About once a week, I am less than forth coming with where I go after work, and usually, I downright lie.  I always pay cash and I hide any evidence of where I’ve been.  I know that if David finds out, I’m in serious trouble. 

Hello, my name is Tina, and I am a Frenchy-aholic.

I get a rush of excitement when I walk into Guy’s Frenchy’s.  Within the first few minutes I can tell if this is going to be a good Frenchy’s day or a bad one.  Today after work, it was not too bad at all.  I got a pair of vintage jeans, classic black pants, a really cool shirt and gorgeous Jackie O style yellow tweed Tecco dress.  You might say, “Where, pray tell, do you expect to wear a yellow tweed dress?” And I would respond by saying, “Why at a summer wedding or a garden party of course.” And to answer your next question, no, we aren’t invited to any more weddings this summer, and I haven’t been to a garden party in…well, ever.  But if I do get an invite, I’m set.  Besides, whether or not I ever wear it, is hardly the point. 

My Frenchy finds come to only $19.   It’s not the money that would upset David.  Especially since he’s paid more than that for shipping for one of his many “widgets” or “do-flickies” for his antique cars.  It’s both the lack of need and closet space that he’d be less than impressed with. 

But really, I could have much worse vices.  Can I have a “hell yeah” from my fellow Frenchy addicts?  I wish I could come home and say, “David, I so scored at Frenchy’s tonight.”  Instead, my bag of treasures is hidden in the trunk of my car and after I pay through the nose in dry-cleaning and wear them, I will lie and say that I’ve had them for months.

But I’m pretty sure he won’t even notice.  And my secret life will be safe for yet another week.  

It was a beautiful evening and Evan had a game at Center against West Nova Fuels.  

“They’re gonna be hard, Mommy,” Evan said with a nervous smile from the back seat.  ”I can’t breath.”

“That means you’re nervous, Evan.  Nervous is good.  It means you care.” 

We got to the game and I wondered if it would be frowned upon if I brought beer. I’m thinking… yeah.  I’m not much of a beer drinker but it was a perfect night for one.  

The boys were nervous, and it showed.  But they did great!  Really great!  They lost, and it was much different than when they won, but they said “shucks” and then had water fights with the left over water in their bottles and moved on.  

We adults could learn something from these young men.  

I went home to upload some video I took of the game.  I intended to upload video for my blog.  I was pretty choosy about the video that I took making sure not to yell, or get video of our boys getting scored on.  Colin, however, was less choosey, and got a less than flattering clip of me. 

I digress.  I consider it my Crazy Soccer Mom intervention.

Thank you Colin!

So I have turned into one of those mothers.  You know the ones.  The ones who yell and scream at their kids while they play soccer, watching them sweat in scalding-hot temperatures, chasing a white and black ball around the field, trying desperately to score, they look to you on the sidelines and wave with a proud smile while you yell “defense, get ‘em.”

These moms, some who admittedly know very little about soccer, are now experts, telling their kids where to go and what to do.  They jump up and down, pacing the field even though they brought their folding camping chair.  Their nerves are completely shot and they’ve chewed every last bit of acrylic off their nails in nervous excitement hoping to have their kid bring home a win tonight.

Yep… that’s me.  I have become who I said I wouldn’t become.  And I love it.  I am just as hooked on being on the sidelines cheering on my boy as he is on playing on a winning team.  He didn’t score.  He barely touched the ball.  But he beamed with pride when his teammates got a goal and won the game.  He wore his jersey to bed, and the next day.  He didn’t even want me to wash the new soccer socks, as he was so proud of the fresh grass stain. 

As excited as I am to see Evan playing on a real team, I am just as nervous for him to experience his first loss.  It sucks to lose.

I often think about losing the regional championship in volleyball when I played for the Jr. A team for Hebbville Junior High (now known as Hebbville Academy).  Almost 20 years later I remember it like it was yesterday.  We played against Clare in a tournament in Yarmouth.  It was a nail-biter.  We were so close.  I remember my friend Nadia broke her arm during that game and still played.  She couldn’t play basketball the next season.  Her father, Jack Murphy, was less than impressed.  We lost because of a stupid play.  I don’t think I spoke to that girl for the rest of the year.  And even know, almost 20 years later, I refuse to be her Facebook friend (kidding, kinda sorta).

And like me, Evan has a very big heart.  He loves big and hurts big too.  But just like winning, it’s important to lose.  It shows character to lose with humility and grace. I hope he handles losing better than I did.  Maybe this is what they mean by ‘sports therapy’.  

So we did it- after months about talking about it. Or should I say David did it. Like so many other things, I’m just along for the ride. I walked into the house and saw, not one but two beautiful, tiny, little kittens.

David and I are cat people. We always get them from SHAID and they’ve always been healthy and loving. We had two cats’ pre children and unfortunately cars hit them both. We lived very close to the road. Sidney and Quincy were the coolest cats ever, and when we lost them we were devastated and said we wouldn’t get anymore because it’s just too hard when they die. But the kids have been asking us for a pet for over a year. In fact just the other day they were trying to coax the neighbours cat to our house by lining the trail through the woods with some of the ham I had just bought from Jo-Ann’s Market. Yeah, I know.

Ever since then they’ve pleaded daily. Obviously David couldn’t take it. He caved only after a couple of days. He wouldn’t have made it in war times in tortuous interrogations.

I have to say, I love having cats in the house again. As I write this they are running around playing with each other. I’m sure they’re just so thankful that the kids are asleep and they’re left alone. The black one, named Catty is Colin’s, and is literally on suicide watch. Colin just won’t leave her alone and torments the poor thing (No yarn for her!) Evan’s cat, Cody is striped and is a male, and Evan is just a wonderful parent. Always asking if he can hug his cat. He always asks me if I think his cat likes it here.

One thing I didn’t miss and had forgotten just how badly I disliked was the smell of the litter box. I remember when I got pregnant how wonderful it was to not have to clean it. And David was such a paranoid father-to-be that he cleaned it everyday, scared that the fumes would do damage to our unborn baby.

Anyone know where I might be able to get a positive pregnancy test?

Found one- eBay!

Here’s video of the kids effort to “rescue” the stray cat, and at the end, Catty and Cody desperately trying to hide from Colin.

I never bought into the whole “7-year itch” thing.  I thought it was an excuse used by desperate housewives and depressed husbands to fool around.

I have been married for 7 years, 8 in September.  I was lucky.  I married probably the best person I know.  That doesn’t mean we have a perfect marriage.  In fact, we have struggled over the years- A LOT.    And while we remain dedicated to making it work, we’ve agreed never to settle on being married for the kids.  We recognized that that isn’t good for anyone. 

I’d say we’re a pretty typical married couple.  I don’t think we communicate as well as we should.  He doesn’t show affection nearly enough and he spends way too much money.  What would he say?  I don’t have sex enough and I’m cheap, and not the cheap he’d prefer.  See, pretty typical.

And what’s more, after being married for 7 years, I don’t have an itch per se, but I guess those little weird idiosyncrasies that we all live with when we get married and sometimes think are cute, I’m now realizing that they don’t go away, even after 7 years.  And sometimes, those weird idiosyncrasies grow into stupid annoyances that make no flippin sense whatsoever.

Like if you have a spouse who doesn’t like their food to touch.  Wouldn’t you just like to pour gravy on the mashed potatoes that you’ve plopped on the pot roast and top it all off with peas, serve it up with a smile and say, “There y’are, honey”?  That, to me, is simply scratching an itch. 

And I’m not perfect, far from it.  I know that if I were married to anyone else they’d probably be in prison for battery.  I probably nag a bit too much.  I tend to glaze over when he talks about his round of golf.  But isn’t that what marriage is all about– nagging and glazing?  That’s what I learned from my parents and far be it from me to break a tradition.

I’ve just discovered something that could very well save my life!  Well, that’s a bit dramatic.  It could very well save my marriage; too dramatic still.  OK- I’ve just found something that I absolutely love!  It’s the Far-Infrared Sauna from Vital Rays in the Bridgewater Plaza in the same suite at HEAT Studio . 

I’ve had friends recommend it to me, but I thought it was a sauna.  It’s nothing like a sauna.  In fact I have a sauna in my basement so I am very familiar with saunas.  Norwegians previously owned our home and they LOVE their saunas.  Ours is now full of Christmas ornaments.

In Vital Rays you sweat like crazy and as each drop rolled down my back I felt as if I’d lost more stress.  But I’m not convinced that the best part of it wasn’t the absolute silence.  No one was crying or fighting or screaming.  No one wanted milk or was complaining.  I listened to something classical not Fall Out Boy.  The lights were dim and I was in heaven!  

I left heaven and walked into my home,  which, I have to admit, is an even better heaven, just much less clean.  

When I was a kid I was picked on because of a mole on my face.  I’ve seen pictures of myself at 5 years old and it started as merely a dot.  By the time I was 10 it was bigger than Cindy Crawford’s, only much less cute.  It was black, to the right of my nose and getting bigger with each passing year.

I begged my mom to have it removed.  She just didn’t understand how kids could pick on me about a mole.  She would often refer to it as a beauty mark, which it clearly was not!  Thankfully in Grade 5, my doctor said we should remove it and have it tested since it was growing so big and I complained about it so much. 

The day the mole was removed, thanks to Dr. Ian Feltham, I became a different person.  It was as if my mole weighed 20 pounds.   I became less shy although my family will argue that I was never all that shy.  Of course people still found other things to pick on me about, and that was okay.  Then they had to use their imagination (though Titless Tina was not very imaginative).

You can imagine my horror when, last year, I noticed a dot between Evan’s eyebrows.  I kept my eye on it hoping it was a freckle.  Every few months I can see that it has grown.  A year later it’s nearly tripled in size.  The feeling of disappointment took me back to when I would measure the growth of my mole to a studded earring.   I would dig out that same earring and hold it up to my face and would pray that the mole was actually shrinking.  Obviously it didn’t.  I think that’s when the drinking started (half kidding).

There is little doubt that I will arrange to have it removed for him as soon as he says the word, and not a second later.   I may sound a bit dramatic, but until you’ve answered to names like Mole Face, Mole in the Nose or Moley Poley, you just don’t understand.

I hoped that kids today aren’t as bad as when I was a kid.  Plus Evan is a boy; they might cut him some slack.

Evan and I were picking out a movie at the Irving when I noticed that he had a bit of wax in his ear.  He has waxy ears.  This was Friday and I usually clean his ears on Sunday.

“Evan, remind me to clean your ears tonight.”

Evan immediately teared up.  He told me how a girl in his class saw the wax in his ear and told all the kids and they all picked on him.  I asked him what they said and he said, “They didn’t say anything, they just did this,” and he gave me a grossed-out look.  I’d seen that look before followed by, “Hey, Mole in the Nose.”

Clearly kids have not changed. 

Anyone know a good plastic surgeon?