Underpants

I am 42 years old.

I have been wearing underwear since I was 2. According to my mother, reluctantly - I preferred the diaper.

I survived braless until I had kids. Despite seriously tiny boobs, saggage occurred. Not much, but enough that a bra is needed for 2 reasons.

1. Hoist the wee former milkers up to a respectable level (no, it's NOT eye level).

2. Hide the nips office air conditioning causes.

This means I have decades of experience with both gotch and brassieres. I can tell you I loath and despise shopping for either.

Bras

For some reason, bra manufacturers have decided women are like concrete - we need reinforcing. While the underwire is not rebar, it can feel like it. I refuse to wear underwire bras. Fabric should be more than adequate to support a few ounces of flesh. There are 3 types of underwire free bras I've discovered.

1. The sports bra. This is designed to clamp boobs to chest with a grip Superman would envy. As noted above, this type of support for my tiny bosom is excessive. Also, they tend to cover vast areas beyond the actual fat deposits, and feel almost as sexy as control top pantyhose. Almost.

2. The actual woman's bra, without underwire. These are almost as difficult to find as honest personal ads. Not that I look for the latter, I'm just guessing they are like resumes, but less accurate. When found, I tend to buy all of them. Sadly, most tend to come in odd colours. Why would I want a blue bra? I don't want to wear a blue bra under a white blouse. Or under anything, really.

3. The training bra. This name always makes me giggle. What are they being trained for? Constriction? Horrible underwire bras? This is a rapidly diminishing source of wire-free bras, as even the kiddie brassieres are rapidly growing wires. Can I just point out that pre-pregnancy breasts are fabulously beautiful gravity defying creatures, and sticking a wire under them is pointless? I hope it's pointless. My other issue with underwire is its tendancy to escape the fabric and poke. Fuck, I hate them!

Gotch

I love the word gotch. I don't know why. Gotch. Fungible. Revolting. Anyone who thinks gotch are fungible is revolting. We used to call my little sister gotchola and throw underwear at her. Now we have the audacity to complain that she lives thousands of miles away. We were assholes. Sorry Andrea.

Most underwear is made out of industrial strength polyester, and should never, ever touch skin. Never. I don't want something that, if too hot, will melt into my privates anywhere near my groin.

Much of the remaining panty stock is made of lace. Nylon lace. Scratchy nylon lace. How sexy is the feeling that you need to scratch? It's not. Neither are nylon lace underpants.

Then you have your standard cotton panties. These fall into 2 types. Uncomfortable, and comfortable. The former outnumber the latter about 100 to 1.

Criteria for comfortable cotton panties.

1. Elastic should not be sewn into a bulky seam that chafes the side and the inner thighs. My inner thighs are sensitive, something I am happy about, and I do not wish to desensitize them through constant chafing.

2. They should not reach the armpits. My coverage needs are modest. Briefs should be brief.

3. Butt floss need not apply. I realize the thong gained enormous popularity. Not here.

I've complained about our profligate spending in prior posts, and noted my holy underwear is unlikely to be replaced due to poverty. But the truth is in this post. I simply lack the willpower to search for the needle in the haystack that is the perfect cover for my sexy bits.

Hot hot hot

Finally, in mid August, summer has come to Ottawa. Figures the hot, humid weather coincides with my deciding to ride my bike to work.

I love riding my bike. My commute is a particularly nice one - I cycle through the Experimental Farm, then along the canal, leaving only a few blocks in what passes for traffic here. Hard to imagine why I didn't do this sooner. It's my 4th year in my current work location, why did I take the bus or drive until now? Insanity, clearly.

There are downsides to my commute, all personal.

1. I sweat when exercising. Even very modest exercise - like, say, coasting downhill on a bike - makes me sweaty.
2. I turn beet red and stay that way for at least 20 minutes after exercising, even if I end up in a deep freeze.
3. Hunger. I now bring 2 lunches to work.

Item 1 is readily resolved with a visit to the bathroom and a change of clothing. Item 2 resolves itself, eventually. Item 3 is really an upside, I like eating. Clearly, looking at the girth of the average North American, I am not alone in this.

Lunch #1 this week is a chickpea and spinach salad. Lunch #2 is an immodestly sized wrap. The recipe said you could substitute green beans for avocado, so I did. Oddly good. Not that I don't love avocado, it's just that they seem to pick them so early that I half think the avocado tree wasn't even planted yet. If you're in Canada and need a durable substitute for a hockey puck, the typical avocado found in our supermarkets would provide lengthy service.

I realize shipping an avocado from Mexico to Ottawa requires that they be picked before peak ripeness, or you'll end up with a truck full of black, rotting mush. But at least one out of the 100's of avocados for sale should be less than rock hard, right? I'd guess they are picked so early they just never ripen.

Another food that is no longer edible is the peach. Why do today's peaches start out like hard rubber balls, and immediately rot, without ever passing through an edible phase? My kids used to eat fruit once a year, in peach season. Their motivation was simple - if you eat a half a quart of peaches, you can pretty much fart at will. In a small boy, this is an irresistable temptation. I miss the peaches. Not the farts.

I should probably grow my own. Unfortunately, to build and heat a greenhouse for avocados will mean selling the Lexus, the house, and possibly a kid or two. Peaches are pretty borderline here too. So I'll hope that the earwigs have left a few of my still green tomatoes in a near-edible state, and look forward to a fruit picked while ripe. The blackberries were too long ago, and the squirrels ended up eating about half the crop. Soon they will start littering our driveway and yard with acorns. They leave enough on the road it looks like peanut butter after a few cars have gone over them.

I am not eating acorns. But maybe I should? Anyone have any recipes for fresh acorns?

Summer weekends rock

I had a perfect summer weekend. Perfect.

I gardened on Saturday. Ripped out plants, weeded, divided perennials, flung weeds in compost, edged beds. All the things that make me happy, and the garden does look better.

Sunday Hugh and I got to sleep in (nudge nudge wink wink say no more). It's one of the fringe benefits of the kids getting older - we get more time together in bed. Actually, not so much fringe as simply unexpected and really nice. It was raining, but Zoe got up early (10:30 is early for her) and we went for a bike ride.

Ottawa has a series of parkways along the river and canal, and they are closed to drivers on Sundays until 1:00. Makes for great cycling, especially in light rain when all the other cyclists opt to stay in. Wimps.

The only bad thing was Zoe hit a curb wrong when we were 2 blocks from home, flipped off her bike and scraped her knees. Her leg is pretty bruised. I ran home with the 2 bikes & drove her home. Of course, I grabbed a towel too so my wet muddy butt wouldn't mar the Lexus.

Then I got home and threw out my shorts. Zoe pointed out a hole in the bum. How lovely. Good thing I don't wear a thong.

Today was lovely, I mucked about in the compost after another sweet lie in with my awesome spouse. His sister and her family got into town last night, we spent a couple of hours visiting with them at my father in law's place, where they are staying. It's odd - they have 2 girls, the older is about 5'3" and 200 pounds. The younger is about 5'8" and maybe 145 pounds - slim, but not overly so. I wonder if it bugs the older that the younger is basically a hot blond and she's invisible? It must, sometimes.

I even went for a run, gasp, after deciding it just wasn't for me. It isn't for me in the sense that I'll never be a great runner, but it is in the sense that it's cheap, quick, effective and occasionally great. Today was a short but great run, I had oomph and didn't push it too hard.

So, this has been a truly dull post, apologies to my hordes of imaginary fans. But it was such a great weekend I had to write it down.

My own scarlet A!

I noticed a few atheist blogs had a scarlet A on them, and, in a desire to spend my limited time on earth in a highly valuable and productive way, clicked on one.

Now I have my very own A!

Click on it if you, too, wish to learn more about the A; the link is to the out campaign. Not out, as it outing someone for their sexual preferences when they'd prefer not to have those publicly known, but out as in the truth is out! I'm an atheist!

Not exactly a point of pride with me. I'm an atheist because I don't believe there is a god. The more I learn about the world, the more I realize my previously unthinking atheism sure seems a better fit than some "I can do everything but won't because, um, free will" living up in the sky not intervening. Never intervening. Letting the wee children die.

Enough of that - it's Friday afternoon before a long weekend with a decent weather forecast.

I will be gardening.

I probably won't be driving the new Lexus much - like all of Hugh's cars, it's comfortable with a terrific suspension and all the excitement of a warm bath. Alone.

I also plan on cycling. Finally, my bicycle is not stuck to the garage wall, but on the ground, where I can tinker until the brakes work and then hop on.

Life is good. I plan on living it as well as I can for as long as I can, and hope that when I die, people say that I was fun to be with. There's enough serious crap in the world that we really need to grab every chance at fun we can. With the usual responsibilities first caveat...so I might attack the old couch with a crowbar, but I will be responsible (deep sigh) and try to give it away first.

If you think you want my couch, it's really crappy, and it would be much better to let me trash it, OK?

Sweaty garden love

I've been mucking about in the garden. Despite forecasts threatening still more rain, it's been dry today. So I moved hostas. And ferns. And divided a sedum. They have got to be the easiest plant to divide.

More of my hostas and ferns are now where they'll be happier, in dappled shade, and more of my sun loving plants are now in the sun. I'm looking out at my garden, thinking gee, in 5 years everything but the tree will be in a different place. I'm one of those gardeners - the ones who will dig up an entire bed and replant everything 4" to the left, because it looks better that way.

Gardening is free. This makes me very, very happy, because buying a used Lexus is not free. We signed the papers this morning. Thursday we can pick it up. I've felt slightly ill ever since - borrowing $22K for something that isn't a house is literally painful. Now we need to set up a HELOC so we can pay of the car loan at 8.19% and move it to 3.25% - we only need to keep it at the higher rate for a month.

Rearranging furniture is also free. After I gardened for a few hours, I cleaned our bathrooms. They were revolting. Revolting. That is a fabulous word. Revolting! Fungible! Revolting fungible bathroom! Then I went into our revolting living room, and attempted to make it look lovely by moving things around. Now parts of it look better than they did. And I don't think anything looks worse, so while it won't be in Architectural Digest, it also won't be in Trailer Park Quarterly, the only design mag in comic book format. Heck, too many words in dem other fancy magazines, eh?

Maybe I'll feel better once we actually have a Lexus in the driveway, instead of a much larger than I'd like debt. Note I used a Lexus, not the Lexus - I still don't actually believe we bought it, although the debt feels far too real. My inner Scot was obviously in a coma. Damn. I'll have to grab him and choke him with his sporin.

Learning

Things I didn't know.

This is not an exhaustive list - just a few tidbits of previously unknown unknowns now known, to abuse a truly bad Rumsfeld speech.

1. Hugh is fully capable of spending foolish sums of money on a car

2. Twitter is fun

We haven't actually purchased the Lexus. All the money for it is still in our bank accounts.

I lie.

The money for it is still to be borrowed. If I had $30K kicking around, my underwear wouldn't have holes in it.

Hugh visited Import Car Centre on Tuesday. Eddie was off - eye surgery. Ouch.

Wednesday. He just missed Eddie.

Thursday. Eddie and he chatted, Hugh agreed to go back.

Friday. Hugh returns. Eddie gets him to take the kids for a drive.

Hugh's comment? The steering seems looser. Of course, he's been driving his brother's minivan. A '95 Caravan, on its 4th transmission. The power steering has long since ceased to have any power - turning right is a true workout.

I think a race car's steering is loose in comparison.

Hugh knows this - it was a joke. He really wants that Lexus.

His rationale for today? We haven't looked at any other cars, ergo we must want this one.

He is right. We do. I do. The kids do.

Eddie knows he sold a car with one sentence - humour me - drive a Lexus.

I'm looking at the above post, realizing it seems to consist solely of one sentence paragraphs. Is Twitter changing the way I write? Can I go past 140 characters? Will any thought of substance ever leave my head again?

Can I write an entire post consisting entirely of questions?

If you wish to read the tweets of a new twit, I'm teragram42 on Twitter. If you wish to read the tweets of someone who is at least semi literate, may I recommend Stephen Fry?

Mud glorious mud

Despite our Lexus detour, I did much mucking about.

Mucking about is a highly accurate term for the end result of gardening - tools and gardener covered in muck.

I weeded. Nails filled with muck.

I trimmed most of the rest of the hedge. Hands covered in muck.

I divided 2 perennials and moved chunks to where the hedge between us and our neighbour's driveway used to be. Much muck, on hands arms and feet.

I weeded by the side yard. Hands, arms, feet and eyes mucky. Lots of small black flies, which go under my glasses into my eyes, hence the mucky eyes.

Moved 2 grasses. Muck, as noted above, on hands and arms.

This was all before car shopping. I did change my shirt and shoes - orange Crocs are not for driving. Or leaving the yard. Or anything involving other people seeing you, really.

I divided 2 more daylilies after. More muck. Is it allowable to wash your feet in the bathroom sink? Our main floor bathroom has a sink and toilet just inside the back door, where I leave the crocs. The sink seems a wee mite more civilized for washing than the toilet.