Waxed out.

My candle count remains at three.

Mom used to have a collection of candles that rivalled a Catholic church. When I was little, I’d dip my fingertips in the melted wax that pooled around the wick of the candles. Mom did not like this. She forbade me from having candles in my room, but this was out of concern that I’d set the house on fire. Even into my teens, this candle ban was imposed upon me.

Jordi didn’t throw me much of a pity party when I shared my candle-deprived childhood with him. He made a face when I described my proclivity for dipping my fingers in hot wax and determined that it wasn’t a “kid thing,” as I insisted, but a “Laura thing.”

Please back me up in the comments.

And if Jordi thought that was weird, he’s gonna love this photo:

This is me at fifteen, dripping hot wax on the back of my hand: surely the consequence of my mom’s restrictive stance on teen candle ownership.

As you can see in the photo, there are three others doing the same. I have blurred out their faces out of respect for the possibility that they’d be embarrassed by the photo even though it was taken over twenty years ago. None of us were on drugs, nor had we been drinking. It was just a thing we decided to do one night while camping.

“Who wants to make smores?”

“Fuck that, let’s drip hot wax on our hands!”

As a preteen, I also ruined a bunch of crayons by throwing them in boiling water and then reshaping them. This made them brittle and useless for colouring, but hey, curly crayons!

THIS WAS MY LIFE BEFORE THE INTERNET.

What did Jordi even do before the internet? I had the opportunity to ask the perfect person this question: his mom. Last weekend was the first time I’ve met any of Jordi’s family, as most live in Calgary. Incidentally, the last time I had a partner whose parents were Anglophones was when I lived in Calgary (2003).

How does one relate to someone else’s relatives? I don’t know. I’m relieved Jordi isn’t especially close to his family because this takes off the pressure to become invested in them. I didn’t cope well with my previous two partners’ Francophone families. Granted, the Francophones were more welcoming than the judgy Christian inlaws from my Calgary era.

From our brief interaction, Jordi’s mom was kind and easygoing. She abstained from making my deafness a conversation topic, which I appreciated. I used the Live Transcribe app to pick up the conversations between Jordi and his mom as I demonstrated my slow-eating ways at the Vietnamese restaurant. This was useful for piggybacking conversation topics as they were happening rather than catching his mom off guard with an offbeat statement because I don’t know what’s going on.

When the topic of pets–and how everybody has them–came up, I told Jordi’s mom sadly that I didn’t have any.

Jordi gave me a look and said, “Yes, you do.”

He was referring to his cat, Klaus, who I have indeed fallen in love with. Here is Klaus pawing at the window as I left Jordi’s place this morning:

He might’ve been pawing at the window not because I was leaving but because I’d stolen his catnip pickle.

It was for my Pickle Rejuvenation Project.

Jordi pointed out how a new pickle cost $5. I can see why anyone would find it excessive to replace just the innards in the interest of keeping the landfills free of an inconsequential cat toy. Now that I go online rather than spend time coating my hands in wax, I’ve learnt how 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions; however, I refuse to subscribe to that “all or nothing” attitude towards sustainability. Doomscrolling is a waste of time. Pickle rejuvenation is not.

Besides, look at all that sawdust I dumped out of the pickle body. It’s now been replaced by PREMIUM catnip. You know it’s premium because the tabby on the lid is soaring through the clouds as high as a kite.

Nothing but the best for my one orange brain celled son!