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 $