Stupid Is As Stupid Looks

In what wouldn't be considered shocking by anyone who knows me or has ever waited for me to update my blog (sorry), I am what I like to call 'selectively lazy.' I often have the best intentions, but I have this annoying habit of putting off today what I can totally do tomorrow. 

In my defense, life is short, there are so many books to read, the laundry is unending and, well, anything that resembles work requires a commitment I'm just not ready to make.

This tends to drive my husband insane. It constantly shocks him what I will and will not do. Shovel out an entire flowerbed and replace all the soil, by hand? No problem. Answer the phone even though it's sitting next to me? No thank you. Clean the house from top to bottom? Of course, I am no slob. Pick up the mail? That would require energy I'd rather use to match sock pairs with, thank you very much.

I like to think I'm charming with my eccentricity but my husband would argue I'm annoying. It's that po-tay-to pah-tah-to syndrome. We're the yin to the other's yang. 

Over the years, my husband and I have managed to find a balance. He picks up where I slack off and I manage what he doesn't want to, or can't. It's a balance and it all tends to even out in the end. Which was why, when he was last home, I was shocked when he told me I had to go and renew my vehicle registration. Myself. 

He is upsetting the delicate eco-system my systemically lazy-self thrives in!

"What? You didn't do it for me? You always do it for me. I took the kids for their drivers' tests! I sat through 30 collective hours of drivers training! I pump my own gas! WE HAVE A SYSTEM BRUCE!"

"I know! I tried renewing yours when I renewed mine but there were FINES. And your registration expires today so you better get on it."

I tried acting shocked that there were FINES but my daughter helpfully remembered that time when I was caught speeding while taking her shopping and dammit, what good is it raising children when they won't contribute to any sort of plausible deniability you've tried to assert?

"All right, I'll do it myself. But the next child of ours who needs driver's training is your responsibility."

My husband ignored my tantrum and continued sorting through the mountain of mail I've ignored and left accumulating on the counter since well, forever.

"Did you know there are Christmas cards in this pile? I was beginning to fear we had no friends or family who love us. What is wrong with you?" he chuckled as he gleefully ripped into another holiday card three months past its prime.

"Mail annoys me," I huffed. I didn't have time for this. I had a vehicle to register, another broken hearing aid to get fixed and a medical delivery to pick up for Knox. And groceries! Someone has to feed all these people. Food doesn't find it's way into our pantry itself. Who has time to open mail? Send me an email if you require my attention. I'm busy being selectively lazy.

So off I left to run errands while stewing in annoyance that my day of leisure was being interrupted by the tedium of life. 

Hearing aide brought in to be fixed: Check.

Medical delivery picked up at hospital: Check.

Groceries purchased: Check.

Chai tea latte procured: Check check.

As I was leaving the city my husband called. I listed all my accomplishments, proud I had finished all the errands required and could sink back into being selectively lazy once more.

"Did you renew your registration?"

Crap. 

So I turned around and headed to the nearest registries office I could find. Being a responsible adult is hard work.

There was no line up at the registry and I thanked the Universe for small miracles as I walked up to the lady behind the counter and passed her my insurance and registration papers. "I need to renew my registration please." 

"I need to see your driver's license." Right. It had been a while since I've done this. I dug out my license and handed it over. She looked at it and then looked up at me.

"Your license is expired."

"What? No way."

"Yes," she said as she counted off fingers. "Over FIVE months ago."

That moment, right then and there? It's what I refer to as a 'wet your pants' moment. She pulled out a desk calendar and flipped back and counted months and days as I held my breath and prayed to every Deity known to mankind. 

"You're lucky. If you had waited a few more weeks, you'd have to jump through quite a few hoops to get your license back. Did you not get the reminder statement sent to you in AUGUST?"

The stack of unopened mail sitting on my counter flashed before my eyes.

I mumbled something and readjusted my toque and smiled winningly at her. I would admit to nothing.

"We will have to renew your license as well as your registration. And it appears there are fines which will need to be paid too."

"Yes, yes, of course." Shame and embarrassment coursed through me and I could feel nervous sweat trickle down my body. 

(Side note: Those fines? Turns out they were all my HUSBAND'S. How do I know? Because they were all photo radar fines from places he's worked and I've never been too. While driving a car also registered in my name. Booyah. Score one for this lawbreaker.)

"You'll have to follow me. We need to update your photo."

Wait, what?

"Um, can I keep my hat on?" I asked hopefully, knowing that I had two-day-old hat-hair hiding under my toque. 

"I'm sorry, no. But we do have a mirror you can use if you like." Great. So I can see the rat's nest I'm about to have immortalized. Helpful.

I took my toque off and tried fluffing my hair but I could see the lady try and stifle a chuckle. Surely this was punishment for letting my license lapse so long.

"You'll also need to remove your glasses."

"But the glasses are my best feature! I'm not wearing any makeup."

"Well you can smile, but you aren't allowed to show any teeth."

Double helpful.

So I swallowed hard, took off my glasses, refluffed my hair and hoped for the best.

Click.

The lady looked at my photo, and for the first moment in our encounter, offered me some sympathy. "We can retake the photo if you like."

I walked over and looked at the computer monitor. A greasy ugly triple chinned slightly drunk looking terrorist looked back at me. This photo makes my passport photo look like a super model.

Artistic rendering of what actual photo looks like. Only picture it WORSE.

I looked at her, and then remembered I'd been driving without a license, for FIVE months, with CHILDREN in my vehicle, and I stuffed my hat back on and put on my glasses.

"No, this will be fine. It will be my own personal hair shirt every time I look at it."

I got home, still slightly damp from sweating bullets and retold my story as I put away groceries. "At least I'm good for another four and half years before I need another license!" There is a bright side to everything, no?

My husband nodded as he passed me more groceries and then asked, "But did you remember to pick up the mail?"

Crap.

Growing Out While Growing Up

I sat in the kitchen last week and watched as my hair stylist cut and curled my daughter's hair. (Yes, my hair stylist comes to my house. Yes, she is awesome.) Ken's graduation photos loomed before us and with each wisp of hair curled and wrangled into position she resembled more of the beautiful adult she is morphing into and less of the disheveled six year old she once was. I couldn't help but sigh.

I used to have hair like that.

What, you thought I was going to talk about how hard it is watching your kids grow up only to let them go? Please, I'm not that deep. 

(Note to self: You should write that post.)

(I will. Just not today.)

When I was a young child my hair was fine blonde wisps that, when not dirty with the sweat of a hard day's child's play, floated like finely spun spider webs and shone like gold in the afternoon sun. Time tarnished my hair, vanity bleached it, and finally, over a year ago, aggravation hacked it all off.

But vanity is a hard thing to let go of, once it's climbed onto your back like the monkeys at the Rock of Gibraltar. I watched my daughter's teenaged locks shimmer with the glow of youth as she tossed her mane over her shoulders and instinctively my hands went to my own head of hair.

Okay, so the monkeys of Gibraltar were less on back and more on my head. Whatever.

I'm rocking the dirty dishwater blonde/brown hair, highlighted with the greys I never knew I had all while trying to grow out the pixie cut my husband loathed and lose the ten pounds I invariably gain over the holiday season.

It's a bad time of year to have mom hair. God bless the toque.

Nothing says 'youthful and carefree' like covering up what is now effectively a mullet, with a fuzzy hat with hands that clap when you squeeze the pompon on the end. The boys' on the basketball team love it.

(Love can be defined here as rolling their eyes and mocking me in the locker room, but hey, they do it with affection.)

The last time I tried to grow out my hair from a pixie cut, I was numb with grief. My kid had just died and it didn't matter that I had dyed my hair an atrocious shade of brown that looked green in certain light. I just didn't care. (Oh hey, it only took me eight years to find an upside to grief. There really are silver linings to every storm cloud. Go figure.)

However, the only thing I'm grieving right now is the size zero pants of my youth and the fact I've reached the age where people just automatically assume I'm old enough to be somebody's mother. It doesn't matter that I'm four somebodies mother; my ego has firmly strapped on the blinders of aging and is planted in the land of delusion.

This makes growing out a short hairstyle painful. Toss in the whisker from a new neck mole just discovered, those tedious chin hairs that dodge tweezers, cheek fur growing increasingly thick and more lines on your neck than on the front page of a newspaper and I've decided I'm never cutting my hair again.

I'm going to go full on Crystal Gayle, unless of course my hair starts to thin, in which case, I'm buzzing it all off and asking my grandfather if I can borrow my (bless her soul) grandmother's wig. 

The older I get, the more comfortable I tend to be with how I look. I no longer exercise or diet to stay thin; instead I work to stay strong enough to ably care for Knox; I rarely wear makeup beyond blush and mascara and only because I tend to look a tad corpse-y without it, and I can't remember the last time I showcased my 'girls' or for that matter, shaved my legs.

I am what I am, as the saying goes, and I'm pretty happy with all that I am. 

Except for this mop on my head. 

I walk past a mirror and I laugh. I can't help it. The mullet shag look amuses me, as does the fact the longer it grows, the frizzier and curlier it becomes. There was a time I'd kill for curls. I don't recognize the middle aged mom staring back at me. 

The only golden hair locks in this house are the ones on my teens' heads and I'm slowly making peace with that. Time waits for no one and waist sizes and hair follicles change with the passing of time. My beauty inspiration may be less Gisele Supermodel what's-her-name and more Helen Mirren nowadays. I'm learning the fine art of aging gracefully.

Even with the toque that waves.

Which is why, (yes, there is finally, 800 words later, a point to this prose) when I received a message on Facebook last week (thanks Maria) that someone was stealing the pictures I post on my Facebook page and passing them off as her own profile pictures, I chose laughter over frustration. 

It wasn't the first time it's happened, and likely, thanks to the grace of the Internet, it won't be the last. Some poor soul out there is so unhappy with how she looks that she chose the face of some random middle-aged blogger to pretend to be.

I know how it feels to be so desperately unhappy with everything about oneself that what is reflected back at you in a mirror saddens and dismays you. I live with the beauty of my youth reflected back at me every time I see my teenaged daughter and I know my reflection is not what it once was.

But, bland and boring coloured mullet hair aside, it's going to be all right. I've still got it going on, it just takes a moment more to see it. Joy and love is reflected with every crinkle in the corner of my eyes, persevering through the age spots and whiskers. It's a different type of beauty, but it's there.

I hope you find your beauty and your strength, anonymous photo thief. 

I hope that you can one day look in the mirror and laugh at the bad hair and love yourself through it.

At the very least, I hope you find the wisdom to steal pictures from someone who doesn't have to carefully angle the camera to hide her chin waddle and use a million filters to smooth out the wrinkles like I always have to.

But in case you don't, let me help you. Here's a picture you can use anytime you decide your own portrait is unbearable:

You're welcome.

Starvation By Shoe

Like taxes and death, there is one inescapable truth about life as a parent. Your kid is going to need new shoes, especially if your kid happens to be a teenaged boy. It doesn't matter how many pairs you've purchased in the past, your kid is going to inevitably grow, rendering his footwear obsolete.

It's like buying a new cell phone. By the time you get it home and set up, a newer model has already been released.

Teen boys and shoes are the low tech equivalent.

"Mom, I need new shoes."

"I just bought you new shoes."

"No, you bought me those shoes in the spring. They don't fit anymore."

Of course they don't. Teenaged boy feet don't care that you just porked out good money for sneakers only months before. Those bones are unstoppable. They just keep growing until your kid no longer has what resembles feet but instead has what resembles an oddly hairy ski stuck to the end of an equally hairy leg.

So I rolled my eyeballs and sighed heavily, a trademark of motherhood it turns out, decided grocery money was overrated and I drove the kid to the city to buy yet another new pair of sneakers.

That was in September. 

It took four stores, three malls, two iced coffees and the patience of a saint, but we finally found a store that carried a sneaker large enough to shod my kid's feet. Apparently every teenager with overgrown hooves had beat us to the punch and picked an entire city and every surrounding community nearly out of all ski-sized sneakers before us. 

By the time I got to that fourth store I was exhausted from being told there were no shoe sizes left in any of the shoes my son had deemed worthy of purchasing. So when the sales clerk approached us, I cut his sales pitch off at the knees and simply said, "Bring us all the giant-sized basketball shoes you have. I don't care what they look like. I don't care what colour they are. Just bring me the shoes."

My son tried to pitch a fit and impress upon me the importance of what the shoe looked like, but I was past caring.

"Don't mess with me kid or I'll find the sparkliest pinkest shoes in your size on the Internet. Anything is possible with the 'Net."

Nash knew I wasn't kidding and so he zipped it.

The sales clerk came back with three different options. All of them ugly, but all of them basketball shoes for kids with clodhopper feet.

After trying them all on, jumping around in the store like he was trying to rip the light fixtures from the ceiling and then minutes of gazing thoughtfully at each of the shoes while I practiced the motherhood trademark of sighing heavily and rolling my eyes, he chose a pair.

"These ones."

"Are you sure? Do they fit properly?"

"Yes, I'm sure. They fit."

"Are your toes touching the end? Do you have some room for those skis to grow? I don't want to be back here any time soon because these ones are too tight and your toenails are turning purple because the shoes are too small."

Which, you know, already happened the year before.

"No, they fit. There is loads of room for my toes to grow."

"Well I don't want loads of room Nash. I don't want them too big they become clown shoes while you're running. No one wants to pass Krusty the Clown the ball on the court."

"No MOM. THEY FIT."

I looked at him, I looked at the shoe and a voice in my head whispered, "The kid is almost 16. Surely he knows if his shoes fit properly. Give the kid a break."

Never listen to that voice. 

So I cut him a break, stopped busting his chops and I bought the shoes. It cost me 160 dollars on sale, but I wasn't in a position to argue about cost since this was the only store I could find with shoes that size and they were all the same price.

My kid left happily clutching his new kicks and I left knowing we could always eat next month.

Clown shoes.

Fast forward to December.

"Mom, I think need new shoes."

"Like heck you do. I just bought you new shoes."

"I know, but I don't think they fit properly. I think they're too big."

"What do you mean they're too big?"

"My foot slides forward when I run and it feels awkward."

Cue the eyeball roll and the heavy sigh. So I did what any responsible mother with a limited income would do. I told him to suck it up and live with it. "Eat your vegetables and I'm sure your feet will grow soon enough."

I must have had a crazy look in my eye because suddenly my kid was eating every vegetable in sight and he never mentioned his shoes again.

I figured his feet finally grew because that's what a 16-year-old boy's will feet do. I figured wrong. I figured that out when I watched my kid limp out of practice the other day. "What happened?" I asked as he pulled his sock and shoe off to show me his feet. His entire heel was bruised. 

"I keep landing wrong. My foot slides around and my heel is never where it's supposed to be." He looked at me with concern. "But don't worry about it, I'm sure my feet are growing."

Yes, just like his nose.

The boy brought his shoes home so his dad could check out the situation because apparently father knows best, and Bruce declared the shoe indeed too big. Thanks Tips. 

Apparently the shoe was just a tad big. (My husband's highly scientific assessment, not mine.) It was nothing an orthotic insert couldn't fix and maybe some newspaper stuffed in at the toes. Okay, I was only half jesting when I suggested that. Maybe. Nonetheless, a solution was settled upon, the shoes placed by the front door with a fresh set of custom orthotics, the boy tucked into bed to watch (likely) inappropriate videos on his iPad and I set about making a grocery list. This month we'd eat.

That's when I looked up and realized my 225-pound Mastiff puppy had one sneaker hanging from his mouth and the other sneaker shredded around the living room floor. Apparently teenaged ski-sized shoes are mighty tasty puppy-nip.

I may have cussed. Loudly enough to pry the teenaged boy away from the (likely) inappropriate videos on his iPad and venture out of his room to see what all the commotion was about. The look on his face when he saw his cursed sneakers strewn in pieces around the room was similar to the look he has when he's ripping open his presents on Christmas morning. Complete glee.

"Hey Mom, guess what?" he asked I was bent over sweeping up the carnage while trying to keep the dog from snitching pieces of shoe out of the dust pan.

"What?" I snarled.

"I need new shoes."

 ...

I guess we'll eat next month. Worst case scenario: I've heard 225 pounds of dog can feed a family of five for upwards of weeks.

Kidding.

Maybe.