Life These Days

I am feeling fresh and free, having just survived my latest monthly phone conversation with Jon where he goes over my tiny sliver of business accounting, which is generally extremely small, basically negligible, and yet with a very high percentage of discussion points.

There are several factors to the high intensity of these phone calls, which are pleasant for neither of us. The first is that the business visa looks very similar to my personal visa so in a flustered pinch and/or moment of distraction and/or just my general state of existence, who knows what I’m going to pull out of my wallet. Also, these conversations usually happen after Jon has his monthly conversations with his accountant, which are, I think it would be fair to say, never optimistic conversations about the robust financial health of a small stationery shop. After Jon hangs up with his accountant, Jon calls me and we then go through this facade where he pretends like these could be legitimate charges and questions me about them and then I have to confess to them being some random charge that possibly I don’t even really recall.

“July 2 Tim Hortons $8.11.”

“Hmmmm.”

”July 14th Pho House $38.14.”

“Hmmm.”

”July 16th Pet Valu $69.92”

“Hmmm.”

“Are you telling me it’s fraud, Liz? Someone has stolen your card and is using it at the Pet Valu around the corner from our house on July 16th?”

“Hmmmm.”

“You can’t use the business visa to eat out and buy dog stuff, Liz”

Well, now.

In any case, we continue on, slowly creeping around the corner of summer, barely hanging on. It has been a busy summer in the shop, busier than anticipated, with some big and small events, the kids doing new things, exploring around with the dog. Goose in the daytime continues to completely demolish the wisps of mental stability that return to me overnight, as I stare out into the night sky, hoping for wisdom and fortitude. Fog in the morning sun, reality returns.

I finally got my act together and registered the girls back again for swimming lessons at the YMCA, something they haven’t done in over a year. To my relief, they’ve not yet drowned in the pool. Interestingly, Junia’s teacher is a male who is very nice and also happens to have curly hair and quite hairy armpits, which has fascinated Junia to no end. “I had the teacher with hairy armpits again,” she says, after every class. “They are very hairy.” I sometimes watch them in the class, the teacher pulling his little humans around on a pool noodle while they hang on in glee, and I wonder if he knows what one of them is thinking about.

Sometimes, when we are just sitting like normal humans on a couch, reading a book or drifting off into the clouds, I feel her little hand creeping up my sleeve, fingers waggling around to feel out any little sprouts. It is not comfortable.