So Santa, do your magic—I have been relatively nice this year. I think. While in general I teeter towards the middle of the naughty or nice list, I assume that my general air of laziness pushes me over towards the nice side of the quotient. Being naughty requires effort: ) Well, for some (read: Lanes) it comes naturally.
Our apartment woes continue. As I type this, some dubious noises came from our one and only toilet. Last time it backed up, P had to run to use the one I discovered in the laundry room, only to wind up flashing one of the cleaning ladies while he reigned on the throne. Luckily, she thought it was hilarious, but most of P’s nose was still red when he came upstairs looking rather constipated and thunderstruck.
Our ceiling continued to leak well into the week. Someone finally came to attend to it. I opened the door to find a tall man with a gruff voice and all kinds of tape and wire draped all over his shoulders and torso. Considering I was delirious with my 100th flu since getting here, I thought the Ghost of Christmas Past had come to get me.
All he did was get plaster all over the carpet while putting electrical tape all over the exposed pipe. We waited one week with a leaky hole in our ceiling and a bucket in the middle of our living room for that. Apparently one needs to have a plumbing qualification to put tape on a leak. It was enough to push me over the edge. I was so annoyed, I was calm.
Three days after that, on the busiest day of our week, of course, the Ghost of Christmas Past arrives again with a sidekick, who looked like a cross between Goliath and a lumberjack. They gave me the good news that after they add the plaster, I’ll have to wait until a painter came along to do the finishing touches. Great.
P had told me to wait in the bedroom instead of poking my nose in the proceedings since I was still under the weather and I’m deadly allergic to dust. My intuition told me to go outside and I nearly passed out when I saw little specks of cement all over my carpet.
I went into the kitchen to wash our plates and found that our sink was being used to mix the cement mixture!! Goliath made a big show of trying to clean up, but since there was no room for both him and I in the kitchen, since I’m not a small size either, I didn’t realize the full extent of the damage until they left.
There were grey specks on my frying pan, dishwasher rack, cupboards, etc. Who does that? The sink is looking lack luster and the garbage disposal is making a choking noise, no doubt from having chunks of cement stuck to it. To make things worse, they ran out of cement and are coming back on Monday to mix up more mayhem. I am kicking their behinds to the balcony. They can do whatever they want over there.
The only good thing is we got them out of the apartment with not a minute to spare. We had taken Lanes to her new playschool. I went armed with a book and cupcake in hand to entertain myself thinking she would want me to stick around on her first day in a new place but in one minute she kicked me out.
She beamed at me and said ‘ok mom, you can go home now. See you later.’ Yes, note that I am still ‘mom’ and not ‘mamma’ as before. I had to make an ungraceful exit and found myself waiting on the pavement, sad and lonely like an umbrella left at a bus stop, until P came to get me. I mean I could have walked home, but I don’t do walking up and down hills.
Twenty five minutes (at my pace) of that hike with my crappy lungs would equal a hospital visit. From now on my lungs are known as a separate entity to myself. The mutinous organs have launched a separatist movement and have won. As I type this, I’m still coughing up a lung.
After her first day at her new school, Lanes had a playdate with my new friend (I hope) Helen’s daughter, Abby. We went to a mall that was a whiles away because they had a nice Christmas display. You could sit on Santa’s lap for $25!! My gosh. I guess that’s how he pays off his elves, who were prowling the mall giving out cards with bios (like baseball cards—for elves) and Lanes and her little friend were delighted.
Meanwhile, P continues with his job hunt. No luck yet on that front. I noticed he has a penchant for using works like ‘executed’ and 'spear headed'. After he ‘terminated’ the services of his career counselor, I’m starting to think perhaps he should be looking for work in a more rough and tough field to finance.
Lanes continues to be mesmerized by video Skype, especially since she gets to see not only her favorite folks, but herself as well in the ‘my video’ box. Yesterday, she was so keen to talk to my sister that she went to P’s computer and pressed the keys enthusiastically, trying to make a connection.
I doubted a three year old could Skype, let alone video Skype, so I proceeded to change my clothes. Next thing I know, I hear dialing and see a video image of a mooning me and a beaming Lanes on the screen. I dashed over and slammed the computer shut before I unwittingly flashed my unsuspecting sister and her clan (of course her mother-in-law and uncle-in-law were there as well). Thank goodness it was not a wide angle lens. Then they would have had a free show.
On that bright note, I must sign off for this week. Hope you are grateful this is not a video blog: ) More dramas and adventures next time….
Sidekick, I hope you all asked Santa Claus for a new apartment! That triples your chances of getting one :)
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