Belly Dancing

This week is a little bit like last week. Lanes (who is now sniffly) started off with a little or no appetite, which is kind of normal for her. Like her dad, P, Lanes uses food for fuel, whereas I live to eat. Except for anything chocolate based, Lanes eats food like she is doing Mamma a big favor. 

The good news for this week is that P got a temporary job, which will last us until September. The bad news is that P was having the runs and neither of us knows how he went into his first day of work like that. I packed Lanes’ Pedialyte and a prayer into his lunch.

He managed to get through the week, and that was a relief. I figured the people in the office would think the temp has a prostrate problem or something if he kept running to use the facilities, but he said he was ok for the most part while he was there.

Lanes was ok enough to go to school, but after enjoying having Daddy’s nonstop attention during her illness she found his leaving for his job to be rather inconvenient. The wonder of being three years old is that she sees no correlation between employment and food and shelter.

She kept claiming she needs to go to work with him, and getting her out the door for preschool was a challenge to say the least. It didn’t help that her little idol in school, Randy, got the same stomach virus (no doubt the two of them meddled in something they were not supposed to), but he got it so badly, he missed the entire week of school.

Lanes was delighted to find him in school today. If it was not a typical rainy day in BC, they probably would have run to each other in slow motion across the garden with the sun in their hair and given each other a big hug. And for P’s over protective sake, only a hug. Any old how, P is feeling a lot better now that he found employment, even though it’s not permanent.

I realized that P’s job hunt is a lot like dating. He spends inordinate amounts of time, trying to make a connection with someone, building up profiles and highlighting all his attractive qualities. He goes on a couple of first dates (interviews) and then they say ‘it’s not you, it’s me’, and he continues to look for ‘the one’.

I told P not to worry, that usually how these things go is that when one person wants you, suddenly lots of others do too. So this temp job is not so much like receiving a proposal, but more like, ‘let’s move in and see how this works out’. Let’s hope what they say about buying the cow is not true!!

The job that could have been ‘the one’ had called him for an interview the day Lanes got sick and we were in the ER. So he missed ‘going on the date’ with the job that would be the equivalent of the smooth talking Italian count with the pearly white teeth and flashy car. You know the debonair one that is too reckless to ask you to sign a pre-nup and then you make out with the house in Tuscany when he leaves you for a younger model (pun intended).

In the end, P had no regrets and is trying to remain optimistic that perhaps the temp job folks will like what they see and offer him a proposal in September. We both feel really tired just thinking of the prospect of having to go through the job hunt again then. We just want to feel settled already—you know really anchored in society. However, a six month job is better than no job, and so we decided to live for the moment.

Right now it is my turn to feel under the weather. I seem to have caught the stomach bug from P. At first, I didn’t think his runny stomach had anything to do with Lanes’ virus, but cleaning up after Lanes proved easier since she didn’t budge from the sofa the entire time she was sick.

P, on the other hand, was touching faucets, door knobs, the remote, the water pitcher, his nose, anything and everything. I tried wiping down these things but after doing it twice, I just gave up because I was tired. That turned out to be a big mistake. There is a reason Clorox wipes was invented.

Yesterday, when I needed to stay in the bathroom most of the day, our building had two water cuts, well balanced, one in the morning and one in the evening, since there were two burst pipes on the upper floors. Big surprise. Again, I don’t know how a building that springs so many leaks could have ever been on Fire Watch. If anything, this building would be a good source of water to put out fires in neighboring buildings.

Any old how, I was sitting in the loo swearing at my situation (not having water), when the lights went off and I found myself in absolute and utter darkness, literally and metaphorically speaking. Of course P was glued to his computer when he heard me vaguely squealing in the loo about the sad state of this building. 

Hearing but not listening, he assumed the noise coming out of the bathroom was me whining about him watching Lanes for me while I was indisposed, so he decided he would check on Lanes or else risk incurring my wrath.

What he didn’t bother to tell me, while I was reigning on the throne and delivering my soliloquy about how enduring electricity cuts was the last straw, was that Lanes, in an effort to get me out of the loo, had turned the lights off from the outside.

Ten minutes into my tirade, P finally realized that I was batting on about the lights and that I was sitting there in the dark. He enlightened me to the fact that we did have electricity and that it was Lanes who turned off the lights. Yet, he still did not put them back on for me. 

As I was plotting my revenge, it suddenly dawned on him to put up the switch from outside. That and he wanted me out to take charge of Lanes, who was about to have a meltdown at not being able to use the potty.

I must sign off since I’m feeling queasy and weak from not eating or retaining anything. Unlike P and Lanes, who can easily survive on air and love and busy work, I need my meals, so I’m rather sad at being unable to eat. Toast does not cut it.

P threatened to physically take away a bowl of pasta I was courting and I was told on no uncertain terms am I to complain about belly aches if (or rather when) I ate it. So no belly aching about belly aching.  There is also a doughnut that requires my urgent attention. Here’s to better health and a better blog next week…