Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Blunder Woman

Happy New Year! I’m back, and nearly from an asylum.  I thought it prudent to lay low until I was ensconced within the walls of our mold-infested crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment. While 2012 was busy wrapping itself up tighter than Santa’s bathrobe, I was unwittingly embroiled in aiding and abetting one count of breaking and entering, multiple counts of equipment tampering and one fortunately diverted foray into transporting suspicious foliage across foreign borders.  I prefer to live large rather than at large, but what can I say, (mis)adventure tends to find me.

This is how it all went down…

In a timid attempt to placate my constantly rebelling liver, I went for a walk with one of the moms from my five year old, Lanes’, class.  I shall call said mom, Janine, for the purpose of this blog. This is not only to protect her identity but also to guard my cranium from the slow cooker she no doubt would pretend to slug at me should she ever read this entry.

Janine, ever so interested in houses and renovations, suggested we walk by a recently completed property. Aimless as always, I agreed because not surprisingly, I had nothing better to do.  

After the usual cursory comments made by us on the state of the house’s facelift, I kept bobbing along down the street. I suddenly realized Janine was not by my side. When I turned around, I was stunned to find that she had crossed across the garden of the home and was standing on her tip toes by the windows of the house, her little head craning to take a peek inside.

I just about passed out. I grunted loudly at her to tell her that she was trespassing, in front of a video camera no doubt, but she was undaunted. She was admiring the finishings and claimed it was fine since no one was home. Meanwhile, I was thinking we were finished and the lights were on and no one was home when it came to Janine.

It was one of those times that I wished I knew her middle name, and for that matter her proper last name because I sure wanted to yell 'Janine Blank Blank, get your rear end over here right now!'. She turned a deaf ear on my threats that we need to get out of there before the cops or a nosey neighbor shows up.

I muttered to myself Mr.Bean style, and cursed every 'loyal Labrador Retriever' style bone I had in my body.  Janine has been a good friend, and I thought if she was going down, I had to go down with her, and so I decided to cross over the lawn of these poor people's house and join Janine.

To future incriminate matters, I was clad in black pants, a black jacket and had a very thug like hat on. I couldn’t look more like a burglar if I raided costumes from a Hollywood movie set.

On the best of days, in this said walking get up, I look like the bodyguard/music video extra for some rough and tough rapper.  I had no idea how we were going to explain ourselves to the authorities. We're twenty years too young to feign senility and twenty years too old to claim we were pulling a prank for a sorority. Mid-life crisis anyone?

I figured that if we got arrested, I could call my prim and proper spouse, P, to bail us out. Sadly, I'm sure he would assume it's my fault we were trespassing and I’d have to weather a hundred and two lectures before he got us released.

Luckily, either Janine’s curiosity was satisfied, or the site of me stopping short of doing the chicken dance to get her off the lot did the trick, and we left the property without any more ado. Neither of us has sighted the place since. Fortunately, snow, various end of year school shows and Christmas vacations kept our prying eyes busy.

Meanwhile, while I was busy casing joints, P, who frequently goes on major internet searching bouts, had discovered eating a tablespoon of minced of curry leaves helps lower cholesterol, makes you a better dancer, or something equally useful.

I left the kitchen in fear of succumbing to a fainting spell at the mess he no doubt would make. I manifested myself there awhile later to find everything suspiciously clean. Relieved, I went about my business as we were planning on going South to Seattle to spend the holidays with my nutty sister, her brood, and my parents.

Just before leaving the house, I found what happened to P’s shredded curry leaves. He had placed them in a ziplock bag and packed it with the luggage.  Imagine explaining that at the border? His theory was that since it was cooked it’s ok. To me it looked like something that could be bought in some dark alley way.

I tossed the bag out of the luggage, much to his chagrin, but I’m thinking I saved him singing in a cell, ‘all I want for Christmas is my one free call, my one free call, my one free call’.

With that, I thought we would embark on a relaxing vacation, but I guess one should know better when dealing with circumstances my nutty sister is involved in. As much as she elevates my normally low blood pressure, she’s a brilliant daughter and she dutifully takes my father to all his doctor’s appointments when he is in her charge.

While we were there, I thought I’d join her and have some quality time with her and my dad (and give my mom a little well earned break). After issuing a laundry list of instructions on how to care for and handle my father, my mother hesitantly left him in my custody.

After the first bout of radiation, we were waiting in the doctor’s office because my father’s feet were sore, cut and bleeding from the medication he was taking.  He sat on the edge of the reclining bed, frightened to even sway his foot a little.

The bed was all the way down, so my nutty sister decided to bring the back up so that my father could lean back on it.  There were two dozen or so buttons and levers surrounding it and she was fluttering around saying dangerous things like ‘ooh what does this do?’, or ‘I bet this is it’.

Pale from hunger (after brilliantly forgetting to eat breakfast) and fright, I started flapping my arms around in panic that she would press the wrong button and arms would come out of the chair and give my unsuspecting father an uncalled for enema or worse.

My nutty sister then hovered to the side of the bed where she found several levers on the ground. She honed in on one lever and started pumping incessantly—her  eyes were wider than a Japanese anime character, her eyebrows were arched and raised to her hairline, and her mouth was set with studious delight.

She was only focused on the back of the bed and was wondering why it didn’t flex into a chair like position. Meanwhile, my father was jet propelled upwards. He started mumbling half words in horror and he was hoisted high in the air like a car whose undercarriage was to be inspected.

I was rendered inarticulate by the sight before me and the juxtaposition of the comical expression on my oblivious sibling’s face and the confused horror on my father’s.  I started laughing hysterically before yelling at my sister to stop.

At that moment, she figured out how to use the contraption and my father was lowered as fast as he went up and the bed was put in the upright position my sister was aiming for.  My father who looked as dignified as underpants up a flagpole only moments before, composed himself as soon as he realized his foot escaped unscathed.

The same could not be said for me. I was laughing so uncontrollably that tears were streaming down my eyes. My nutty sister had to dab them dry and she was fretting thinking the doctor would waltz in and blanche at the sight of a wailing female relative. Not privy to the comedy that went on before his entrance, he no doubt would deduce that I had gone to hysterics over my dad’s health.

The rest of the holiday was blissfully uneventful and I checked our luggage for hidden farm animals,  peculiar flora and any other item of dubious origin that my spouse or child could have packed in before returning to Canada.  Now that we are here, I was busy with festivities and Lanes’ has me busy 24/7 because she is on holiday, at least for this week.

I have planned some long overdue dinner parties where I’m ambitiously planning on making South Asian food.  I shall pack some Tums, Pepto-Bismol, and a voucher to Mickey Ds in a goody bag for my guests and pack them off before they need to use the one and only cranky loo we have in our apartment! More musings from BC next week…

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