Spring in Our Step

We made it back safely from our soujourn to Seattle. Lanes and I had a fabulous time. I got to take one nap and three attempts at one, and Lanes got to play with her cousins, who might still be recovering from the madness that is a three year old with boundless energy.

It was nice to just roam around with my nutty sister. I would want to hug her one minute and then I’d get cranky and whine the next. I have low blood pressure and she does a mighty fine job raising it to the normal levels and then some.

She took the week off to hang out with us, during which time she babysat Lanes so that I could get a haircut and beautify myself. My mom had seen a recent picture of me and demanded an overhaul and massive renovation be done at her expense. I had to say I put up little to no fight to that request.

Lanes was delirious with joy at the prospect of an outing with her aunt, and after some window shopping and bribing me with chalupas from Taco Bell (yes, it’s horrific—it’s a good thing I can’t find a TB in Canada), each day at 2pm, we would pick up my nieces’ nanny/beloved aunt, ‘Anna’, who is a very niece, albeit serious Polish lady we have all adopted as part of our family.

She is beautiful inside and out, but when she has an idea in her head, good luck to us all. There are no debates with her. It’s like going into a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back. No matter what you think or how right you are, you have to always gently say ‘yes, yes, you are right’.

Devoutly religious and with impeccable manners (not that one has anything to do with the other), Anna is currently mulling over the prophecies that claim there will be many natural disasters and that the world will end in 2012. She really wanted to talk to P about it, since they share the same religious views, but since he wasn’t around, I was considered the next best thing.

On the first day she cornered me into a conversation about it, after her ritual of giving one kiss on either side of the cheek, two hugs, and saying ‘I love you so much’ three times. I could see from her eyes that she was genuinely concerned. My sister, always practical, and less sympathetic to these notions, obviously proved to be a dismal audience for this poor lady. At the end of the conversation, I was in a flap myself.

So the next two days, at two o’clock when we went to pick Anna up, I had to get out of the car, and remember, ‘kiss, kiss, look sad the world is ending’. My sister thought it was hilarious that I was preparing my sad look, but I think it went a long way with Anna.

While P was in Canada for most of the week, Lanes decided that my sister’s husband, lovingly and comically referred to as ‘Big Daddy’ would make a good substitute for a father figure. She would run screeching towards him when he got home and then would sit on a stool in the kitchen and watch him cook with a rather mesmerized look on her face.

Lanes cast me aside like yesterday’s newspaper and followed my sister and her family around the house. She told them about her best friends in school. She said ‘Randy, and Evy Anne, they are my people’. I don’t know where she comes up with these things. Lanes also hero worships my sister and ate things with her that she normally refuses to with me. I was slightly jealous yet in awe of this.

P, meanwhile, finished up his temp job. He got some messages saying there was a permanent job opening and then when he called them up, they had selected someone else. We have had many moments of getting all excited someone wants to talk to him only to find out we missed the bus. It’s rather disheartening. It’s like showing up at a party a day late and a penny short.

Meanwhile, I had my first taste of the Canadian medical system. I went in for a checkup and had to have a routine scan done. I had to wait two weeks for it, but it didn’t bother me since I was in no hurry and didn’t need immediate help or anything (it wasn’t for my brain, in other words).

I was in a mad rush today, having passed out early last night after returning from Seattle. I had to get Lanes’ lunch ready for school, do laundry, make dinner, and take care of some very important messages and I didn’t have time to read the paper that gave me detailed instructions regarding the scan.

P had set off to a job fair, and he showed up just as I finished putting the laundry away. Always methodical, I decided the highest shelf in the upper cupboard of the kitchen is the best place to keep my medical file. It's right under a cake pan and on top of unused muffin trays. I was rushing to get dressed and didn’t see the instructions for the scan until the last minute.

I was furiously guzzling down water because there was a message on my machine instructing me to drink at least four glasses of water prior to arriving at the clinic. However, after reading the fine print, I realized I had to drink it two hours before the scan! To make things worse, I had just used the ‘facilties’ and the instructions said not to use the loo for three hours before coming in.

Great. As usual, P shook his head sadly at me and my failure to follow instructions. He said he would have read it word for word and done it precisely. This is true. He would have also highlighted the sheet and measured out the precise amount of water that had to be consumed. He and his bladder would have then proceeded to sit smugly at the doctor’s office and ‘tsk’ and people like me.

So I went into the ultrasound office feeling like the guilty kid who accidentally let all the frogs out of the lab or something. P eventually felt bad for me and told me that it will be ok, after scaring me saying if I get turned away they might charge me $120. I decided to just wing it. When asked if I drank water, I truthfully said ‘yes’, without mentioning it was 20 minutes ago instead of two hours.

The technician or whatever you call the person doing the scan looked at me with his eyes wide open and said accusingly ‘your bladder is empty!’ I felt like I was going to be sent to the principal’s office. I admitted I drank water, just at the wrong time, but then between him and someone else in the office they sorted me out.

When I left, if the technician could have wagged his finger at me and said ‘naughty, naughty’ he would have. We didn’t get the reports then and there, apparently they send it to the GP’s office. It was also weird to just walk out of a medical office without paying. Amazing. Yea, healthcare system.

P was waiting outside faithfully, with a bemused smirk on his face. We had to pick Lanes up from school, but I didn’t quite make it there because all that water had run through me. I was about to turn blue and it didn't help that P was hitting every single speed bump in Burnaby.

I had tears in my eyes, and even having my favorite aging Canadian rock star on the radio didn’t help. We also got caught to every red right in town. I felt like a water filled balloon that was about to hit the pavement at 30 miles an hour. I wanted to call the technician up and ask him what does he mean my bladder is empty and would take hours to fill up?

Any old how, terrorizing technicians aside, I’m glad it’s done and over with. And guess what? We have been in Canada now for exactly six months!! Time really goes by quickly, although we have not much to show for it. And I have yet to go in for my driving test.

I must run and close all the vents and open the windows in the apartment. The heat was never on in the dead of Winter, but now that Spring is emerging, the heat’s been cranked up. How does this make sense? Any old how, more adventures next week… Catch you soon…