Barking Mad Up the Wrong Tree

I have been in such a mood, I nearly had to take up unnatural things (to me) such as yoga or meditation to whip up this episode!  I’m about to spend Loonies* to check into a loony bin, I've dealt with moves put on by movers, and I’m all hot under the collar because my four year old, Lanes, has had a fever.

My nutty sister has launched a two pronged assault on my sanity. First up, she is adopting a Labradoodle, and considering I love dogs, she thought it fit to call me nonstop about this venture. I'm trying to get a protesting Lanes out the door for school, she calls.  I'm rushing to get food out of our overzealous oven before our equally over eager smoke detector goes off, she calls.  Lanes is making mystery noises in the loo and I need to rush in to check, she calls.

Of course I’m excited to meet the four legged addition to the family, but my sister was going on about how he is the reincarnation of my beloved black lab Muttley, and this aggravated me to no end, especially since I was always stopping mid-activity to pick up the phone to hear such nonsense.  This did not sit well with me. 


In my mind, Muttley is safe somewhere and waiting patiently for me, after which time the two of us will be happily running around green pastures and loping hills in another dimension. Who am I kidding? Cut the harp music. Neither one of us was much up for activity, but I’m sure we will be attending all buffets in the pie in the sky. 

Any old how, after much over the phone scowling, vexation, and threats never to visit her again, she amended it to Muttley sent the puppy and is not the actual puppy. I can deal with that. Meanwhile, my far less vocal spouse, P, was silently sending prayers of thanks for his mild mannered, calm and sensible sister and wondering what passing fancy propelled him into my family.

Having sensed, finally, that I was really in a huff and a puff over this issue, now known as Puppygate,  my sister tried to ‘cheer me up’ with funny stories about how we are going to spend our golden years together. Apparently, the two of us are supposed to be sharing a room in an old folks home, because no one else can deal with our cantankerous nature. This is bringing joy to my life, how?

In this mad story of hers she keeps throwing away my dentures whenever we bicker. I have no idea why I always have to have false choppers in these scenarios of hers. Considering I have very volatile teeth, this freaks me out more than the idea of being stuck in a room with her for all eternity. 

She goes into elaborate details with these tales (all the while I'm stuck on the phone)--my elder niece will be a big time lawyer, constantly paying to replace my dentures and threatening to sue the home if they ask her to take us back; my younger niece will be tending her collection of animals and Lanes will be looking after P and her uncle and asking everyone to love each other.

P just shakes his head whenever my sister calls now, which is on the hour every hour. My voice goes up an octave each time, and Lanes mistakes my high pitched screeches of exasperation for anger and is constantly telling me to not yell at her beloved aunt (which only illicits squeals of delight from my sibling who has long coveted the idea of adopting Lanes by force).

Any old how twenty five deep breaths later, my final revenge was telling her I’m putting her in the blog! She objected vehemently and asked for royalties in jest, but I have a sneaking suspicion she doth protest too much. 

In other news, we are losing the battle of the mold in our bedroom. P has given up on our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment.  It doesn't help that our neighbor down the hall, the geriatric lady who has fought with more than half the tenants of this building, now has not only one, but two old strollers full of empty bottles and various recycling items in our narrow hallway—right in front of the stairs.

She roams the building in the wee hours of the night, fussing over her loot and collecting bottles, cans and papers from all over the complex. I have grown accustomed to the 2am clinking of bottles and occasional sounds of her grumbling in the hallway. When I first moved here, I thought it was the ghost of Christmas past and it freaked me out! As usual, we have had it with this joint.

We were going to a friend’s place for dinner and on the way out we saw some movers. P was trying to get Lanes in the car quickly because of the rain so he asked me to get the contact information from them, for this magical day when we actually find a better place to live. When or when will that be?

Normally, this is a simple task for the average person. What happens to me? I get hit on, unstyled hair and all.  Considering I had no immediate place to move to, and because I was two seconds away from being offered a date to Red Lobster, I lied and said we were moving to another country, because I just assumed they won’t cross a border. 

Turns out that was a mistake because the guy was going on about how sad it is that I want to move far away and then after a quick scan of my left hand, he was lamenting that I was married and so on and so forth. All this TeleMundo drama to get a business card.

After a hasty retreat, I scowled at P for making me go get the information and all he did was chuckle and comment that I always get myself into situations. Nice. He had to hear me rant about my ‘situations’ all the way to our friends house.

The final joke was on him because he was laughing so much that he happily parked the car in our friends' neighbor’s driveway and was wondering why their front door looked different and why the house was so silent. That's my P. Sometimes, the lights are on but no one is home, pun intended.

Meanwhile, the good news is that P no longer has to come home really late from work—for the moment. Lanes, whose fears about this had been allayed by my long talks with her, has been delighted. When he came home on Friday, she was starting to feel a little feverish but she was so happy she bounced on the bed like a little monkey while he was putting his stuff away.

He hugged her and told her to tell his boss not to keep him at work so late. She grinned and rushed towards me and said ‘Mamma, stop keeping Daddy at work so late!’.  She then ran over to her beloved father and told him that I was the boss and burst into fits of laughter. Silly girl. But she is right!

Meanwhile, Lanes has been warm. Her temperature is not worryingly high, in fact it’s only 99.2 but despite the fact that she is playing with her pretend lemonade stand at the moment, I can’t help but worry that her eyes look wonky. On that note, I must sign off because I have to ‘pay her a penny’ for the lemonade I have to drink by force. 

I also have to bake her another cake—this time a ‘pink sunflower one’. Turns out, it’s all about the icing. Maybe the old folks home with my sister is not such a bad thing. The phone is ringing as if on cue...more musings from BC next week and please do leave comments below, thanks in advance…

* Loonie = 1 CAD $

Peace of Cake

I have contended with a succession of panic in the living room, a series of firsts in the kitchen, and a streak of annoyances in our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building. This week has not been a cakewalk, and I could give a European hedgehog a run for his money hibernating, but between my precocious four year old, Lanes, and my nutty phone wielding sister, I doubt that I will ever sleep again. There is no rest for the wicked(ly adorable).

So the week began well. On Monday night I had my cake decorating class. My long suffering, short winded spouse, P,  rushed home to jet propel me to my class and take over Lanes.  Both of them were under the impression that I was going to come home with a scrumptious cake. In reality, what they got was a beautifully decorated chunk of styrofoam, and two delicious slices of cake the instructor had made for the class.

I had a glorious time pummeling, rolling and coloring fondant to my cake decorating show loving heart’s content. The instructor was extremely well prepared and amiable and the folks in the course were easy going and it was the first time I was sad that time was up in a class. I was happy to report this to Lanes, who instructed me firmly but lovingly to try to ‘make some friends’. I won’t even try to psychoanalyze that.

My side and back pain returned due to all the pounding and squeezing that took place with the fondant. I found that I really enjoyed decorating with it, but sadly, it’s a pastime I can’t afford to pick up. Seems the only thing I’m fit for rolling out is sarcastic comments.

I never got to rest my achy back as Lanes had snow days on Wednesday and Friday. We didn’t get the worst of the winter weather, unlike my sister in Seattle who was snowed in all week.  However, Lanes’ school is up on the mountain and the approach to it was treacherous in the morning hours, and I didn’t feel like sliding down all the way home, so she had the pleasure of spending her days with me.

Oh boy, were those days challenging! She would start up ok, but as the sun set, she would scowl and purposefully try to get herself in trouble. Then she would come up with strange ailments and pretend she needed to upchuck all over the living room carpet--my good one, not the apartment's crappy one that came with a mystery purple stain.  I was wondering why she was saving all the drama for her mamma.

I was at wits’ end and was concerned that my sweet little pudding was turning into a werewolf or something.  I sat her down on my lap and told her to use her words and tell me what’s gotten into her. Apparently, it was all about her beloved Daddy. So what else is new? Her world begins and ends with him.

He has been working late every night and Lanes has not taken kindly to it. After she witnessed her BFF’s father’s car and her teacher’s van get stuck in ice, she started panicking thinking the bus would get stuck and Daddy won’t be able to come home. As such, she was really acting up thinking if she is naughty Daddy will come to tell her off or if she is sick, Daddy will come to look after her. Instead all she was left with was me, screeching and hollering like a prize winning chimpanzee.

When she finally told me her concerns, I felt rather sorry for her and told her that we can call Daddy on the phone (and P was threatened fiercely to pick up his phone or else!) so that she knows he is safe and that she can stay up every night to see that he is ok. I also told her that I’m always with her and she need not fear anything when I'm around.  Apparently, Mamma is not a good consolation prize.

Although I was not delighted that I held as much appeal as the cheese from last year’s Christmas party, I was glad that Lanes felt secure again and learnt the importance of voicing her concerns. She has returned to her bubbly self, I was free to stop ripping my hair out, and I cancelled the full scale intervention I was scheduling in my head.

The next day she woke up all cheery, inspired by the faux gateaux I brought home from my class, and announced that she dreamt of a sunflower cake.  I felt all the color draining from my face. This was not going to end well for me. I have never decorated a real cake with icing in my entire life. Where was my fondant rolling class now? Over. Was it possible for the instructor to fax me a cake? Someone needs to come up with a cake faxing app stat!

I was faced with making a cake with a design for the first time in my life. I nearly escaped it, but then P reminded Lanes about it.  Several dirty looks later, I packed off my smart Aleck of a spouse to the supermarket and he comes home with two sad tubes of colored icing.

In my loopy in head, I was envisioning something far more colorful and although by some miracle, like rain in the desert, I had icing sugar in the house, I had no food coloring.  Before I did something ‘creative’ like put turmeric into icing to make it yellow, I decided, like much things in my life, to just wing it.  

Lanes was supportive and appreciated my effort and dutifully gasped ‘oh it’s beautiful, Mamma’.  P was snickering and muttered that it looks like a ‘Van Gogh’. If he had said it was like a Picasso he would be limping. Pictures attached for those who want to feel good about themselves--I am rather a talent-less wonder in this department.

In other culinary news, my repertoire is no longer strictly Western--although I did make a chicken pot pie for the first time on Monday! Who’d have thought? I decided to experiment in the kitchen and I made panrolls/Chinese rolls, which is a Sri Lankan snack time favorite! Here is a url for those not sure what it is: http://www.infolanka.com/recipes/mess5/55.html

I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d ever make this dish,  so I was rather pleased with myself. Somewhere in the motherland, a lot of folks have lost a lot of money on bets about my ability to adapt in a kitchen.

Then again, it’s fair enough, because up until I moved to Canada, I could be seen looking at an oven like it was the flight deck of Apollo 11. I was literally lost in space when it came to cooking. Saute pans and skillets were all classified under UFO: Unidentified Frying Objects.

Back to the rolls, I whipped up extra crepes and actually made chicken and vegetable curries with made up recipes.  Looking up instructions, would be far too sensible a notion for the likes of me.  My idea of cooking curries is, or should I say, used to be, shuffling through take out menus and making a phone call! 

P, who was in an all time funk due to his massive workload, actually was delighted with my breakthrough. He even dared to smile. Gasp! I watched him take every bite, because he just will always give it to you straight. If you look fat, he will tell you you look fat. Consequences don't faze him. He loved all my new treats! So mission complete.

Of course, I didn’t produce these ‘wonders’ without ado. I burned my hand, the oven started smoking in  a weird way (on the one day they were actually testing our smoke detectors--maybe it was trying to send a SOS), and I set off our alarm so many times, I gained muscle in my arms flapping the smoke away from it. All the while, Lanes was skittering about underfoot like a nervous Chihuahua.

The person who came to check out smoke detector was very jovial. My kind of person—he was having a Reese’s buttercup at 9am—his second for the day. He tried to offer Lanes some chocolate, but she gave him the stink eye. Although he was nice, I was glad she was into giving strangers who offer her candy dirty looks. Good girl!

We briefly discussed our favorite chocolates and Lanes was given a paperclip, the only other token he had in his pocket. I was strongly advised to try Tim Horton’s ice cream and he was told to go get President’s Choice chocolate chip cookies! I wish I had one now. Speaking of which I have not touched any part of a KitKat bar in seven days! Weeeeeeeeeee.

I must offer P some since after his long week of work, he never got any rest either because our crazy apartment was infested with mold again, and he is the only one tall enough to tackle the ones on our ceiling. I could have climbed on a table, but equilibrium is not a friend of mine. Plus, I get dizzy when I look up and then suddenly look down. I'd hate to land on either P or Lanes.

After much scrubbing and bleaching, he succeeded in getting most of it out and changing the color of his sweatpants. As such, he was swearing and right now he is muttering to himself while looking up other places to live on the internet. I can barely concentrate on this post between that and my college student neighbor slamming his door nonstop for the last hour.

On that note, my sugar deprived, bleach fume damaged brain and I must bid you adieu till we meet again…more musings from BC next week! And please, do leave some comments for me: ) Happy Chinese New Year, and Happy Birthday Cousin M!

C is for Cooky, It's Not Good Enough for Me

I tried to eat better, get fit, and find a job. At the end, I just looked bitter, had a fit—and I’m still unemployed.  The score for the battle of the bulge—it’s a tie.  For those of you betting on this, bet on the bulge.  Betting on me is like betting on a horse named Daisy that never quite even makes it around the track.  In unrelated news, I narrowly evaded being taken into custody due to helpful suggestions from my nutty sister. I guess you can say it’s been a busy week.

Apparently, sports I excel at, like surfing channels, jumping to conclusions and diving into trouble do not count as exercise. I heard somewhere that dancing is a good work out, so today when my dutiful spouse, P, took our quirky four year old, Lanes, for her gym class, I forced myself to put on some music and get jiggy (or jiggly rather) with it.

I looked as coordinated and cumbersome as a walrus on speed.  I was also hollering, rapping and singing to my Canadian rock star loving heart’s content. It was not a good day to be my neighbor or a voyeur.  I think I need to send a letter of apology to the folks in the building overlooking our window.  I don’t know if I burned any calories or cut a rug, but I was certainly searching around the house for some Bengay and a cookie afterwards.

In my defense, I have greatly curtailed my nasty Kit Kat down the gullet habit and I have not ventured to the couch after dinner, for that is where all bad things begin.  Somewhere between 10pm and 1am, nachos, cookies, and various food items, servings the size of Nebraska, are guzzled down by me during my TV time. I had to break up with my TV. It keeps sending me flowers.

Another problem is that I believe potatoes are a food group. I feel obliged to have some rendition of them with my dinner— mashed, dashed, boiled, coiled, whatever way you slice it, I need it. I cut it out mercilessly from four of my dinners this week, and sighed pitifully as P ate his. The net result was that I spent my days rather loopy and dazed.  I could barely get through an e-mail. Potato withdrawal? 

I wish I could be more like my Lanes. She is not at all bothered about food. A few nights ago, we were engaged again in one of our dinner battles where I’m shrieking for her to eat her food while she is grinning nonchalantly in protest.

My sister, with her notorious knack for timing, called mid-battle, and stared cooing and allying herself with Lanes, which didn’t help my case at all. She told me that Lanes was just like her and that our dad used to take her to the garden and feed her dinner while she ran around being her ‘delightful’ self. She suggested that I do the same for Lanes. That’s just what I need—to run around the parking lot of our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building.

With my luck, a neighbor will be proactive and call the authorities saying ‘there’s a fat Indian lady running outside with a plate. She appears to be trying to eat a small child! Hurry!’.  Next thing I know, some fireman (we always have one of them lurking around our dilapidated building for reasons best left undiscovered) will call to me and ask me to ‘put the fork down and step away from the child’.

Meanwhile, Lanes, as she often does when she sees a firemen, will say Betty Boop style, ‘oooh, he’s a big boy!’ and start grinning and asking to see the fire truck. With these images in mind, I bashed my nutty sister’s suggestions and hung up immediately and glared at Lanes' untouched food.  Like most South Asian moms, I feel that the UN needs to have an emergency caucus if one meal goes uneaten.

In other news, I tried to apply for writing jobs online and attempted to boost my web traffic for this site, but the words were swimming before my eyes—like alphabet soup. Everything boils down to food, and I don’t even like soup. Anyone out there who can help me with web traffic, do let me know!

The only thing I learnt in my food deprived stupor is that I need to encourage you all to leave comments for me. So please do! Meanwhile, I am dreaming of a midnight snack. I better sign off for now, otherwise I might have to make Jenny Craig my new BFF. If she can help me, I’ll rename her Genie Craig. 


In next week's episode, I have signed myself up for a fondant rolling class. Or was it cake decorating? Either way, it's funny because I couldn't tell you off hand how to bake a cake! Typical me. I better sign off.  Any old how, here’s to good habits, bad dancing, and self control…more conundrums from BC next week!  Oh yes, please give me your thoughts...so I can call myself a 'blogger'...or something like it.

Memory Lanes

We have been taking a hop, skip and a jump down memory lane this week. My four year old, Lanes, is suddenly bringing up people and random items, like my brief stint with a trainer and her crib that were left  behind when we moved.  Her dad, P, homesick from Christmas season revelry, is trying to figure out dates for us to visit the motherland. At any given moment, he is surfing the net and exclaiming and guffawing at prices. Years of marriage have given me enough sense as not to play into that. Meanwhile, I have been going through pictures from my childhood while trying to make a present for my nutty sister.

I started out the week a little glum because the 5^th was my beloved Labrador and BFF, Muttley’s,  birthday. He would have been only fifteen years old had he been alive. I made a donation to the BCSPCA in his memory and successfully used guilt and pity (Yentas be proud of me) to lure close family and friends into doing a kind deed for an animal that day.

I decided I wanted to write a book about Muttley and give all proceeds to a deserving animal charity.  However, remembering things like how he thought he could fly  and how he was petrified of butterflies just made me burst into so much tears that I probably couldn’t get through the first paragraph without issuing a flood warning. Besides, I was having enough problems getting through my other works this week.

As a treat, we ran down to Seattle on Friday night. Lanes was besides herself and quickly packed her stuffed rabbit, who is faithfully dragged along with her for all long trips. She carries him by his ears, like a freshly plucked carrot.  It’s simultaneously endearing and disturbing.

She spent all weekend chasing her cousins while clasping onto the bunny’s ears.  I was going down memory lane with my sister as she brought back never seen before pictures of my grandfather in his youth and some of her things from the late 1980s. We felt young and old all at the same time.

My sister  also regaled me with present day stories from her holiday. The most amusing one was how she went to the beauty parlor and the guy doing her hair told her he just won a beauty pageant—for women.  The grand prize was a set of bedroom furniture and bragging rights.

While he was bossily supervising as each item was hauled into a delivery van, his wig got stuck on a piece, or should I say his piece got stuck on a piece, and he was unmasked—literally.  Gasps followed, and the folks who held the contest were flabbergasted, but decided regardless of whatever body parts he was born with, he was the best looking dame in the show, and he got to keep his set. Good for him, sad for those other chicks.

We only had Saturday really to spend with family, and my nutty sister kept her Christmas tree up and we were going to celebrate it all over again since we were finally together.  All we had to do was get haircuts and some winter boots for Lanes.  We got her hair cut first and packed her off to my sister’s house so she could have family time.

Meanwhile, P came out looking like 1980s Erik Estrada. I was slapping my knee and cackling but not for long. As  soon as I saw my hair do, my phone rang, because Jon Bon Jovi, circa 1994, called and asked me why I dyed his hair black.  Looking quite like a sad blast from the past, we stormed Target in search for Lanes’ boots. Of course we bought the wrong size.

P was dawdling, trying to get the week’s shopping done at the same time since they had groceries at the store. I was keen to go back and not incur the wrath of my sister who was ferociously cooking Christmas dinner.  I ran to the cart with my arms full of items and that scared P into leaving the store.

Lanes was not at all bothered that her parents were gone for a couple of hours. My sister’s eyebrows went up a little so I plotted to distract her with a fashion show of the three items I bought from the store.  I was really tired. It was just the girls around, including my sister’s unsuspecting mom-in-law, so I decided to change in the living room, after sending my niece to make sure her father was duly occupied elsewhere in the house.

I did one quick change and decided to stop, but was egged on by my bevy of female relatives, who were heehawing over a sequined number. My last words were, ‘whatever you do, don’t mention my brother-in-law’s name, because he will show up’. What does my genius of a sister do? She calls out for him.

He popped up faster than a genie from a bottle, and I avoided flashing him by a millisecond. If he had caught me, I would hear about how he was scarred for life by my show every time there was a family get together--complete with sound effects of sighing and tsking.  

I know this because my shorts fell down in front of him when I was a teenager, and that news made it into a speech at our wedding. My lunatic of a sister (and everyone else), thought it was funny, but I was not at all amused, and I think that was the day I realized brown people can turn red.

The rest of our short one day stay, my sister made a huge helping of pancakes for us, happily offering me some first and foremost, only to suddenly realize that maybe the batter was stale. I was saved by her husband coming over and trying it and asking her to toss them.  But I guess that is nothing considering she was offering me medicine I’m allergic to for my back pain at every given opportunity.

So all things considered, it’s amazing that we made it back up to Canada in one piece. The trip back was another drama onto itself.  I was under the impression that we were going to change Lanes’ shoes and go back to my sister’s house for some reason. Turns out, it was not the case and halfway up we had to stop for coffee and a potty break.

I brilliantly spilt half of mine all over my lap—not to worry, as usual I was madly enticed by the sight of chocolate, whipped cream and ice and fortunately had a sugar laden cold mocha. Considering my ample lap and not the car seat incurred the brunt of the spillage, P found it hilarious (Lanes was in lala land otherwise I’m sure I’d have enough comments from her as well).

As we approached the border, the cold coffee had zipped through me and I had to go again. There was no turning back and P faithfully promised he would stop soon. Lanes was up by then and she was on a twenty question rampage. I was about ready to turn into a human sprinkler or explode or implode or something. It had to rain then and there, making me nearly want to pass out.  We got lost in a nearby town and I was desperate enough to jump out the car and into a bush when we found a lonesome gas station.

Even though I’m a certified germaphobe, I didn’t care. I dashed in and the woman there was so kind she just quickly handed over the key to me (I was a distinct shade of blue) and I made it just in time. Sadly, my pants were still wet from my coffee episode so I shudder to imagine what she was thinking.

We are now back in Burnaby, exhausted after the brief holiday and at the thought of the long week ahead. I really need to get cracking on the children’s book. I also need to find a job soon because come September, Lanes will be in kindergarten full time. So if anyone needs a smart mouthed, chaotic, clumsy mother of one in their office, do let me know—I’m auditioning. I mean applying. More musings from BC next week…