One week to go...

...no, no, no, not until the wedding!

Until my mother arrives!!

Now, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. My mother and I have an unusual relationship. Based on my absolute fear of her basically. I would do anything for my Mum; buy her gifts, keep her in good spirits, sell my first born, you get the idea. And unfortunately, she doesn't...quite...get it as to how I should be treated in return.

Many people regard this as status quo with their own parental units. I do not. I refuse to accept how criticism and (let's call a spade a spade) passive aggressive manhandling can masquerade as love or caring. I have had to accept that I must tell her nothing, if I do not wish her to bring it up in a public place and / or ridicule and use it against me for the rest of my life.

Albeit, I do tell her things, but I simply shouldn't. During "the incident" I went to her for advice. I got lovely support and lots of hand holding, but I also received a lifetime hate award for MF. Not that I should expect anything less, but she doesn't even hide her contempt. One day, we'll be lining up the grandkids for a visit to Great Grandma and she'd still roll her eyes whenever he would open his mouth. It is what it is.

So, with her arrival comes the obligatory head nodding that I am so accustomed to. "You hate my dress? Mmm, hmm. Mmm, hmm." "Oh, the room I spent three months researching for your specific needs and comfort isn't big enough. Mmm, hmm. Mmm, hmm."

Hopefully she won't get too drunk and say something in her speech (she is already planning a diatribe on my unusual use of Q-Tips when I was 12). But she also must remember, that I am the last to speak...and she really doesn't want to push me, right? Mmm, hmm. Mmm, hmm.

Holy schnikes!

OK, I have officially bitten off more than I can chew. That's it, that's all, no more.

So, I got the new job. No more base salary, but I get a company car, a pension plan, a blackberry, more vacation, more benefits, better hours, more travel, and, get this, a 25% bonus plan that could go up to 150% of my salary if we hit numbers.

That means leaving here, which is really tough. I've really come to regard the people O work with as family, and it is really difficult to cut that off. It's like chopping off an arm to save a leg. A tough choice.

I just buried my grandmother.
I move next weekend.
I get married the weekend after that.
I get back from honeymoon and change jobs.

I feel as if I am spinning plates, and I see them slipping...

Then I found out I am going to get a substantial inheritance. The world as I know it is about to change. In three weeks, I don't think I'll recognize myself anymore.

Once more, with feeling

My favourite Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, and most possibily my favourite television moment of all time, was the "Once more, with feeling" episode. The premise was that a curse made all of the characters sing and dance out their emotions, so instead of talking and arguing, they were tangoing and trilling out their angst. What made it all the more wonderful, was that they used all of their real singing voices, bringing to the show a lot of realism and a very emotional and personal experience.

I get the same little thrill when watching Bollywood movies. One moment, you are standing with your girlfriends in the marketplace, the next you are a singing and dancing homage to "that boy across the street". Pure brilliance.

I wish I could just break into song. Right now it would be "Dirge about a cold" as I am suffering with the sniffoos. I think it would actually be fairly humerous, as I can't pronounce L's, S's or T's.

"Ooooh, ooh, this code in my node
is gedding worze and worze
I cand even breed
so I'm singing out a dirge"

I can just imagine walking down the aisle, everyone singing out songs of celebration and throwing rose petals in the air, the girls standing on their seats and the men pirouetting below. It would make everything so much more festive, don’t you think?

Life simply needs more musical numbers.

Goodbye, my bathing beauty...

She was my hero for the first years of my life. A shining example of the riches that life had to offer when we were not so young, and not so tight of skin. I admired her like the sun, and everyone wanted to be near her, to touch her, to make her notice you so that she would laugh her laugh and give you a hug.

The moonlit nights in August, the light playing off the water. It is frozen like a stillshot in my mind. Getting the towels for us, for her - her bathing cap. And the little girls and older woman would wind their way down the cottage stairway, stepping gingerly over the pine needles, until we reached the dock. Then, she would take away that towel, take away that bathing suit and for a glimpsing second we would watch her execute a perfect dive from the board. Only the moon on her back, and her silvery laugh over the lake. Just her. And her bathing cap.

Goodbye Grandma. My bathing beauty.

January 16th 2006.

Pampering

I am about to indulge in an absolutely insane and expensive amount of pampering, which is both very exciting and a little daunting given my propensity to freak out in spas.

It all started with a facial last Tuesday, "just to give myself a treat". We all know that any form of spa treatment after years of treatment drought only tend to lead to more treatments. The logic being that, if you don't treat yourself often enough, your esthetician thinks you are a cash cow waiting to be milked, and will try and sell you on every lotion, potion, and shiatsu-based-reiki-modulated-salt-rub available. After the facial, I barely escaped...with just a cleanser, toner and age perfecting serum tucked into my clammy little mitts

Sidenote: Mitts were clammy, because I was just frightened into purchasing, on the threat that "Don't I want to look my ABSOLUTE best on my wedding day? Hmmm???". Blackmail, blackmail, blackmail. But it works! How can a bride-to-be resist that? "Actually, no, I was thinking about just looking 'okay' for my big day". Yeah, ok.

So, today I have a fruit enzyme facial peel scheduled (and I still don't know what that is, or why I need it exactly). A manicure follows on Saturday (as penance from my brother for being such a dolt about this wedding). Next Tuesday is the eye and neck treatment, and a full European facial is the following Tuesday. Cut and colour at my salon the next week, before the full out pampering begings (I know, it's ludicrous!).

The week of the wedding has me exfoliated everywhere (yes, everywhere) and slathered with self-tanner to avoid me looking like the Corpse Bride. Then another manicure and pedicure, and a wedding day massage.

I'm going to glow dammit, if I want to or not!

Here We Grow Again!

There comes a time when you realize that your life is no longer a series of inexplicably profound events, divided by days, months or years. It isn't a disjointed jumble of events...it's a flowing even tide of life, happening.

I thought that my move from my evil place of work (1) to (what turned out to be) an even more evil place of work (2) in February of last year, followed by a swift departure to current place of work (3), would end the event. Lights on, party over.

But it doesn't work like that. Every little movement I have made this year, if not in my entire life, has brought me to a point where I can begin to look pretty darn great for place of work...let's call it...Xanadu (4). I tried and failed to move from (1) to (4) in 2004, but they told me I lacked the exact skills necessary. So, from (1) I jumped to (2) with little resistance. Although my stay at (2) was brief, I would never have got job (3) without the 30 days worth of training I received at (2). And now here I am, poised to receive an offer from (4), the place where I would have been content in the first place, but never would have got a chance if it wasn't for (2) and (3).

It is a strange, semi-contented feeling when you realize that everything happens to bring you to a point that has been determined before you were probably even born. It is an odd comfort, a life travelling on rails. No offroading. No fresh powder. Just the rhythmic rocking of the train as your life stays on track.