texting pictures of your blue lacy underwear? And why are they in Jake's shorts? And the ripe old age of 71 just isn't coming soon enough.

But then? But then. I exhale with relief because they're my underwear and not some random woman's blue lacy thong in my 14 year-old son's shorts. It's a simple laundry mix-up, and really the only thing that I need to worry about is that the pot of spaghetti on the stove not boil over.

And everything else in the whole wide world.

Woozy Wednesdays

A lot of normal, well-adjusted-to-society bloggers have weekday themes such as "Wordless Wednesdays" where they post photographs of trees or their kid's Lego creations. Or they publish "What They Ate Wednesdays" where they list what they ate for each meal alongside photos of perfectly broiled whitefish and collard greens sauteed in tree bark juice. It's like a car wreck; I simply have to stare. But, I'm Suzy, and because I take shitty photos and have a crappier diet than the average 16 year-old male, I decided to come up with my own weekday themes.

Wednesdays, on The Runs, are now known as "Woozy Wednesdays." On Woozy Wednesdays I write about alcohol. Maybe it's a review of a new red wine we tasted, or it could be a memory we had from high school (remind me to tell you about the Sambuca story at Gary's house). Or it could be a recommendation of a good pub, or a certain beer that goes with a favourite meal. Anything and everything to do with alcohol will be written about on Wednesdays.

Excited? Me too.

I didn't grow up with alcohol and so I was never educated about it. At all. I didn't know how much to drink (or not drink) or why dark beer is dark or why white wine needs to be cold or that Vodka isn't supposed to be chugged straight from the bottle like a Corona. I learned about it all much later in life and, with a few bumps and bruises (and pregnancies), I've grown a healthy respect for the drink. Just like everything, it needs to be enjoyed in moderation. And when it isn't, then I will write about it, right here.

Anyone have any input for Thursdays? So far, all I have are "Thoughtful" and "Throbbing."

Chicken Wings

A few ladies in my general circle happen to be in their dirty thirties--a decade, for some reason or another, filled with pheromones, vibrators and crotchless underwear.

Teenage girls act and dress as if they have sex after every meal but in reality, hopefully, they're all just talk for the sake of male approval. Bachelorette years are filled with bad decisions and sleepless nights. Married life, especially when there are wee ones in the picture, is punctuated by scheduled sex: "I'll feed the baby, you clean the vomit off the floor in Billy's room, and I'll meet you in bed, naked and in the starfish position, at 10:16."

But the kids grow up a bit. They tell us they hate us, and they redecorate with permanent marker but they fucking sleep through the night and that's enough to turn us mommies into sexy sexbeasts. Everything tastes delicious. Our too-tight jeans no longer make our butts feel fat, but exciting.

But anyway. Dirty thirties. And those of us who are in the midst of it or have lived through it can agree with me when I say that we not only need all the sex but we actually get panicky about it. I can imagine it's how a teenage boy might feel. When we pass by our partner in the kitchen and give their butt a swat it's like we haven't eaten in a week and we just stumbled upon a T-bone steak. And what do we do? We panic. And because we are human and life is life, The Sex doesn't always happen. Which makes us girls in our dirty thirties get all pathetic and needy and extremely annoying and frustrating to be around. Our underwear cuts into our skin, the channel is stupid, and the curtains are ugly.

When we sit around and talk about our budding problematic sexuality we have, on occasion, come to the conclusion that the only way around the panic is to be the master of our domain earlier on in the day before the date night because then anything that happens thereafter is a bonus. This way there's no pressure, no ugly curtains, no annoying neediness.

Tommy Boy convinced the waitress to reopen the kitchen so that he could order some chicken wings. He got her to do it because he was relaxed about it as he had a pizza in the trunk of his car if she decided to say no. Tommy want wingy. Same thing.

But then. I mean, it's fine and all, I'm certainly not judging. But I feel a little hesitant about it because whenever I'm stuck at a fork in the road I like to ask myself why. Why do we need to be the masters of our domain before date night? Is it really to take the edge off? Will we die if we wait? What are we afraid of? And if we do decide to go ahead and do it, are we doing it from a heart and mind of love, or of fear? Tommy Boy could have certainly done without the extra meal.

The opposite of love is not hate; it's fear.

Waiting for hunger pains makes food taste just so much better. It's healthier, too. So why wouldn't that concept ring true across the board? It does. It's the great paradox. In a world where all our needs and desires are at our fingertips with the push of a button (did you see what I did there?), our hearts call us to wait. Have patience. Utilize self control. And when it does happen, it's so worth it. And if it doesn't? There's always chicken wings.