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!