Road Trips

I’m sorry about the delay in this week’s episode! We had family visiting and as such took off on a holiday during which I performed some minor surgery, played ‘fowl’ trying to steal an owl, and attempted to adopt two children.

My work oriented spouse, P, actually took two days off this week so we could go to Kelowna, which is almost a five hour drive away from our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building.  His twin (I know, there’s two of them lurking around!) and his family are visiting us from the motherland, and they were kind enough to invite us to their time share there.

After a long trip which included some up-chucking from our four year old, Lanes, and scenic detours from P (which would have been worse if not for the invention of GPS), we got there tired but happy. We are forever thankful to the lady who talks from the box, as Lanes puts it, because if not for her, we might be looking dazed and confused in Saskatchewan right about now.

When we got there, Lanes dashed off to play with her cousins and appeared to forget about my existence.  Dinner didn’t need to be prepared since I had made some meals for us before the trip and I actually had free time. I had no immediate responsibilities. Lanes and P were occupied and didn’t need me for any search and rescue operations, gathering of food, or the issuance of instructions.  It took me twenty confused minutes of bliss to realize I was joyfully idle.

I realized that I could take a shower in peace.  P or Lanes would not be swooping in to use the potty first (because they had two other loos to chose from there), the phone would not be ringing, and I didn’t have to rule the household from the throne. 

Just as I adjusted the shower to the perfect temperature and praised myself for packing the fruitiest of bath wash, P walks in, with his cheeks drooping down and with a worried look in his eyes. I can read P’s cheeks like nobody’s business. Immediately, I said “what have you done?”.  He lifts his foot up and shows me the biggest splinter I have ever seen in my life wedged deep into the tissue of the sole of his foot.

I had told him to please wear shoes or at least socks before going outside and he flicked his wrist and told me that I should learn to be one with nature. Well, who was one with nature now? P with half an oak tree stuck up his foot.  Now I was faced with the daunting task of getting it out. Luckily, at the last minute P (after my instructions of course), packed the Dettol and his sister-in-law had a sharp pair of tweezers.  

P was put in a precarious angle on the bed so that I could get his foot under the bedside light and I had to bend his knee and almost sit on him. Imagine an orca wresting a trout over a game of Twister—that’s what we looked like.

Fortunately, I’m not squeamish—when Lanes was born, I asked the doctor if I could watch my own c-section, to which he sweated and politely refused my request. After some slicing of the thick skin under his foot, lots of disinfecting, and even more prayers later, I finally got the splinter out. P, I must say was brave and didn’t scream even once. Several times, I was petrified of infections and the amount of cutting I had to do and thought we really had to go to the ER.

Meanwhile, the rest of the family was wondering why we were missing for so long and P’s twin and Lanes had come up in search of us. He was knocking on the door and because I was so engrossed in the mini surgery I was performing P shouted for him to go away--because I was in a towel. Didn't need to flash yet another brother-in-law I tell you! Then Lanes got to the door and I shouted for P’s twin to distract her and to take her away. Last thing we needed was for Lanes to get in on the splinter extraction action.

I rushed down to ask for a bandage.  His twin was looking embarrassed and I guess they thought we were having an exciting time upstairs! Great. Eventually, P was patched up and showing off his wound downstairs and warning everyone to wear shoes outside. Hmm. I was upstairs realizing what people mean when they say ‘I need a drink’.

What do you know, a day later, as we were all piling into the car for an outing and we finally had the kids in various car seats, P walks up to the car, with his cheeks down and eyes nervous. Not again! This time, the splinter was in his thumb. Seriously? If I ever blog saying P wants to be a lumberjack, put me out of my misery! Wood is not his friend.

We couldn’t find the tweezers and between the rush to get the splinter out and not delay everyone further, we were in a flap. Luckily, my niece told us exactly where the tweezers were—under the coffee table of course. Thank goodness for her! This time the piece of wood was much smaller and I pulled it out quickly, so it didn’t sever like last time. I think we should get P’s sister-in-law a new set of tweezers.

We were really sad to leave yesterday and I was trying to get P to call in sick. If not for his work ethic, we could have squeezed in another day with everyone.  We were really bummed out to leave, but we were glad we got to do so many things together. Before this big road trip, we had gone to the Aldergrove Zoo.

I love animals, but I hesitated to go to zoos before because I felt bad for the animals. Imagine if you were put in a comfortable apartment and provided all meals but told you can’t ever leave--and you have no TV or internet. That’s what it must be like for them. I guess the animals bred in captivity don’t know any better, but surely their instincts must be telling them they are missing out on freedom.

That being said, I loved looking at the animals and at the end we caught a birds of prey show. I was dying to touch one of them and at the end of the show, they said we could hold this gorgeous owl named Hagrid and take a photo with him. Of course I was the only adult in the line. I could have used Lanes as an excuse but she was distracted by the playground and she was too little to qualify.

In the end I was drooling over Hagrid. Sadly, the feeling was not mutual. He looked me up and down and probably was thinking how many silly people does he have to pose with to get a free meal around here? I wanted to pet him, but the nervous teenage volunteer begged me please not to because Hagrid might take a bite out of me.

I wanted to put him under my coat and bring him home (the owl, not the teenager), but they were watching me like a hawk and as much as I want to lose fat around my stomach, I don’t think I wanted to lose it by being attacked by Hagrid. I shall attach a picture of this ‘radical raptor’ below.

Now that our slew of visitors is gone, we are back in our routine. I got super attached to our nieces.  Lanes thought they were the bee’s knees and it was amazing how much they look like each other (perhaps it’s that whole the dads being identical twins thing). I really wanted to adopt the two girls—I’m sure Lanes would have aided and abetted in that. Sadly, their parents were not yet up for sharing. We can’t wait to see them again in the summer.

Lanes was packed off to school amidst much protest, P and his non-sagging cheeks are in office hopefully away from any slivers of wood, and I’m dawdling avoiding cooking, doing laundry and going for a walk.  Lanes has not captured her cousins, I have not bird napped a bird of prey and P is without a thorn in his side (or thumb and foot rather). With that, I better sign off…more musings from BC next week!

What Goes Up, Doesn't Come Down

When they say the elevator doesn’t always go up to the top floor, they are not only talking about the space between my ears, but also the metal Venus Fly Trap in our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building.  Besides skipping floors and depositing you right in front of the person you wish to most avoid in the day, the doors of the lift often suddenly body slam you and dent (and steal) your parcels. In the most brilliant times, the doors just don’t open at all, and the alarm, well it’s just a glorified bell.

Several months ago, this happened to me. I was bashing on the doors in vain and pushing the red panic button only to realize to my horror that it was just a bell and had no link to ‘the central elevator agency’ or some other place of authority. My phone had no reception and I was close enough to my door for my swift spouse, P, to hear.  Listening is  not his strong suit, but I thought hearing would be. I was wrong.

My vivid imagination stepped in, and after realizing my screams were wasted, I worried that I was going to run out of oxygen. I could be gone for hours before P realized I was missing! When it dawned on him that the apartment was unusually quiet, he would think that I was cornered for gossip by some neighbor and that's why I was not around.

P would only find me when our four year old, Lanes, did something bad in the potty or if he suddenly had a hankering for lunch, not realizing I was ‘out to lunch’ with fear in the metal can. After jumping several times to get out of being in between floors and with lots of praying, the doors opened and I stumbled out.  Of course, I had no sympathetic audience.

P was yakking on the phone so loudly, folks in Idaho could hear his conversation.  I walked in looking more frazzled and disheveled than a cat that accidentally fell into a running washing machine. When he finally heard what happened to me, he brushed it off with a flick of a wrist, and said I was being dramatic when I stuck to using the stairs for several weeks after that.

So on Friday night, this all happens to P. My parents were still in town and our friends were visiting when he called from the elevator (of course he has reception in there and I don’t despite being on the same plan).  I was grateful for the company because Lanes was always suspicious of the elevator, having witnessed it trying to thin out my wide hips several times. I also didn’t want her involved in any of the drama of getting her beloved daddy out.

After leaving her in the custody of several anxious but able adults, one of my friends accompanied me on the long trek upstairs to the apartment of the one maintenance guy who lives in the building.  How do I know where he lives? One day when I was lurking in the lobby, he went to his mailbox and I spied his apartment number, so I would know where someone with some authority lives.  

I know that’s kind of horrible, but it’s all about survival of the fittest. When you’ve witnessed things like water gushing out of the elevator like Niagra Falls at 2am and don’t know who to call besides Ghost Busters, this is a viable back up plan. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that he is the least handy, handyman I know. His explanation for everything is to blame it on condensation and lack of air circulation (perhaps that's what some doctor told him after checking his ears).  He never calls the manager for help and shivers at the thought of being proactive. In most cases, the Fire Department has to come and do his work for him. 

After we arrived at his door, he told us to tell P to push the doors open and come back if that doesn’t work or if he is in between floors. My thighs were screaming from all that climbing and I realized I had muscles in my bottom I never thought I had before, just to get that pearl of wisdom.

When we rushed to the lobby, unlike my solitary scary episode, we found that P had an audience of worried neighbors rooting for him and scurrying around trying to figure out who to call (the manager never picks up her phone).  P followed the instructions we gave him and mercifully, the doors opened.

My parents were really upset and were wondering why I wasn’t fluttering about around him and Lanes, having eavesdropped as usual, was rushing to her father and all couldn’t understand why I didn’t give him a hero’s welcome! Actually, inside my heart was pounding and my throat was dry. Of course my mom, ever P’s number one supporter, told me to hug him and get him water.

That was until I told her what his reaction to me getting stuck was! Not only that, he sassed me for avoiding the elevator for a long time after that. Any old how, we all take the stairs now—except to do laundry. I’ll have to stick food, water, a porter potty, a novel, and possibly some flares into the cart each time I step in I guess. If only there was wifi in there...

Just before my parents left, I had to do a load and nearly threw out my shoulder lifting the metal laundry cart down the stairs. In desperation, I took the lift to pick up the clothes, when it has to stop in the lobby mysteriously, and who has to appear right then and there? My nutty sister.

She had come to pick up our parents. I see her in the lobby looking big eyed and confused—holding a huge home made dollhouse, almost wider than her short arm span. I debated running back into the lift and saying I’ll meet her after I get the clothes, but she looked like the house was about to fall on her, ‘Wizard of Oz’ style—if only she had stripped stockings.

She looked ridiculously little, and against better judgement, I went towards her in a reflex effort to help.  She lunged at me and dumped the house precariously on my cart! I was unable to balance the house on the cart and couldn’t figure out what to do. Then I saw her picking up a huge storage box! 

I made a beeline for the lift before she decided to keep some circus runaways, a fridge, and a tractor in my place too.  She said she needed all those things out of the guest room to make it perfect for having our parents over. 

I was mortified to realize that while I was telling my sister that she was a royal pain where the sun don’t shine and reminding her that I lived in an apartment, and not a store room, some poor lady was holding open the elevator doors for me. I was so stunned I was mumbling apologies and she said it’s no problem because moving in is so stressful, she was happy to help.

So I went with that and pretended I was moving in and that poor lady had to help me push the cart out of the elevator while I balanced the house. I found some space to store all the rest of the paraphernalia. The one good thing about the ghetto--lots of space for an apartment.  

Although I was threatening my sibling, I was sad when she went off with my folks. Lanes and I were really bored and bummed out, but she was very sweet and stroked my face and told me that if I miss my mommy and daddy, she can always pretend to be my mommy. I felt sorry that she held back her tears for my sake. I must remember these sweet moments during her teenage years!

She put on a brave face and played with the homemade dollhouse that is now on a low book shelf in our hallway. I already anticipate hearing many things about it when P fumbles to the loo in the middle of the night and bumps his thighs on it. Oh well.

Lanes was happily distracted later, when she saw her other cousins because P's twin and his family are visiting. So next week will be updates of sights and sounds from BC, plus a follow up on my journey with homeopathic medicines. Or I might be blogging from the elevator since I need to use it to get to the laundry room...More musings from BC next week...if not, please call P and tell him his wife is missing!

Home, Home I'm Deranged

We finally decided to join the race to move out of our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building.  As usual, we were off to false starts, much like the embarrassed runner that jets off before the starters gun goes off. I'm afraid that I'm going to wind up like my cranky neighbor who has complained vehemently for twenty years, but the only move she has made is from a two to one bedroom within the same floor.

We are tired of jumping into and out of the elevators for fear of being compressed by its’ trigger happy doors,  leaping around strollers full of recycling left in the hallway, and standing to attention every time something goes bang in case a pipe has burst—best case scenario.  I guess we have to give an honorable mention to dodgy tenants, constant visits from the fire department and blossoming mold issues.

So not surprisingly, the building is half full now—or should I say half empty? That is the ‘scutterbug’, or gossip, according to my friends who work in the building.  Every time I bump into a neighbor, we greet each other with a tacit understanding that we are all in the same boat. Nothing brings people together like misery--and fear.

As my four year old, Lanes, says ‘rough and tough’ neighbors who are not generous with greetings or words, have a lot to say when it comes to this building. There was a very angry man from Kosovo shoving clothes in a washer in the laundry room like he was stuffing coal into a steam engine.  He was fuming and a vein was about to burst in his forehead when he realized he couldn’t load money onto his laundry card because it was broken for the umpteenth time.

I had come to take stuff out of the dryer and had to lose 15 minutes of my time listening to how horrible the property is while his more peaceful wife fluttered around trying to appease him. He is going to move out to an area that has high risk of flood, just to get out of here. Then there is the mild mannered Indian lady downstairs that announced with an air of defeat that she has given up fighting the mold in her bedroom and has bought her husband an inhaler to deal with his allergies.

As for us, we were waiting for P, my dutiful spouse, to have his job confirmed before moving.  While we were waiting it out, we grew attached the neighborhood and developed a routine. It’s quiet and green and I probably can go for a long walk at 10pm, if I was ever so inclined, and not wind up the topic of the 11 o’clock news.  So we sit on the sofa and look across the way at the sturdy building across the street and wonder what life is like on the other side. The grass is literally greener there.

The rental office folks in that complex talk about a ‘waiting list’ all the time and make it sound harder to get into than an exclusive club. For all we know we might have to supply a password, give a secret handshake, and sing ‘Kumbaya’ to get in. P was put off when he called them to inquire about rates, and when he is annoyed, he doesn’t care to hide it. For all I know, he probably told them to shove it.

They called the next day, and Lanes and I went over to have a sneak preview to see how the other half lives. The lobby was gorgeous and actually had a sitting area with no bullet marks on the walls. It even had a gym & sauna room! I say that with an exclamation mark, but those who know me know that I’ll only ever set foot in there if my TV backs up and I want to catch a show.

Their laundry room was ‘cleaner’ looking than ours, but there were fewer machines for more tenants and they lock you out of the room after 9pm! At least here in the ghetto, we can put one pair of socks in each washer and do jumping jacks around the dryers at 2am if we wanted to. 

The lady at the office was going on about the wonders of the apartment and saying how there is a 'list' and they want to rent the suite out by the fifteen of this month.  I looked unfazed and told her I just couldn't pack and rush into an apartment with such short notice.

She went on to say another party was going to come in to see the apartment and she studied my face for desperation or panic, but I didn’t even bat an eyelid. I looked more nonchalant than a cow chewing grass in a field, and I told her its best she gives the place out to those folks then because we are obliged to give one month’s notice (and rent) to ghetto fabulous before moving out.

By the end of the tour, she was telling me I could move in whenever I wanted and she would only charge half a month for the first month. I was craning my neck to check the walls and ceiling of the apartment to make sure they didn’t have a mold problem too. Blast that popcorn paint! I couldn’t see, but the carpets were nicer, they had half a bathroom more and if you stand up real tall and tilt to the left, you can see the mountains.

The bad things were that they didn’t have a store room in the unit like we do here, the windows open all the way out and that’s scary when you have a curious little one in the house, and the kitchen was tiny with half a dishwasher. The one we have, circa 1975 complete with faux wood trim, is literally twice as wide. Also, we have enough storage in our kitchen to fit an IKEA store in.

After weighing those cons—the windows were the deal breaker, we are still in the ghetto, and I’m spared the daunting task of packing and heavy lifting—tasks that inevitably fall upon me, the unemployed spouse. I guess we just like living on the edge.

With that I must sign off, as my parents are visiting for a week before they set to visit my nutty sister in her far more sane and luxurious surroundings, and my father will have to undergo a battery of tests for his cancer.  

They are sitting at the table, giggling slightly hysterically in fear that they might placed in the blog, and counting the hours until Lanes returns from preschool, because for them, 'every little thing she does is magic'. I guess I’ll have to keep her home tomorrow.

They are delighted by her because she plays quietly when they are sleeping and covers them with her blankets and surrounds them with her pillows and soft toys to make sure they don’t have ‘bad dreams’.  Apparently, she is far sweeter than me, their sharp tonged spawn. Oh well. 

For the next two weeks, we will be racing around town with P’s twin as his family! Hopefully, their arrival will distract Lanes when my parents run across the border with my sister. More musings from BC next week...

Penny Wise, Sound Foolish

I spent this week up to no good. I mislead and then rescued a public transit employee, made elaborate plans with my nutty sister to hoodwink our parents, and unwittingly became a grandma to a rabbit! I can make no cents out of it. This is how it all happened…

Annoyed that I had to do an hour of walking everyday (which obviously does not happen), on Friday I decided that I’ll go to a mall and walk so I can be distracted by window shopping.  On the bus on the way back, I noticed that the driver made a stop and was checking something quickly before hurriedly setting off again.

Halfway through, everyone else had disembarked and the driver and I were the only ones on board. For some reason I had a gnawing feeling that something was amiss so instead of getting off the bus like a normal person would, in my mind I was having visions of racing down the streets of Burnaby along the lines of Sandra Bullock in a sadly Keanu-less version of ‘Speed’--I not II.

I was thinking about how fabulous my windswept hair would look in the movie in my head, when the driver told me it was his first day on this route and asked me if he should turn left or go straight.  I was taken by surprise, having being bumped out of my reverie that I just said ‘turn, turn’, because we were at the junction and had to make a split second decision.

What that poor man didn’t know was that things like arithmetic, crossing the road,  and deciphering left from right are rather challenging for me. In math class I thought an integer was my friend Ravinder’s third cousin twice removed, I invariably look on the wrong side of the road when I’m crossing (by myself), and I always have to take a minute to look at my hands before saying left and right. I am slow that way, but hopefully make up for it in adorability.

I realized that we were indeed in the wrong lane to turn right, as he should have, but considering we were at the junction, he had to go either way. If he went straight, he would be taking another bus’ route. When he turned left, I quickly told him the correct road he had to take and apologized saying when I said to turn, I meant right, not left.

He was ok about it and actually thanked me, saying he had written instructions that were incorrect.  Then we took a three point turn, always interesting in a bus, which baffled many passersby and we were on our merry way. Why do these things only happen to me? Of all the buses in all the depots, I pick this one.

In other news, my parents are coming from the motherland. They leave their ‘winter’ clothes at my nutty sister’s house and we were supposed to bring them to Canada this weekend.  However, my brilliant spouse, P, changed his mind on our Seattle trip and when I looked through the things they left behind here, I realized they had clothes—if they wish to parade around the greater Vancouver area with no trousers on.

Not wanting to let my parents in on this massive goof up, we made covert plans with my sister to make a quick run to Washington and collect the goods so to speak. However, it seems that between border wait times and kids’ plans, I am not sure how this will go.  I am bracing myself to be in lots of trouble! Sometimes I feel like I’m five instead of thirty-five.

The sensible thing to do would be to just tell my parents to pack their pants instead of going through this whole running to another country to fetch luggage shenanigan. My sister would have to drive halfway up the state to meet us mid-way for the ‘drop off’.  I guess being practical is not in our DNA. Why didn’t we just bring the stuff down on when we visited two weeks ago?

Any old how, I figured if plans do not work out, I’ll just dangle my four year old, Lanes, in front of them and hope that she will serve as a smoke screen and diffuse the situation. Or I’ll be blogging from Alberta next week because I’ve just evaded the entire sad state of affairs.

Meanwhile, my Lanes has taken to wanting a twin. Her father and I have tried to explain that it’s rather late in the day for that and from time to time she cries saying she is lonely.  I think we will have to move out of our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building and get a dog (although she says it’s not the same since dogs can’t color or talk). Kids are complicated. When I was four, I would have quickly accepted the dog!

From time to time her favorite toy, the stuffed rabbit Max, is her companion. She came up to me with a mischievous spark in her eyes and said, ‘So Mamma, if I’m Max’s mom, then you are the grandma! So why don’t you feed him and look after him?’.  Talk about foreshadowing events!

I quickly said that she should do those things since she is the mom and she ran down the hall gleefully singing ‘sorry, I have to go to work, I’ll pick him up later! Take care of your grandkid!’.  With that I had a quick glimpse into my life twenty years from now. So much for my plans on taking a cruise around Greece!

From time to time, to get my goat, Lanes grins and says ‘excuse me Grandma, I mean Mamma!’.  At least I know where she gets her naughty sense of humor from. It’s all karma since I have always saved my parents number on my phone under ‘Old Folks’.  My rather proper spouse, P, was horrified about this when we first met, but now he has taken to calling them that too!

Other than that excitement, we spent our weekend here doing errands, visiting friends, and preparing for my parents’ arrival.  We are to have a whole slew of visitors in April. Around the same time as my parents’, my mom’s friend (and mine—I tend to adopt my mom’s friends) and her husband are coming, and right when they leave, P’s twin and his family are coming for two weeks.

They are coming in exciting times—Canada is scrapping the penny! I hate to break this news to Lanes, who has been ferreting away pennies in her piggy bank—all to buy an ice cream cone.  I wanted to go and use them all but I can’t seem to find that plastic blue pig anywhere!  I guess when we do find it we will have to use them for arts and crafts!

By the time Lanes grows up, phrases like ‘penny for your thoughts’, or ‘penny wise, pound foolish’ would be meaningless.  Oh well, I’ll always be happy to give my two cents—metaphorically: )  Please do leave comments—it gives me a thrill. Yes, I really need to live vicariously through someone. More musings from BC next week…unless I’m in hiding!