Canadoodling: The adventures and misadventures of a frazzled, dazzled writer in Canada

The Visit

2016-08-09T17:36:00.001-07:00

I guess I should start with recent events and then, if I really do return to blogging, move back to keep you all up to date. In June, my airline mile saving spouse, P, wrangled up three tickets for us to go to the Motherland. Little did any of us know, I wouldn't be returning with him and our now newly nine-year-old, Lanes.

P, meticulous to a fault, had created an excel spreadsheet detailing our schedule for the trip. Everything was color coded and scheduled to the minute. There we had it--every errand, meal, visit with family and friends, breath taken, all highlighted and allotted a specific time. The poor man tried to put down every conceivable eventuality onto his spreadsheet, but I just had to go and wreck it.

The Thursday before we left, I was grumbling about having a really sore throat. I got no pity, so I pouted and swallowed a couple of Vicks drops, the lemon flavor aptly complimenting my sour mood. I woke up randomly at 3 or 4 am, because that's what normal people do, and I realized that I could not get out of bed. I could hear P's voice ringing in my head; 'don't sleep in front of the AC with the fan on, you are asking for a cramp!'. Did I listen? No. Never. As such, I decided I must have caught one of these dreaded 'cramps' and I was determined to suffer in silence rather than hear the dreaded words 'I told you so', which incidentally, I hear far too much in my life.

However, I soon realized that not only could I not sit up, I couldn't stand or walk, and I had the strangest pain from my back right down my leg. Panic forced me to wake P up, and for someone who dispenses medical advice at the drop of a hat with great authority, he was almost at a loss for words when he realized that I had really done myself in.

Luckily, my mother's cousin, who lives two doors down, is an orthopedic surgeon. By 7am, I was in tears and desperate, and told P to call the poor man over at once. By that time, I was in a full blown anxiety attack mode because I could only manage to lie diagonally across the bed with my head and feet propped at a certain angle. To add to my troubles, my bladder decided to kick in at that very moment, and I couldn't get up to use the facilities.

My uncle had to show up on his way to the hospital to see me wild-eyed and wild haired, sprawled across the bed in my tie dyed t-shirt and owl print pink PJ bottoms. This was not how I needed to be seen in public, ever. He at once diagnosed a herniated disc and requested that I show up at the hospital ASAP for X-Rays and an MRI.

The first thing I discovered at the hospital was that only specific people are allowed to push wheelchairs, and they were identified by their dark green shirts. Godzilla might be on a rampage, but no one was allowed to push your wheelchair to safety except for one of these territorial folks, now affectionately known to me as the 'Wheelie Crew'.

I was zipped away by a chatty man who happily told me that I looked like I probably needed surgery. At that point, I began to feel nausea set in. I was not looking forward to the MRI because I remember my late father used to complain about feeling suffocated in it. I could hear his words 'and when they tell you not to move, you immediately feel like scratching your nose.'

I was missing my father so desperately that I was wishing to at least have an apparition of him, but all I got were those not so helpful words. I was shoved into the MRI machine before I could play 20 questions. As I went in, I wondered...am I completely sealed in? What if the lights go out? Would I be stuck? If I press the button to talk to the nurse, will I have to start over? How long was this? Will I run out of oxygen?

As I willed myself to calm down, I suddenly felt something on my cheek. Dengue is a big problem there and I was now worried I was trapped in an airtight cylinder with a mosquito. Being in a hospital, it would most likely be an infected one. Since I couldn't swat it away, I moved my tongue to my cheek, hearing my father's haunting voice...'feel like scratching your nose'.

After that debacle, the sound of the machine got to me. At one point it sounded like a band of people shouting 'help me, help me' and then gunfire. This was the longest period of time in my life. Tormented by the voices in my head, I turned to prayer, and I think I never willed time to go by as fast as I did in there.

I was in so much pain that I was breathless and speechless and as soon as I was bagged and scanned, I swatted at P and ordered him to push me out of the X-Ray and into physio, as was ordered by the doctor (my uncle). The nurses looked petrified, but P was too scared to disobey me so he jet propelled me to my destination, much to the chagrin of the Wheelie Crew.

While waiting for physiotherapy, I felt like I had a hot coal wedged in my throat. Before I had time to go on a flight of fancy and imagine that to be something horrific, my thigh started spasming and I had massive waves of pain from my back down my leg.

The devices at physiotherapy all looked like leftovers from a set of a horror movie set in a mental hospital. The good side of being in pain is that these things seemed appealing instead of terrifying if they meant some relief.

The lead physiotherapist was a robust lady imported from India. She was loud and commanding and had her little minions in a spin. She got to me, gave me a look of pity and announced for all and sundry that I would not have been in such a situation had I not been obese. Obese! I'm well rounded (pun intended) or curvy, but now this was pushing the limit.

By this time, I had not eaten all day and had grown weak. P was wishing he had the power of teleportation because he didn't know how I would retaliate to this battle-axe. Undaunted, she repeated 'You are obese!'. Then she turned to P and said 'did you know your wife is obese?'. P started sweating and remained mum, really wishing he was anywhere but there.

She then ordered him to get me some sort of band, and she insisted that it be XXL. P asked if that was a bit too much, but she persisted and reminded him what she thought my proportions were. By that point, I was literally melting in pain and P was relieved that I had not verbally maimed this woman, who was probably my only shot at feeling better.

THE START OF THE STAY...

I spent two days going to physiotherapy, tormenting my uncle by not listening properly to his medical advise, and taking very strong medications because I am allergic to the ones that one normally takes for a herniated disc. However, between being unable to sit, wiped out from the strength of my pills, and being unable to eat (despite my mother trying to feed me and P even offering eclairs), I wound up extremely weak. On Sunday night, I nearly fainted and by Monday I was admitted to the hospital.

I don't know how but my aunt and her family materialized while P was shuffling around trying to get my paperwork done. I could barely sit in the wheelchair. I was slightly bemused that my aunt, as always, carried with her some crackers, a bottle of water, and her thermos of coffee. She usually has a chocolate too.

Eventually, I was given a room, and several blood tests later, I was given the good news that not only do I have a herniated disc, I had pneumonia as well. I guess that would explain the sore throat and fever.

I asked my aunt to put the TV on in the room, not just for a way to pass time, but for company and noise. The first channel caught our attention because it was an Indian serial with subtitles. We were 'oohing and aching' at the gorgeous colors and jewelry, and within 2 minutes, I got hooked on the ridiculous and devious story lines.

By the end of the week, in my fever induced state, I decided I was going to pack up, move to Bollywood and try my hand at acting. Who cares about language barriers when I got the facial expressions down packed?

I would never want to testify to it, but I never changed the channel after that. Each show had a plot more dramatic than the next, and I found myself almost not wanting to leave the hospital because I wanted to know what happened to the guy who got poisoned, blown up and suffocated all within three episodes. Not only was not one hair on his head harmed, not one was out of place.

My second favorite show was my favorite because it annoyed me. It was about an evil woman and her equally menacing mother-in-law. However, the younger protagonist looked like she was 40 and the elder one looked 20. Was the person who did the casting for that show drunk?

Despite having found the serials, that first night was tough, and obviously all of us missed our scheduled flight. Tuesday was a blur, between the pain in my back and leg and the inability for me to eat or comprehend anything around me. I vaguely heard P calling the travel insurance company and I heard words like 'immediate repatriation', which made me hyperventilate.

In a weird turn of events, I had lost my most loyal and constant companion—my appetite. My food deprived, drug abused brain gave me visions of a helicopter hovering by the window as a swat team grabbed me out of bed and sent me back to Canada while I was protesting that I was in too much pain to be moved. I genuinely believed that was the case until P explained to me that they did agree I was in no position to go anywhere.

By Wednesday, my fever was in full swing, as were the effects of my medication. Each time I closed my eyes (or thought my eyes were closed), I would see these massive, terrifying 3D colorful images before me.

Poor P, who really got a sore deal when he proposed to me, had to run off to a stuffy immigration office to get my visa extended on my behalf as I was clearly not leaving the island anytime soon. For some reason, he decided I was incapable of being left alone, despite the fact that the nurses had grown fond of me and were in and out of the room every 20 minutes.

He had placed me under his mother’s care while he went to make sure that I didn’t become an illegal immigrant. I complained to her that I was so tired, I just wanted to sleep, but that I kept getting these images. She calmed me down, switched off the lights and said she would lie down on the sofa and pretend to sleep, so that I would feel sleepy and nod off.

So everything was dark and cozy in the room, and I willed myself to sleep. My wrists were sore because my canuala had come off and had to be placed on my right hand instead. As I have a constant fear of the needle in the canuala snapping off and rushing to my heart, this made life difficult for me as I am right-handed and not every ambidextrous at all.

At some point after I was quite sure my mother-in-law had actually fallen asleep, I saw two fishermen, a tiny wooden boat and a river at the end of the room. My mother-in-law was to my right, and I was trying to gesture to her to wake up, but at the same time, I was afraid to mess up my canuala.

One of the men was holding out a big rickety old flashlight and the other was telling me very rudely that I need to come with them immediately. Naturally, I was thinking why is there a river in my hospital room? The men were growing more agitated and kept beckoning me to them very rudely.

I was tired and pissed off. I felt like part of me got up off the bed, and in a voice that sounded like I was 60 instead of 39, I told them very firmly, and equally rudely that I am not about to go with some strange men, and that I was very offended that this is the quality of light that was sent for me. I went on to tell them that I'm a wonderful person (clearly pissed off me is not a modest me), and that if I am going to any light, it will be a beautiful big yellow light and not this dingy piece of rubbish before me.

This really angered fisherman, but I was not afraid, and they went off. Meanwhile, the part of me that remained on the bed, was a little offended and petrified, and I was gesticulating madly towards my mother-in-law for her to wake up and see what I was seeing. I figured if she saw it too, she would most certainly tell the men to get lost and leave her daughter-in-law alone. She can be a formidable force to be reckoned with, and I really wanted her to tell the rude men off.

I 'woke up' right after that, and my sheets were drenched in sweat, which was a feat because I rarely ever sweat. My mother-in-law woke up just then and I told her what happened while she was out like a light, but she announced that I must have had a fever.

THE MIDDLE OF THE STAY....

The good thing was that after about five days of having fever, that was the last of it, although I still needed physiotherapy and medication for the 'pneumonia'. For some reason, this condition was more baffling to the doctors than anything else, and before I knew it, I was sent for a CT scan.

After my experience with the MRI, I interrogated all the nurses about the CT scan to make sure that I would not be encapsulated in any piece of machinery. It turns out that besides my lack of ability to follow instructions…complicated ones like 'hold your breath', 'take a deep breath', it was a cake walk compared to the MRI. They finally figured out what was bothering my lungs since last September, and I was grateful for that. It turns out that this hospital visit was a blessing in disguise.

Had I not herniated my disc, I would have come back to Canada and been put on multiple inhalers, never knowing the true state of my lungs. At least now I have concrete proof to get through a GP and to a chest specialist.

In addition to the MRI, CT, and regular X-Rays ( four total), I also had every organ in my torso scanned. I was the one person testing dummy for the entire Radiology Department. I wouldn't be surprised if I am radioactive and glow in the dark right now. I have had everything except my head (which probably needs the most help) examined.

Once there was a neat box to tick for the state of my lungs, I had to do chest physio. Again, it seemed complicated because it involved breathing techniques. Then I was rather stunned to find out, I also get the joy of being pummeled to bits to get phlegm out. Simultaneously, I was thinking this man looks like a very tall, well dressed, cartoon mouse. Although I protested (in my head) while it was going on, I did feel better after.

The next day when he came to my room, I was feeling a little better so I said 'ah, you've come to beat me up again, have you?', and this sent him two steps back until he realized I had a twisted sense of humor.

As my stay went on, I had become friends with him, the other two sweet physiotherapists (who had to listen to my tales of medical woe) and even the battle ax lead physio who by that time had decided to stop calling me obese and instead wound up making nice with me.

On the home front, I was in a spin because Lanes and P had to fly back, and I had not seen her because they were determining the root of my pneumonia. My sister-in-law, who especially made time to distract Lanes from my sudden disappearance, came to see me the night before to tell me that Lanes was putting on a brave front, but she feels she is struggling deep inside.

I called my mother immediately and I heard Lanes singing in the shower in the background. She came rushing to the phone and grabbed it from my mother and said 'mom, when are you coming home? Come home!' and she burst out crying.

That's when I nearly had a tizzy. The nurses came in soon after with my medications, and I told them about Lanes. They were like my buddies by that point. They at once alerted the GP on the floor and by morning he came in saying that Lanes could come in, but to wear a mask as she has to travel soon.

THE END OF THE STAY...

Lanes came in to the room the next morning, and she ran into my arms and squeezed me so tight, I felt so sad at the thought of her going back to Canada without me. How could father and daughter survive without my nagging? I mean supervision. I mean loving advise.

P came with about a dozen canisters of Pringles, much to my confusion, and bad luck, because that evening when the chest specialist came in, he asked in horror 'are you going to eat all that?'. He sees so many patients that by the time I saw him the next week after I was discharged, he was like 'ah the Pringles lady'. Thanks P.

The night P and Lanes were leaving, I had an emotional crisis and asked my mother to send me dinner. P and she were really happy since I had been refusing food all week. That night, was all alone in the hospital, with only my Indian serials for company, and I was about to tuck into the dinner when ALL the nurses in my ward sauntered into my room.

Whenever it was time for medication, they came in pairs because they knew that each time I would whine about the quantity and size of the drugs, and then I would ask which ones were absolutely mandatory. It did not help that my aunt chimed in most helpfully on my first day there that I used to throw out all my medication when I was a child. After that, the nurses decided to watch me like a hawk.

So when I saw them all, I thought that a major procedure lay ahead for me. As it was, they were constantly drawing blood, nebulizing me, giving me steam inhalation, etc. I asked about my fate fearfully, and they all smiled and one of them said 'nah, we just came to see you because we know your family is leaving and we thought you could use some company'.

I was so touched that tears welled up in my eyes. Then one of them came forward and said 'are you actually eating dinner today? Everyone out. She is finally eating! Now when we come back we will check that you actually ate'.

With that they all left cheerfully and I was starting to think I will actually miss them when I eventually get released, although I wondered how they constantly knew everything that was going on in my life.

By Friday, I had become well known in the hospital. Every time I was carted to physio or some test, I would be waving and making small talk with various members of the Wheelie Crew, who by now were happy that I no longer looked like I needed surgery. I was greeted with gusto by everyone in the physio department and I always had a joke for my nurses. If that hospital was a small town, I could easily have run for mayor or town crier. The place was starting to feel like home, and then I realized, perhaps it was time to return home.

I needed approval of three doctors, luckily one of them being my uncle who really was rallying for me, to be dismissed and finally, I was set free on Saturday. With rounds of cake bought for all as a thank you gift, I sadly bid adieu to everyone. I returned everyday for physiotherapy until I was forcefully repatriated by the travel insurance company.

I will always be grateful for friends and family who came to visit me and cheered me on during and after my hospital visit, and for my poor orthopedic surgeon uncle, as I probably was his most challenging patient to date.

Two weeks to the day I busted my leg, I found myself back in Canada, with much ado, but that's for another blog.

If you would like the blog to return, please do comment below or on my Facebook page. I'm still on the fence, although I do have many stories to tell…I need some encouragement to fuel this madness…..

Sunrise, Sunset

2015-05-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

I have taken to (literally) pottering around the garden, the one place those who know and yet love me will never ever think to look for me. I wouldn’t even be caught dead outdoors, which would be a challenge when finding a burial plot for me, but that problem has been delegated to my very competent niece, who for some reason is greatly looking forward to planning my funeral. She even has the burgundy lipstick I requested at the ready.

But seriously, for a germaphobe like me, getting knee deep in mud was considered appalling. I’d only consider getting down and dirty, say if a BBQ rib eating contest was involved. Otherwise, bring on the Purell, I’m not touching anything. I hover around doors until someone opens them for me. Lately, however, I find myself dashing to the garden store instead of the mall. When did buying succulents ever seem more fun than buying shoes?

Make no mistake; I have not gone all Zen in the membrane. You won’t find me in the garden practicing Tai Chi and trying to find my inner peace with a cup of green tea. That, I assure you, will never be me. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but by order of my general clumsiness I avoid hot beverages and any activity that could require standing on one foot.

Even walking is a challenge for me. When I was scouting for a suitable plot for my father’s remains, I was so busy trying to read tombstones to make sure he would have some suitable company that I tripped and fell into poor Mrs. Amarasuriya's grave.

The poor soul probably had no idea a complete stranger of epic proportions was planning on joining her into the ever after, and I’m sure she was not pleased to make my acquaintance. My life is a series of such graceful moments and bad decisions. Perhaps that should be the title of my autobiography.

My latest lapse in judgment was just last month, when we finally took a vacation to San Diego. We went to the zoo, which appeared so large, it should probably have its own time zone, if not zip code. Lanes, my dizzyingly adorable seven year old, was fascinated by the sky tram that ran from one end of the premise to the other. She begged and pleaded to go for a ride on it, but my sensible spouse, P, refused to join her.

He pretended he was tired, but the truth is that he is petrified of heights. I was not so sure myself, but when it comes to Lanes, I do tend to give in to her whims and fancies. P calls that ‘getting into situations’. Plus, I wanted to encourage her adventurous spirit. She is growing up fast and soon enough common sense, self-preservation, and my nagging high pitched voice in her head will make her think twice about having fun.

I reluctantly agreed, thinking it’s no big deal. In fact, it seemed like a fun mother-daughter activity. All I had to do was sit, and I know I’m plenty good at that, as the impression of my rear on our couch could prove. However, when the tram moved, sashayed and made rickety noises, I realized we were sitting in bucket, with no seat belt, no helmet, with only a pole in the middle to hold onto.

We were jet propelled across the sky, elements in our faces, on a glorified pail that swayed with the wind. Up, up, up and up we went, as high as the eagles fly. Lanes squealed with delight. I noticed the elephants below looked like ants when I deigned to look out. At that point I made the executive decision to not look out. Ever.

I was swearing in my head with every cool breeze that tauntingly nudged the bucket, so I clung onto the pole for dear life. I began reprimanding myself for taking my one and only child, after all I only have a heir, not a spare, on this ride.

I started saying LOTS of prayers, much to Lanes’ confusion. She didn’t know why I chose this very moment to have a religious revival. I made a promise that I would never go on that ride again if only we got off safely. The last person to get on the last life raft of the Titanic probably had the same expression I did when I got off.

An hour later (since we got back to P on foot), P was laughing at me. I was about to collapse. Lanes was screeching ‘again, again’ and laughing at me with her father. As P shook his head at my bad decisions, we heard an announcement asking patrons not to panic because the tram was stuck! If that happened while we were on it, I would have had a mother of all hyper ventilations and they would have had to send a chopper to rescue us, and I would have made it to the 4 o’clock news. That’s not how I envisioned landing on TV.

In other developments, my little puppy is growing up. Lanes has taken to searching for Taylor Swift songs on uTube. She came up to me and announced with great delight that her favorite artist can make bad boys good for a weekend. She wanted to know if that’s what I did with P. I knew Lanes was looking for a reaction, so I pretended to ignore it but inside I was gesticulating wildly and screaming with horror.

We will have to monitor her monitor time closely because she found Swift singing at a Victoria’s Secret fashion show on line. She was watching it with rapt attention when I swooped down on her like a falcon snatching a bunny. Lanes calmly said ‘oh but their wings are so beaaaaaaaaaautiful! Just don’t look at the underwear’.

Meanwhile, she is growing physically as well. Lanes will need braces or spacers or something else that sounds like one of Santa’s rejected reindeer. Her jaw is too small to accommodate her teeth. This is yet another one of my delightful traits I have deemed fit to pass down to this poor child. There should be a ‘do not swim’ sign and twenty life guards next to my gene pool.

Her orthodontist showed us a gadget which looked like a medieval torture device. Lanes was lounging on the dentist chair with her legs crossed at the ankles and her elbows relaxed on the arm rests, looking like she was flying first class to Hawaii. She was facing away from me, gazing out the window, probably waiting for a cold drink to be served to her, so she missed the look of dismay that was flashing across my face.

Like a cross between the village idiot and town crier, I wanted to flay around the place insisting that thing was not going in my baby’s mouth. However, when I heard words like ‘restricted airway’ and ‘pulling teeth’, I realized it would be for the best. Lanes, bored with the view of the highway, came to investigate and by some miracle decided the device was quite neat, but announced that she would much rather have some braces, preferably with color options.

Leave it to Lanes to request dental procedures like she was ordering from a menu. She was delighted when she found out she could have four braces for now. Meanwhile, P and I were about to collapse, hoping our dental coverage would be of some help with this entire procedure.

While we remain on the fence about this, Lanes is determined to get braces. No doubt she will try to wear us down with constantly asking for it. I must say, it’s quite an effective torture technique. With her growing up, almost every day is a battle of wills between mother and daughter. P, as usual, escapes the drama on account of his ‘selective’ deafness.

We went for an event at Lanes’ school, and all the second graders were asked to come up to a stage, where they were asked what happened to them when they got into trouble at home. Lanes, sitting on the front step with her feet going in different directions, hands on her chin, with her mouth wide open, looking the epitome of boredom, perked up immediately.

She caught my eye in the audience and she glared at me daringly, with a mischievous smirk playing on her lips. I couldn’t believe that after all the times we have told her to participate in school; this would be the first time she would listen to us.

My heartbeats sounded like a loud swirl in my chest, and I contemplated fainting and causing a diversion. I was too far in the row to run and pull the fire alarm. Other kids chimed in with innocuous comments such as ‘it’s ok, don’t do it again’, ‘thank you for saying sorry’. Who are these parents? Mr. Rodger’s neighbors?

When Lanes is in trouble, I go up an octave, steam pops out from my ears, and my pony tail swivels around my head. There is usually most certainly a firework display to follow. I definitely tend to join the crazy train when it comes to Lanes not listening to me.

Just a few weeks ago, she miraculously found her neon blue piggy bank, and despite my lengthy lectures on economics, Lanes insisted that every single penny must be spent on her next outing. She had scrimped and saved spare change so that she could buy an ice cream cone. That was her lofty goal when she was four years old. The pig went MIA, probably did a world tour, and voila was in our living room three years later.

We were all delighted for her when it resurfaced, and by the weight of the pennies, Lanes decided she was very rich. She had $5. With a little help of her father, she wound up with $8. Ever one to get super entangled in my dealings, she wanted to come to the garden store and buy something for herself.

My nutty sister and her brood were visiting, so I thought it would be a fun activity for all of us. I pawned her off on my nieces and went to accumulate herbs for my next project. Lanes went about finding something for exactly $8, after I reminded her that there was such a horrid thing called taxes she should account for before making her purchase. She will make some credit card company very happy someday.

I was thankful she only had $8 and left it up to my nutty sister to deal with. When I found them at the cashier, my nutty sister was looking thunderstruck. Her eyes were wide and her eyebrows were so far up her head, they might as well have been an Alice band.

Lanes came running up to me saying she bought an ornamental duck for exactly $8. The duck was wearing a cute chef’s hat and apron—and a sign that said ‘I Kiss Better Than I Cook’. Lanes was in fits of laughter as she told me it would be funnier if it said ‘I Cook Better Than I Kiss’.

The only consolation I had at that moment was knowing that when we relayed this story to P later and showed him the duck, he would look quite ill. The look on his face was classic.

He had the same expression he did the time when Lanes was a year and a half and our neighbor’s son, two months older than her came over with a flower and kissed her on the cheek. His mom and I ‘oohed’ and ‘awed’ at the cute Kodak moment, but P said ‘well that’s not necessary, it’s not necessary’. The teenage years should be fun!

Next time, accounts on the alleged secret life of my nutty sister's postman and my attempts to get back in shape. With that I must sign off. More musings from BC next time….

To Everything There Is A Season

2015-02-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen those game shows where a contestant gets into an enclosed cylinder and grabs at dollar bills while being attacked by winds going at 100 miles an hour? That’s what 2014 was for us, except instead of snatching at money, we grasped at life changing events—not quite as fun. I’m tired and overworked, my boots don’t fit, and come to think of it, neither do my pants, but that’s another story for another day. Here is what happened during my long hiatus…

May brought the first of the two unexpected trips for me. My niece’s nanny, Anna, insisted we go to Poland to pray for my father, who at that point had battled stage IV cancer for six years. She was adamant that a pilgrimage would help and her relentless efforts paid off when my nutty sister and I found ourselves literally on a wing and a prayer, headed to Eastern Europe within a matter of weeks.

My boss was surprised by my sudden religious revival, my diligent spouse, P, was in a flap at the thought of running the five ring circus that is raising our one and only child, Lanes, all by himself, and I was in a state about being stateless since my passport, still of the motherland, usually gets people kicked out of countries instead of being welcomed in.

However, as tired as I was by the three legged foot race it was to get my visa in order, on the way there, I was delighted to have my sibling to myself. That never happens with various spouses and children running around, no offense to them. I was less enchanted when I found myself pasted to the window because my sister decided to bring a green army tank as her carryon. It was placed on my left foot all the way to Poland. It’s a wonder I didn’t develop deep vein thrombosis.

Anna came too, and I nearly fell to the floor with amazement and delight when she pulled out of her handbag, homemade, individually wrapped, meat chops and chocolates for each of us. She force fed us while we were waiting for our flight, and I did not protest one bit. She’s magical to say the least! Slow roasted chops in a bag. Brilliant!

The onus of planning the trip fell upon my nutty sibling, and she found someone on the internet to drive us around Poland. The internet. Was this a Lifetime movie waiting to happen? Was my smiling face about to appear on a poster somewhere? Did she find some stalker or nut job? Who was this Anthony guy? Overly prudent and prudish, I was squawking about this nonstop and took it upon myself to fight him off should he make any untoward passes at pretty and delicate Anna, who could easily pass off as a Gabor sister.

I felt silly approaching him in my black bodyguard outfit, brandishing my umbrella on day one because Anthony turned out to be a charming man, who looked just like Robert DeNiro! He was completely bossed around by Anna. If she started a request with ‘I’m asking you nicely’, he best get on it! I was rather teary eyed when we left him behind in Warsaw, but I think he was in bad need of a vacation after running around the Polish countryside with us, each pointing in a different direction.

I was happy that our pilgrimage went off well. Anna arranged a private mass at Jasna Gora. Everything was in Polish and the only thing we understood was when my father’s name was announced, with perfect pronunciation. Anthony was next to me, giving me cues on when to stand and kneel.

Still in disbelief that I actually made it there, I was moved to tears. My sister looked otherworldly, and Anna, in-between praying and crying, was taking pictures, despite being told not to use the flash. Anthony was muttering under his breath, steam coming out of his ears at the looks we got each time little streaks of lightening came out of her camera.

When the priest approached us with the host, I froze. P had told me very sternly and with great authority that only those who are baptized may receive communion. Here I was, praying fanatically and the priest who had hundreds waiting for him was offering me the bread. I confessed quickly to Anthony that neither my sister nor I were baptized and I hoped he would rescue us from any sacrilege.

I looked terrified and ate it, all the while, hearing P gasping in horror in my head. In terrible fear that I had committed an act of blasphemy, I cried even more, envious of my sibling, who had no idea of the faux pas she had committed. No wonder they say ignorance is bliss.

After we prayed, several people flocked to Anna and Anthony to inquire about the foreigners ‘with such great faith’. A security guard, on the good side of 70, and costumed like he was off the set of a Federico Fellini film, asked Anna if he could marry my sister, which sent me in a fit of giggles. Anna kept him at bay saying she was married and then he wanted to marry me! What am I? A consolation prize?

On the heels of my return from the trip, we finally started to make a real move (pun intended) towards getting out of our crazy ghetto fabulous building. We found a realtor who had the most fascinating hair—because naturally, that’s what one looks for in a real estate agent. Lanes was mesmerized by him, and that made all the house visits we had to endure bearable. After a series of shoes on, shoes off, nice deck, too old, too expensive, finally on Lanes’ 7^th birthday, we got a call from our agent, Andrew, saying he found a place.

The location was a bit far, but we thought we would go since Andrew was so awesome and we didn’t want to disappoint him. We got to the place a little early, so we scoped out the neighborhood. I had started to plan the spiel we would give Andrew about declining this place, when we realized that there was life out in the boondocks. The house was central to many stores we frequent and then I found the prize, an oasis in the desert, a Taco Bell.

The clouds parted and there was a ray of sunlight. It was at that moment, that I turned to P and said, we will take it, sight unseen. P laughed at how easily I was swayed. All it took was hope of a few chalupas (which incidentally, I found out later, were NOT available here—it was a tragic moment).

The house turned out to be nice, even though there were fish (and shrimp!) tanks everywhere and the walls were Pepto-Bismol pink, neon blue and operating room green. Despite the nauseating palette, it was the first house I entered that I felt at peace. By this time my father was really taking a turn for the worse, and I was steadfast in my mission to grant him his wish of raising Lanes in a ‘proper house’.

We put in an offer and our agent entered some sort of American Gladiator round of negotiations with the sellers. His boss and he were starting to get sick of the other party and were about to tell us to walk away, but by that time, we had to book a last minute flight to the Motherland to see my father before it was too late.

The agent’s boss, Italian and all about la famiglia, looked me point blank in the eye and asked if I was in a rush to put the deal through so that I could tell my father we have a house before he passed away. My feelings were bottled up until that point, because frankly, who has time to cry with a seven year old around?

I ungracefully burst into tears, hacking like a choking seal. The waterworks instilled in him a great ferocity to get the deal done and at 10pm he jet propelled the seller’s agent over and we were signing paperwork before we knew it. Soon after, we were on a flight, dazed and confused, for our second unexpected trip for the year.

This time, my boss was praying I made it on time, P was at a loss for words, and I was completely unprepared to be fatherless. We did make it on time, just enough for my father to register we came and for him to see pictures of the house on the internet. The cancer was in his brain by then, and except for smiling when Lanes spoke, he didn’t do or say much after that.

Lanes was convinced that her presence would protect her grandfather and despite invitations from her cousins, she spent every waking hour in his room. The one day she was asked to step outside, he passed away just after the family priest came and said a prayer over him.

The funeral was the next day. My nutty sister, refusing to accept fate, did not bring appropriate clothing for the event. She had to wear clothes left behind in her closet, which were probably left untouched since 1984. As we stood by the coffin, my sibling looking like a waiter no one would hire, I couldn’t see her as a 40 something year old. I could only picture her as a young teen and myself as a child.

It was the same feeling I had when I got lost in a store when I was three years old and despite the sales ladies consoling me, I was convinced they would kidnap me and that I’d never see my parents again—only magnified a hundred times more. We didn’t want to leave the casket. My father was the picture of good health, and he donned his favorite suit and trademark mischievous smile—the kind he gave when the joke was on everyone else.

He loved colognes and my nutty sister put his favorite bottle in the casket. Luckily, I noticed, because he was to be cremated. I’m sure my father didn’t intend to go out with a bang! I fished it out and thus spared the guests who did manage to find out about the funeral (my father wanted it immediate and on the down low) from becoming BBQ entrees. Instant and free cremations were not gifts they wanted.

My sibling stayed on a little with my devastated mother, but we had to run back because there was no leave left for us to take. I would have wound up losing my status at work from full time to temporary which meant I’d lose all my benefits. Plus, we had to pack and move. Moreover, Lanes had just gotten into a new school and she needed to be there for the first day.

Good job on us! Not only did she lose her grandfather but we ripped her apart from the comfort of her beloved friends. Some day when I’m dropped off at a home, these deeds will come back to haunt me. I am not up for mother of the year, that’s for sure.

Moving day was a nightmare onto itself. Lanes began the day by throwing up. Turned out it was the excitement of it all, so we shipped her to school. The movers didn’t believe me when I said we had a lot of furniture and they double booked us.

As a result, P had to run off to manage them and clean the apartment and I was left to carry everything up and down stairs since they unceremoniously dropped all our stuff in the garage of our new place. I’m amazed at the power of adrenaline. I lugged stuff that I could barely push on a good day. I could have bench pressed Rambo, made dinner, and given a TED talk at the same time, I was so pumped!

That day itself, I set up 85% of the house, starting with Lanes’ room. Over that weekend, everything was unpacked and we could have fooled anyone into thinking we had lived in the house for years. I am so amazing, if I do have to say so myself! Looking back, I would call us meticulous hoarders. I have no idea how we managed to store everything in an apartment.

With the move over, came braving the commute. It is a blooming nightmare. I wake up at 5am, where I stand at a bus stop on the highway. Considering it rains 80% of the time here, I brace myself every time a truck drives by so that I don’t get sprayed. I then run to catch another bus and then dash up a series of stairs to catch the train. Getting home is even worse.

I race down stairs at the train station to catch the bus. If I had to eat a 100 year old duck egg at the end of the stairs, my routine would be exactly like a leg of the Amazing Race. If I don’t run, I either fall or get carried by the crowd.

If I miss the bus, it means at least a 15 minute wait in the cold and rain for the next one. If I do get on the bus right away, I usually have someone’s armpit in my nose and another person’s backpack in my ribs. It’s a long 25 minutes, invariably perfumed with the l’air du body odour and unseemly bodily gases.

This bus pulls to the station just when my other bus is pulling out. That means another 15 to 20 minutes in the elements, and usually I’m fuming in the line next to the idiot who decides to start smoking. Undaunted, I’ve taken to studying the flight patterns of Canadian geese while I’m waiting. I might start to name them. When I do get on the bus, I eventually get to a stop where then have to walk across two major highways to get home, wasting 7 minutes at each crosswalk light, where I have the pleasure of inhaling exhaust fumes.

Sadly, this is the best route for me. The other two alternatives did not work out at all! With the first one, I wound up on a narrow strip of pavement in the middle of nowhere waiting for a bus that never came. I got splashed every time a car whizzed by, and the wind was shoving me into an overgrown hedge. My umbrella bounced me off the hedge and into a garbage can, from which I was pinged back into the hedge. This cycle of misery continued for little over an hour.

I was roaring with rage by the time I got home, and I might have found a goldfish swimming inside my left boot. With the second alternative, my co-worker showed me a route wherein I found myself crossing over a sprawling highway four times! After which, I had to stand at a very precariously placed bus stop. If a driver sneezed, he could have swerved and taken us all out. No way!

Such is my life nowadays. At best I have five minutes when I get home to shower and have Lanes’ dinner ready. When Lanes gets home, everything is a blur. Her lunch is uneaten, her hair is everywhere, and I can’t wrestle her into the shower or settle her down for dinner or to do her homework. It’s like wrestling an alligator in a big vat of jello.

With that I must sign off, and I promise like a politician that I’ll post again next week. These days I don’t know what lies ahead seven minutes from now let alone seven days! I’m telling the universe that I’m going to win the lottery, so I can spend my days wearing chunky jewelry, eating chocolates, writing and adoring my 45 rescue dogs. But for now, it’s off to catch bus number one I go…(please do leave comments)…more musings from BC next week…

PSystem Angelo, you now have to keep your end of the bargain. Please cook your famous eggplant for me. I'll pop over anytime.

Red

2014-03-19T20:17:00.002-07:00

‘Shall we light a match and play with it?’, ‘What would happen if we crossed the road blindfolded?’. These are the types of questions my nutty sibling might as well ask of me. For some reason, even the most innocuous of suggestions made by her lead me to wind up wanting to call an ambulance for a nebulizer or spontaneously combusting from exasperation. Probably, a little bit of both.

During my unprecedented two month silence, I was nearly tackled at a supermarket, my child channelled the Rockettes at the dentist, and my spouse tried to claim the blame for a near flood at our apartment. That’s only the stuff I do remember. Naturally, between all this, and the unceremonious passing of my laptop battery, I was rendered speechless.

My computer won’t work unless it is plugged in, and thanks to my meticulous better half, P, and his unhealthy fascination for acquiring sofas, finding a socket usually involves a large amount of gymnastics and flexibility. I couldn’t be stiffer if I was spray tanned with a can of starch.

As they say, empty vessels make the loudest noises, and it was unusual for me to go silent for so long. Friends wondered if I had fallen off the face of the earth, so I tried my hand at contortion and crept under the bed and stuck my hand through the side table to reach an outlet. Voila, I’m back on line.

Any old how, since last I wrote, we took a weekend trip down to Seattle to pester my sister and her husband for their birthdays. Conveniently, they were born two days apart. During this visit, it was decided that I should revamp my undergarment situation because I had items in my wardrobe from when ‘Dynasty’ was on TV.

My faithful sibling took me to numerous stores, but I was as interested in shopping as a lazy donkey is in taking a hike. On the last night, I relented and took my stash to a changing room, patting myself on the back for remembering to not only lock, but block the door.

In the past, my sister has been notorious for swinging the doors of changing rooms open at the most inopportune moments, invariably causing me to flash old ladies and frighten them so much that their meticulously curled hair stands on end. To my surprise, there was silence behind the door.

Could she have left me at the store? Anything was possible. I rushed out to find her whizzing by with groceries piled up in her very short arms. I grabbed a carton of milk from her hand and rushed after her. Never one to follow the rules, she entered an area marked ‘exit only’ in an attempt to perform a ‘self check-out’.

Always one to follow and then bungle up all the rules, when I actually take time to read them, I stopped short and gestured towards the sign. She beckoned me over saying nothing happened to her and to get a move on it already. As I set foot towards her, the alarms went off! I half expected a net to fall on me and for some bull dogs to tackle me to the ground. I’m lucky I didn’t get pepper sprayed!

To my horror, I realized when everyone turned to me, not only did I have the carton of milk in my left hand, dangling gaily from my right hand were two very large bras, one of which was such a bright red, that it might be used in an emergency kit in case of an avalanche. I was about ready to check myself out to the big buffet in the sky!

My ears were burning and I was rendered motionless at the pure trauma of it all. To make it worse, two teenage boys who work in the store were sent forth to put the alarm off, and they were trying their best not to laugh at me. Perfect. Just the cavalry I need when I’m stuck holding underwear. I didn’t look like a blooming idiot; I looked like the idiot with the parachute sized bloomers.

My sister, of course, found it hilarious and she still wanted me to come through the same way with her milk. What a nutter. I made a bee line for the next cashier and bought everything in my possession. I would have bought a lawnmower and a fridge if they threw that in, just to leave the store. I plan on never returning.

The next morning, I was worse for wear (pun intended), and we returned to Canada. P packed a stash of mail that my sister had given him. It seems she has accidentally maybe on purpose signed me up for something or the other and advertising agencies are under the impression that I am a senior citizen. As such, I am the proud recipient of multiple invitations to retirement homes. She even wanted to take me for the orientation for one—said they gave fabulous canapés.

I didn’t want to know how she knew this. All I know is that if I went with her, it would be a one way trip with me winding up in a wheelchair, screaming that I was not over fifty-five despite my prematurely gray hair and malfunctioning organs and she would nonchalantly tell the attendants that I was not quite with it and to please put me down for an early bird special.

It didn’t help that soon after I chided her for constantly trying to send me to gated communities, I was standing at a bus stop when a lovely elderly gentlemen began to explain the topography of the areas surrounding us, circa 1952. He painted quite a quaint picture as he described brooks and lanes where now a behemoth shopping mall stood. As we were deconstructing the area, bit by bit he remarked that it was so lovely to see a beautiful young lady smiling.

Since I was working with him, moving my eyes left to right, I was stumped as to where he saw the lady, and quickly chimed in that folks are not as welcoming as they used to be back in the day and I went into my usual speil about how dogs are better than humans. As I continued to nearly give myself whiplash looking for the friendly woman, next thing I know, the older man had given me a gentle hug and said he was talking about me!

Mercifully the bus, now five minutes late, showed up that instant and I was spared any further awkward moments sponsored by my not so bright brain. Captain Obvious is clearly not a friend of mine. P and my sister were highly amused by this story, and my sister hooted and said that this is why I’d be such a hit at the retirement home. Them old ladies will love me. Not. On the bright side, at least I’d be the belle of the ball somewhere.

That being said, I am now considering a move—anywhere. I lost several nights of sleep and hours of pay thanks to the shenanigans at our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building. In an attempt to camouflage its flaws, I mean renovate, we finally got new carpets and our hallways were painted.

Gone are the peeling blues on the doors and the ratty threadbare brown carpet in the halls (original color unknown at best). We were surprised at the sudden upgrade, but our cautious joy was soon overcast. A few Saturdays ago, I noticed a huge damp spot on our carpet near the kitchen.

As a reflex, my first thought was to blame the spouse and child. Always a safe go to, when in doubt. However, my six year old, Lanes, was adamant it was not her and P thought perhaps it was him. It seemed like a rather large spill, and unless he was giving an elephant a wash in our living room, there was no way he could be responsible for it, despite his protests that he was.

At the back of my head I knew it had to be the miserable apartment. I pretended it was the dishwasher and refused to use it. Denial is the next best thing when one can’t blame those one is biologically and legally obliged to live with.

On Sunday morning, there was even more water on the carpet. Of course there are no emergency numbers given out to us tenants, that would be far too practical and responsible, and so I had to do some detective work that led to a domino effect of calls and I finally tracked the apartment manager down at 7pm. Turns out, it was indeed, a burst pipe. P was randomly protesting his guilt, saying he must have done it, up until this point, when the jig was up.

The drama didn’t end there. They had to send someone to suck up the water the next day. I insisted I be there and begrudgingly left work an hour early to tend to that. Of course they sent someone at noon, when I was still at work, probably running away from some ghost or the other. I was so livid, my angst alone could have powered the greater metropolitan area.

The next weekend, I woke up to sunshine, a rare event in these parts. Thanks to the extra burst of light, I noticed we had lovely clumps of mold all over our bedroom ceiling. Back again to chasing down the apartment folk, and back again to taking more time of work. I was really down on the deal literally because they didn’t send someone over until the time I normally get home from work.

So I missed an hour of wages for no good reason. By that time, I could have powered the entire province with my anger. My eyebrow started twitching and I almost had smoke coming out of my nostrils. I was fed up and ready to move! That being said, we are too darn lazy to pack. So it’s back to being non-proactively annoyed.

Other than that, in another weird segue popular in my blogs, Lanes is growing in leaps and bounds. She keeps popping out teeth at such a rate that the Tooth Fairy is now on strike due to long hours and poor wages. My little munchkin is also sprouting billboard sized adult ones left, right, and center, and we were terrified there was no room in her little mouth for them.

Concerned, we took her to the dentist, where she proceeded to lounge like she was receiving a spa treatment while having her teeth cleaned. Never before have I seen a child so delighted to come home with a toothbrush and dental floss.

We were sent off to an orthodontist, who gave Lanes a quick check up and then turned to us to explain a game plan for dealing with our spawn’s troublesome molars. I had two problems concentrating. The first was because he was holding onto some false teeth that reminded me of something from a pirate movie. I was dying to get my hands on the choppers and chase people with them while cackling in pirate speak. The second was because behind him, Lanes was having a glorious time on the dentist chair.

She had her legs up in the air and she was flailing them to and fro in a motion that looked like a combination of the can-can and water aerobics. Whee, sway to the left, whee sway to the right. I willed her to stop when it looked like she was turning her attention to various buttons, but since she knew I was completely powerless in that situation, she continued to have a whale of a time.

It was hilarious to say the least, especially since that poor man, thinking we overly pushy Asian parents who wanted her to have orthodontic work done at such an early age was imploring us to hold off for a few years. In the end, I stopped stifling my laughter and asked the orthodontist to look behind him. Lanes froze momentarily, but after the dentist gave her the green light, she proceeded to do her Broadway routine. It was the ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ meets ‘Mamma Mia’.

After we got that out of the way, we explained that we were in no hurry to get Lanes decked out with spacers or braces or anything at all, especially if they sounded like the reindeer that didn’t’ make the cut for Santa’s sleigh.

I was longing to play with the false teeth, but thought better of asking to have a go at it. I’m sure if I did ask, P would have put his palm to his face and started shaking his head, the way he often does when I come up with these ideas. With that, I guess I better sign off. I’ll try to do the limbo with a sofa and sleep early on a Friday night so I have energy to keep up with blogging the way I used to. More musings from BC...soon? Please leave comments below….

This blog is for Katherine, Hans and Sonali, because you are awesome!

Gotcha Katherine!

2014-01-05T15:22:00.001-08:00

An overactive imagination and boredom make a dangerous pair, and it led me to literally jump start 2014. Picture it, yours truly, big haired and bleary eyed, unused to the quiet because everyone who usually sends work our way is on holiday. A former colleague, who I affectionately refer to as 'The Beard', and I were shuffling documents in a secure, cabinet lined area of the office.

Always one to take pride in my multi-tasking skills, I was listening avidly to a tale the Beard was spinning while trying to take care of some work. Oh, and did I mention, rumor is, the office is haunted--or so they say, and I've felt. Thum thum thum...cue eerie music here.

He claimed he was alone in the secure area when he heard someone bang their fist hard into one of the cabinets. Knowing fully well that no one was around, and no one else could have access to the room, he looked up quickly to see a man in period costume and a top hat, with a 'Freddy Kruger face' walk by.

Have you heard the expression, 'can't say boo to a ghost'? Well, the Beard apparently, has not, because that's just what he did. When it comes to fright or flight, he opts for fight. In response, the apparition walked by again.

I laughed at the Beard and told him the rule of thumb is that one should never challenge any being with potentially super natural powers. I had the heebie jeebies a little but I let it go because I was concentrating on what I was doing with full force--I take my temp job rather seriously.

Next thing I know, I heard a deep voice coming from behind the cabinets. I flapped my arms and hands several times, possibly levitated an inch off the ground in my attempt to take off and I bee lined it towards the Beard, where I shamelessly crouched and hid behind him with tears streaming down my eyes!

Meanwhile, he nearly passed out in hysterics because the voice belonged to the newest temp in our office. Of course, he wasn't amused that I hid behind him and kind of pushed him towards the voice, but that's another story. My response to fear is obviously flight--and offering a sacrificial lamb.

The Beard and the new temp thanked me for the best laugh they have had in awhile. It seems it was a classic moment. Considering I was holding my bladder until I finished my work, this story could have ended far more tragically for all concerned. If only they knew.To make things worse, when I did rush to the loo after that, the tap came on by itself! Talk about timing!

Speaking of holidays, weird segue, we went to Seattle for Christmas to visit the family. Chaos is not far behind when I spend time with my nutty sibling. We accompanied my father for a session of chemo and as usual, he decided to go forth without his hearing aid. At every stop, a nurse would ask for verification of his date of birth and he would happily respond with a lecture on the topography of his veins and where he would like to have various drugs injected into his person.

My father is just the right combination of harmless and clueless that makes women want to call him 'sweetie' and offer him a hearty soup and possibly a teddy bear. As such, when I explained that we were having two different conversations because he refused to wear his hearing aid, the nurses would smile and indulge him.

My father, oblivious as usual, happily smiled and batted on, oozing charm all over the place. I was a little in awe of this and wondered what part of the family tree my sister and I had stand under in order to get clubbed by a branch that would magically give us some of this charisma.

When my father was getting his blood tested, I volunteered my arm for squeezing. When I was little, he used to tell me to squeeze his hand really tightly because it would distract me from the pain in my arm whenever I got a vaccine. As touched as he was at the reversal in roles, he embarked on long conversation with the technician about how daughters are bossy. To my chagrin, the technician chimed in agreeing because he had three of his own!

We met my sister outside the room, where she was having fun with my father’s cane. Channeling Charlie Chaplin, she kept swinging it to and fro and pointing at random things, such as my nose and left eye.

In between all that, she dropped in on the hospital floor several times, much to my germ fearing mind’s horror. As reluctant as I was to hold anything that has been on the ground of a medical facility, I had to confiscate the cane in order to preserve various body parts and to avoid law suits.

We were soon sent off to the ward for chemo. I spied a bunch of gadgets near the head of the bed and I made a mad dash for the chair near the controls. The last thing we needed was my sister to grin and start getting trigger happy with the buttons, something she is absolutely notorious for.

The last time we were all in a hospital together, my father got jet propelled so high that he looked like an old Volkswagen that was about to get its undercarriage inspected. He was so shocked, he was at a loss for words and was making random hysterical noises.

Undaunted, my nutty sister found a lever at the end of the bed, and my father suddenly found himself, open port and all, slammed into an upright position. He squawked and said that the night before he had a nightmare that he was on a bed that snapped.

By this time, I had stood up in horror. Unbeknownst to me, I was flailing my arms (again with the chicken impersonation) and hitting my head, screeching at my sister to cease and desist immediately. I wanted her to step away from the bed and any patients immediately.

I didn’t realize the commotion I was creating until I noticed that my sibling was staring at me with a wide eyed crazy grin. For someone who was just moments ago chastising my family for not being quiet enough, I could have powered the greater Seattle area just with my flailing limbs and head bashing. Luckily, no other patients were in the vicinity.

A nurse showed up and diffused the situation. I realized that there was a section in the ward that had lots of food for patients and their care givers. Always the first one in a buffet line, even at a time like this, I was dying to go check it out but I was scared to leave my father alone with my nutty sibling.

I was torn between my weird sense of obligation to be my father’s bodyguard and my constant craving for any kind of food at any time of the day. Eventually, greed got the better of me and after some grunting at my sister, I took off and came back with some mac and cheese, crackers, shortbread, coffee and a ginger ale. If not for recently losing my gall bladder, I would have tried the chocolate ice cream too.

As my dad was finishing up his treatment, I stood up to use the facilities when my sister said ‘don’t flush today’. I was confused and wondered if it was the hospital’s effort to be green and save water, but it just didn’t seem sanitary in a place that one can’t even step into if they walked by someone with a cold.

Luckily for me, I stopped to follow their conversation because my sister kept going on about not flushing and then my father made me realize she was talking about something that had to do with his treatment. Imagine my horror if I went in and didn’t flush! With my luck, a nurse would probably have been waiting to go in the loo right after me. My reputation, and only that, would have been down the toilet!

After we were done, we followed my nutty sibling to the car park. I was monopolizing my father with one hand and clinging onto his medication, set in ice, with the other. My sister complimented me on my shirt, a gift from my meticulous spouse, P. It was rather loose fitting and big--I could have had an entire production of Cirque du Soleil under there.

My nutty sibling just lifted up the shirt, assuming I had a tank top underneath, and made me flash the entire parking lot. I couldn’t cover myself because I was safeguarding the drugs, and so I was left to squeal and be mortified and apologize to any cancer patients who had to bear witness to this horrifying sight.

My father, not observing the sisterly drama going on, got home and told my mother that he had a wonderful time with his two girls. I was worse for wear between the cane poking, bed shifting, and shirt flashing. I rotated around the house in various states of hysteria but for some reason everyone ignored me.

With that, I must sign off and take a mental health break. More musings from BC soon, do leave some comments...

For my Muttley, born this day seventeen years ago. Still handsome as ever in my mind, always a treasure in my heart.

Sluggish

2013-12-15T11:40:00.001-08:00

I'm sorry for the long silence. I've been swinging from vine to vine in the jungle of the crazy, and for the first time, most of the madness was not mine.

During my post surgery recovery, I lounged around in my PJs and watched TV movies. Sadly, they got on my nerves after the first three days because the heroines fell for guys who look like they belong in a police line up or called out to criminals in alleyways instead of dialing the authorities. Thus, I showed up at my temp job less than two weeks after surrendering my gall bladder.

I don't know if it is related to the loss of a body part or not, but I have been rather exhausted since the surgery. My six year old, Lanes, and her schedule make me feel like the pit crew of a race car team on the best of nights.

She is easily side tracked and constantly on various missions that result in 'origami' hand drawn paper electronics propped up in between family photos. I am constantly trying to lasso her into doing things she deems unnecessary, such as taking a shower or having dinner.

Lanes has taken to hugging me and cooing every night because her father, P, placed an embargo on me after my surgery. Lanes is notorious for elbowing and kicking vital organs while trying to be affectionate and he was on pins that she would puncture one of my wounds. He did not want me spewing my guts around the apartment like a fifth grade science project gone wrong.

The net result was that P was put on Lanes' naughty list and she has become rather obsessed with monitoring my abdomen, which she affectionately but not flatteringly calls 'squidgy and comfy'. She makes me sound like a dwarf that failed the casting call to be one of Snow White's little people.

Speaking of tales, the going rate for the Tooth Fairy has gone up. Evidently, we pissed him/her off because Lane's two front teeth, missing since March, only just now made a cameo appearance. I guess they really are all she wanted for Christmas.

The days of milk teeth, chubby cheeks and extra small clothes are gone, and I'm clutching onto any attention from her with more desperation than that Rose chick clinging onto driftwood from that unnecessarily sappy movie where the big ship sadly sank.

As it is, Lanes abandons me for long periods of time to chat on the phone with my nutty sister's family and her little friends. Speaking of which, I better line our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment with mattresses and pillows because P will most likely faint when he sees this month's phone bill because his precious spawn has memorized long distance numbers.

When she can't get anyone on the phone (she finds it rude when people are not at home at her beck and call--literally), she talks to Siri or tracks me down in the kitchen, usually when I'm in the middle of rescuing something from turning nuclear in our cantankerous oven with sentences that begin with 'can I tell you something?' or 'let's have a conversation'.

In other crazy relatives news, my parents have descended upon my nutty sister, who might be even nuttier by the end of their visit. My poor father, who never gets a proper vacation on account of visits to oncologists, decided to forget to mention that he forgot to take his blood pressure medicine when he went in for an infusion.

The results of his exorbitantly high blood pressure reading caused him to have an irregular heartbeat and in the meantime my mother and sibling nearly blew a gasket. We should have asked for a family discount from the nearest cardiologist. Surely, they do three for the price of one?

If anyone knows of a Costco type place where we could get medical opinions in bulk, my next of kin and I would greatly benefit from a lifetime membership.

While this drama was going on in Seattle, I was set into a panic all the way across the border because my crazy sister sent me random e-mails of doom with no follow ups. I was at work with no way to call, and P, my second in command who I put forth to handle my immediate family when they get too much for me, was at his office Christmas party, probably giving thanks that his family was normal.

After much ado, everything was sorted and my father went home sheepishly. My nutty sister, mother and I, on the other hand, probably needed to start drinking. Better yet, we could have done with an eggnog IV.

To make matters worse, that morning my father dropped his notorious blood pressure medication on the floor and my nutty sister's dog nearly ate it. That would have been the icing on the cake. Dog low pressure, old man high pressure, wife and daughters, no pressure. Not the best of days!

But there was some fun news since last I blogged. Firstly, P and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary! We survived years of P hogging the bathroom and me unwittingly landing in precarious situations.

Lanes went to her BFF's house and we had a date night at a restaurant that would scoff at the idea of mac and cheese and wouldn't dream of having crayons next to the cutlery.

I was also interviewed by a newspaper to give my two cents on what it is like to move to Canada and find a job. It was in context of a job fair that a magazine I once submitted an article to was organizing. The editor of that magazine recommended me to the journalist in charge of covering the event.

It was a quick phone interview over lunch. I thought it was easy peasey lemoon squeezy as Lanes would say, but then they insisted on having a photo of me, much to my horror. I tried to convince them otherwise to no avail.

I asked for a magical photographer who will hide any additional chins I might have and insisted that the hips would definitely be out of the question. That said, an appointment was made during my next break.

The morning of the shoot, I actually looked at the mirror, combed my hair and slapped some eyeliner on, much to my chagrin. In the end, I enjoyed hamming it up for the shoot, much to the amusement of my coworkers. Sadly, I rocked crazy eyes in the picture and I think the double chin was pulling a photo bomb. Oh well.

I looked more serious than I normally do because Lanes and P told me my hair was out of control and that I really should try to tame it. In not so polite terms, everyone thinks that I need a major make over.

After the article came out, my mother called insisting that I go and get my face done, whatever that means. P and Lanes keep looking sadly at my coif and I feel rather like a very bad before picture in a make over special for a TLC show.

With that I must sign off. Lanes has taken to decorating for the holidays. Right now there are three snowmen perched ominously on the top of each of our sofas. P, in the meantime, has bumped his leg on the edge of the bed and the corner of the cabinet. I must go save the day as usual. More musings from BC next week...

Here is the link to the article:
http://www.theprovince.com/Immigrant+Expo+aims+help+newcomers+find+what+they+need+started+including/9261888/story.html

It's Done!

2013-11-22T15:02:00.002-08:00

One Week Ago Today…

The day finally came. I had a surgery date—Friday, November 15. I felt like I was given the key to diffuse the ticking time bomb that was my gall bladder. Of course, I didn’t have 100% confirmation about it until two days before the actual date, when I had a phone consultation with a very pleasant, detail-oriented nurse.

The good news was that she was very thorough. The bad news was also that she was very thorough. Thanks to my overactive imagination and penchant for drama, I easily visualized the play by play she gave me of surgery day, and by the time I put the receiver down, I was in desperate need of a brown paper bag to hyperventilate into.

After several nights of maliciously sneering at my gall bladder and threatening to take it out myself with some pliers or a kitchen knife, suddenly, having it in didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

The only thought that got me through the rest of the day was that my nutty sister was coming down for the operation. If I had to lose a body part for her to spend some alone time with me, it seemed like a good deal. What a sad state of affairs. But that’s another issue for another day at therapy.

Any old how, she came down on Thursday and claimed she would stay until Sunday. However, as she got here, my esteemed brother-in-law called and said he had a migraine, and then deep down I knew that as soon as I was sliced and diced, she would dash across the border faster than a fugitive with a bounty on his head.

Considering I had lots to do like get my insurance cards and medication all in a row, plus sort out my six-year-old, Lanes, for the next day in between having palpitations and stress anger, I was a wee distracted on Thursday night to worry about my abandonment issues.

Plus, I was told to shower using some special antibacterial wash and following instructions of any sort are in general, challenging to me. I was strongly put off by words like ‘caution’ and ‘pre-surgical’. They sounded so hostile.

Half the solution fell down the drain because I was expecting a nice exfoliating gel, but instead it was glorified rubbing alcohol in a bottle. I have no idea if I did it properly, but I guess I did considering I am here a week later.

On Thursday night, my nutty sister and I stayed up longer than we should have, chatting and before I knew it, it was go time. My overly prepared spouse, P, insisted that I pack a backpack full of clothes and toiletries ‘in case’ I had to stay at the hospital. What was I? Winning a holiday vacation?

The surgeon said that if the laparoscopy didn’t work, he would have to make an incision and that would mean a few days at the hospital. However, P was determined that either way, I camp out there for the night just to make sure everything was alright.

I mean come on. I was losing a gall bladder, which is essentially the appendix's fancy cousin. There was no need for all the caution and hoop la.

His plan was to have a word with the nurses about institutionalizing me when I was out for the count and I assured him that if he checked me in unnecessarily, considering we were married, I would literally be able to make him miserable for the rest of his life. He was undaunted and I was saved thanks to a severe shortage of beds and our over taxed healthcare system. Yeah!

There was no way I was spending a night there, especially if my nutty sister was visiting. I was uncomfortably eating healthy all week in an attempt to silence my gall bladder so that it would be on its best behavior and I was determined that I was returning home to our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment that same day.

Even if P left me there, I would grab my IV, catheter, hospital gown with exposed back and all and jet propel myself back to my own bed, even if it meant flashing half of the greater Burnaby area. I didn’t want to wake up in the night and groan ‘I see sick people’.

We got to the hospital by 5.45am but the registration didn’t start until 6.15am. I was glad we were early so we didn’t have to wait in line. I just wanted to check in and check out. Unconsciousness was a friend of mine.

My stomach was grumbling thanks to fasting, my head was spinning due to unnecessarily Tele Mundo story-line worthy thoughts, and I was micromanaging Lanes’ morning routine in my head, mentally willing my nutty sister to do things my way while she was babysitting my precious spawn.

There was one couple ahead of us. I unkindly had mean thoughts that they beat us there through the cold and rain, but as soon as we were seated, I changed my mind. They were close to retirement age, and it appeared the man was the patient in the relationship. He checked out the luggage P had me bring.

It was no surprise that people were eyeing us. We looked like we were dressed up and waiting for a cruise ship that never came. Or that we were moving to another country. The only thing missing from our paraphernalia was the family goat and a satellite dish.

After a few seconds, the man asked me if I had a chocolate stashed in there somewhere for him. Ironically, I was looking at his wife’s handbag and thinking she looks like a lady that would have a good Kit Kat stashed in her purse.

Was this man my long lost twin? Who else wants candy for breakfast? This is why I was losing my gall bladder. I warmed up to the like -minded couple at once and we immediately launched in a fatty food loving, fasting bashing conversation.

Plus, he readily admitted he was anxious too. We were both whisked away from our respective spouses soon after. We were weighed, examined and prepped like produce before a cooking show.

The only thing worse than getting a huge needle in a tiny vein for the IV was having to wear knee length puke green stockings and a shower cap. Don’t even get me started on the hospital gown. Haven't they heard of zips? Buttons even? Velcro?

Other than that, we were sitting in the most enormous comfy chairs and given fabulous heated blankets. Again, sensing what I was thinking, the man called from across saying that it felt like we were in a spa and too bad we were there to be chopped. I agreed that I’d rather be getting a manicure and we both decided to make a dash for it since we were momentarily left unsupervised and we had cold feet despite our amenities.

Sadly, at that moment the nurses brought in our spouses and our plan was foiled. Telepathically linked, the man asked his nurse if anyone ever woke up during a surgery. How did this man have this uncanny ability to say whatever I was thinking?

His nurse claimed she was new and didn’t know. My one was very matter of fact about everything. The type of gal that would glove up and give someone a suppository and tell them point blank that it would hurt.

I expected her to say no either way just to keep me calm before surgery--wouldn't that be protocol? Instead, she said ‘oh yes, it has happened before’. Not what I wanted to hear. Luckily for my mind twin, he had already taken out his hearing aid.

P was next to me, clinging onto all my worldly belongings, like a lonely Sherpa with no mountain to climb. If someone made a cartoon out of us at that moment, his caricature would have had several sweat beads flying off the side of his face. He muttered something that sounded like he questioned my sanity for asking such a thing.

He began to alternate between praying and asking me not to worry. I was resigned to my fate by then, bolstered by the camaraderie I felt with my new like-minded friend, but P was looking a lighter shade of pale.

A very young chap, claiming to be in charge of the anesthetics, came over to talk to me. He was very kind and calm, but I tried to speed things along because surely, he had to report to his homeroom before the first bell rang at school.

Soon after, a very tall, angelic nurse floated in from the operating room. She had a very soothing way about her and I sailed along with her, lulled by a hopefully not false sense of security. I am not sure what happened to P by then.

He looked worried and I hoped my nutty sister was done taking Lanes to school and that she would be there to accidentally trip a patient or set off a fire alarm and thereby distract P. I was relieved for two things when I stepped into the OR.

The first was that I had been de-spectacled. I would have freaked out if my vision was 20/20 and I could witness all the instruments and machines in all their glory. The second was that Doogie Howser was not my anesthesiologist and that he was actually an intern.

They led me to the operating table, which was really probably the piece of wood they used as the plank in the last Disney movie featuring Captain Hook. Had I been any wider, I would have fallen off.

With one last look at my ethereal OR nurse, I quickly reminded her about my allergies—my last attempt at any control over the situation, and then it was lights out.

I woke up surprised to feel like I had heartburn and aches and pains in my shoulder, back, and chest. Did I just come out on the losing end of a wrestling match? My first question to a bewildered nurse was whether Lanes got to school safely. For some reason, I assumed she would know.

She dipped me down for all the gas they pumped into my abdomen to leave and then the shoulder pain went away. Next thing I know, I was given the chalkiest most disgusting heartburn meds which I only downed because I was not yet fully in charge of my faculties.

The nurses took excellent care of me and put up with my incoherent complaints regarding aches. For me, the entire point of getting that blooming gall bladder extracted was to be free from pain. Each time, they patiently explained that I had just come from surgery where I had an organ removed and it was only natural to feel this way.

If I was a nurse, and had a patient in denial like me, I would have said ‘listen you fool, you done lost a body part, what you expect? Now zip it!’. I would have been called Nurse Wreched.

The rest of the recovery was uncomfortable and I was drifting out of consciousness only to be brought back by pain in the abdomen and the incessant sound of chatter. I was also in fear that my nutty sister would visit when I was out for the count because she has a tendency to go nuts pressing buttons on hospital beds just to see what happens.

The last thing I needed was to be instantly forced upright or pumped with 20ccs of morphine by accident. I remember vaguely seeing her once but P was with her so I felt safe.

When it was time for me to be mercifully released, I was asked the names of my next of kin so that they could come in and help me get dressed. I was very whoozy and my throat was sore so I couldn’t repeat P’s name multiple times—they were just not getting it. So I said, he is the anxious looking male in the lobby, and they at once registered who it was and brought him in a jiffy.

Apparently, my nutty sister had gone off to get some food and pick up Lanes and so I was left with P to help me with my clothes. Considering my brain was not telling me where my limbs were, my upper body was sore, and P couldn’t tell my shirt apart from my sweatpants, it was a challenge to say the least.

We were given several instructions that I was not alert for, and for once I was glad for P’s overly methodical take charge nature. He was one step ahead, booking follow up appointments and preparing schedules for me. I was relieved that for once, I didn’t have to poke my nose into anything.

The nurses decided I was definitely in capable hands and they were rather pleased as punch with him. While I’m sure I came off as jelly-legged and fuzzy brained, he came out looking like the poster boy for Husband of the Year. Poor P. This is the most attention he has had in ten years. Good for him.

Between extreme dizziness and nausea, I have no idea how I got to our apartment. All I remember is upchucking massive amounts of bile and collapsing onto the bed after a quick outfit change with the help of spouse and sibling.

Lanes was back and she snuck a peek at my wounds and immediately decided to make her aunt her instant security blanket. Meanwhile, P had all sorts of medication and food around me and he was breaking rest to drug me every four hours in attempts to stay ahead of the pain.

I was drifting in and out and longing to hang out with my nutty sister. In between, I drove her and P crazy because I deliriously tried micromanage what they were doing from my sick bed. They were amazed that even sedated as I was, I had to make sure things were running my way and that the kitchen was not a mess.

As predicted, though, my nutty sister announced she would leave the next day and not on Sunday and I was determined to fight the codeine and try to stay up to spend time with her. I think the drugs won that round. My head felt like it was on the spin cycle of a washing machine from the 1980s.

I must say that despite all the times I have complained that P never listens or spends too much time hogging our one and only bathroom, he took meticulous care of me. I woke up each day to find everything I could possibly need by my bed.

Even though he has no time in the morning thanks to getting a grouchy Lanes up and running, he lovingly made French toast for me because that was the only thing I felt up for eating. So I guess, he does get Husband of the Year. Good boy. I hope he won't think I've bumped my head after reading this blog--compliments just don't come easy to me. I express love through sarcasm and synchronized eye rolling.

Now I’m off the pain medication but I made the mistake of researching life post surgery. Charming side effects such as bile salt diarrhea, flatulence and cramps have had me in fear. I have been eating carefully due to this.

Ok, I lie. It’s mostly because my nutty sister and P have cleared the apartment of any fatty foods and I’m too weak to call the local Chinese delivery. Plus, the menus are suspiciously missing.

This weekend, though, I have to try an iced coffee or french fries, to take my new digestive system out for a spin. I wouldn’t want to find these things out at a dinner party—not a good way to win friends and influence people.

With that I must sign out. More musings from BC next week…unless P has me committed for being uncharacteristically charming and sweet to him this week. Oh and below—a cartoon of what would have been had my nutty sister been around me for the surgery:

Ring Ring Why Don't You Give Me A Call

2013-11-10T16:58:00.000-08:00

I have been prancing around the greater Vancouver area with celery stuck up my nose and my cell phone attached to my side. As usual, I have been waiting for some hospital or the other to call me with regards to scheduling my surgery. As a precautionary measure, I am avoiding fatty foods and this particular exercise has rendered me even more charming than usual.

The day finally came when I met up with my surgeon. All that waiting for a ten minute consultation, if that. The good news was that he really knew his stuff (according to what I've learned from Google). The bad news was that he would not let me keep my gall bladder--and there went my plan to keep it in a jar in my living room.

My diligent spouse, P, and my nutty sister were very delighted by this rejection because neither of them wanted to sit around a room that had my body parts floating in pickle juice. I was rather pissed off and wished that I had prefaced it by saying it was for cultural reasons or something of that sort.

After taking half a day off for this momentous few minute meeting, I zipped off to my temp job right after, because really, after missing a week thanks to the ER visits a few weeks ago, I literally couldn't afford to miss a moment more.

I returned to find my coworker who was covering for me in a flap because my tentative surgery date coincided with the date that three of our colleagues, also temps, had to leave thanks to the new rules about our contracts. She acted like the world would end and that I would never return from my surgery.

I was trying valiantly to catch up with all the work I had missed that morning, all the while consoling her simultaneously. I half imagined her standing on the table and breaking out into 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' when it was her last day. Amazingly, I caught up with my work super fast and I wound up praising my efficiency for the rest of the day. Those folks will sure miss me when I'm gone.

Since that day, I have been prancing around with my cell phone by my side because the hospital was supposed to call me regarding some pre-admission tests that I have to do. The one day I wore clothes that had no pockets to work, I had to strap my phone around my neck.

My hair was even puffier than normal thanks to the weather and I looked like a St.Bernard. All that and the phone never rang. I called and tormented some very kind nurse several times and she kept apologizing that the hospital was rather back logged in terms of paperwork.

Eventually, they called me on Friday and I was told that i had to go for even more blood tests. After my stints in the ER, I had so much blood drawn from me that I wondered if they were catering for a vampire convention.

So off I went to the hospital on Saturday with my sleeves rolled up. I had never been to this particular facility before and when I strolled in, I had a flashback to heydays of the '80s. Surely, this must be where they brought JR after he was shot.

Although immaculate and well maintained, I expected to bump into the cast of Dallas, Dynasty or Falcon Crest at every turn. Luckily, or not depending on how you look at it, I met no one with feathered, layered hair or shoulder pads. The nurses were very nice and I barely felt the prick when they drew my blood for the umpteenth time.

My nutty sister would love this place. I asked her to come across the border to help me out with our six year old, Lanes, on the day of the surgery. I envisioned her sitting by my bedside, with her eyebrows so far up that they would be behind her head.

I would turn to her after the surgery, and using that brief moment in time when she is so glad I'm alive to ask her for a chocolate fudge sundae. Sadly, she has other plans. First of all, she refused to get me one saying that's how I wound up losing my gall bladder in the first place. She thinks I should be eating carrots and drinking wheat grass.

Secondly, she wasn't planning to hang around me at all. She had grand plans to prance around Lanes' school, pretending to be her mom. My nutty sister then wanted to take Lanes home during lunch break, feed her, and take her back to school. Who does that to a first grader?

So great, I'll be getting chopped up and P will have to leave the waiting room when my nutty sister gets sent to the principal's office for suspiciously loitering around the school halls all day.

Any old how, I sat Lanes down to explain my surgery and to try to allay any of her fears. All she heard was that my nutty sister was coming and she tuned out everything else. She is busy concocting fun plans with her aunt. Those two are peas in a pod. So much for sympathy and spoiling by my sibling.

Meanwhile, my aunt has taken to calling me up frequently and in an almost choked voice she asks 'how are you child?'. I get her highly upset by saying 'Still alive!' and laughing maniacally. Terrible, I know, but I'm only having a gall bladder removed. It's not like they are throwing a nip and tuck in there for good measure.

With that, I must sign off. Lanes just walked in announcing she was going to start a project. That never ends well for me or the carpet. Hopefully, I'll have a proper surgery date, or better yet, I'll weigh one organ less when next I blog. More musings from BC next week...

Drama

2013-10-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

Before I begin, let me address my readers with gut wrenching maternal instincts to keep me in a bubble wrapped safe room, preferably in a straight jacket, that at this precise moment in time, I am safe and healthy in the confines of my crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment.

What I am about to discuss, however, is not for the faint of heart or those easily incensed by idiocy, injustice or bureaucracy. (*If you produced me or are a sibling of someone who did, stop reading--seriously. If you keep reading, don't call and yell at my answering machine--it has feelings too).

So last I left off, I had a harrowing sleep over at the nearest emergency room. Not only did I come home under sedated, I had a lovely bruise on my left arm where a nurse kept trying to give me an IV that didn't work out.

I spent the following day a restless mess, and the next night I couldn't sleep due to aches and pains that were so severe, I couldn't make it to work. I was stumbling around the house like I was auditioning for a bad arthiritis mediation commercial.

As the day progressed, I had chills and by evening I had fever. I commandeered my six year old daughter, Lanes', bed and I was generating so much heat I thought I was going to sear a hole through her Dora bedsheets. The next minute I was freezing so much I felt like I was wearing a swimsuit in an igloo. Were my symptoms developing multiple personalities?

My weary spouse, P, and Lanes were snoring in symphony, both exhausted after my first night at the ER. From my internet surfing (who needs med school anymore?), I knew that chills and fevers were a bad sign when it comes to the gall bladder and that they required immediate medical attention.

So off we went again. Luckily, my good friend's son is Lanes' BFF, and they were kind enough to take our little bundle of joy in even though it was midnight. Lanes initially complained about being rudely awoken, but then decided we were rather fabulous to surprise her with a spontaneous sleep over.

My friend was kind enough to wake her son up for the event so that Lanes would feel happy and comfortable. P and I then tried our luck at another ER, where we had to sit around for about five hours until we were given a room.

Several people sluggishly meandered around the ER wearing face masks and emitting weird sounds that sounded like death rattles in between strained breaths. Invariably, they would settle next to us, and always one to be terrified of germs, P and I unwittingly found ourselves playing a game of musical chairs.

After bending in pain, clutching a chuck bucket for good measure, P started to watch me like a hawk because I was scouting for scalpels to remove the darn organ myself. The pain was like a guided GPS--I knew exactly where in tarnation that pesky gall bladder was.

Close to sunrise, we were finally seen by an ER doctor. He scanned my abdomen and announced that I had a very unusual gall bladder, which sent me on a tail spin. He then suggested pain treatment options--finally.

I had the charming choice between a suppository and an injection. Between my lack of sleep and alarm about my odd body parts, hearing without listening, I absent mindedly chose the latter because I was too busy asking P what was wrong with my gall bladder.

A suspiciously chipper nurse came in, and went on some story about how I should picture myself in Hawaii, sipping a Mai Tai. She was not amused when I pointed out that drinking would be a really good way to piss off my gall bladder some more.

She then jabbed me with the injection and boy did I see stars! It almost overshadowed the pain in my abdomen. The nurse then explained that that was the reason she was trying to distract me. While the pain in my arm lingered, the pain in my side vanished.

P told me he thought I was very brave to go with that option, considering the needle was as long as a flagpole. Clearly, I was in no frame of mind to make such important decisions.

The one time I needed P's two cents, he lets me make a judgment call without interfering. By now he should know that there is a fine line between being brave and stupid, and clearly, I was on the stupid side of the fence. The Genius of the Year Award clearly does not go to me.

I was starving and it was time for Lanes to get ready for school. As I tried to leave the ER, the nurse announced that I have to take another scan that day itself, which meant no food. Considering the last meal I had was a measly amount of food at 6pm the night before, I was not pleased.

We got home close to 7am. Poor P rushed to pick Lanes up from her sleepover and then dropped her off at school. We got a few hours of rest in, and then back again to the hospital for my 1.30pm scan. I was so hungry, I thought I was going to faint Victorian style.

When I went in to register, they were confusing me by asking me to perform tasks like to spell out my mother's name. Visions of foods that I longed to eat were floating before me instead, and P rushed to the rescue.

I must have clearly looked famished because they quickly sent me for my scan and before I knew it, it was done and over with. I think I have more pictures of my body parts than most people have of themselves on Facebook.

But no, my ordeal was not done. They wanted me to go back to the ER immediately for the doctor to go over the scan results with me. Trice in one week, twice in one day. Great.

P was standing outside the door with a bottle of water and a peanut butter sandwich, which I gratefully devoured. I bee lined it to the nearest cafeteria where I had the world's coldest most insipidly dry tuna sandwich.

Several more hours of waiting later, I was examined yet again. I was put under the microscope more times than an artifact at the Smithsonian. I was told the obvious, that my gall bladder needed to come out.

The bonus good news? By now my gall bladder was inflamed and infected to boot. Lovely. This is what happens when one has to be on a waiting list for help.

Just as I tried to leave, they paged their surgeon and it turns out, he was the one P was coveting for my surgery from the beginning.
So back again to waiting to see if he would take on my case. By this time, P had to leave to pick Lanes up from school and deposit her once again with my friend.

By the time I eventually got home, it was past 7pm. I was exhausted from several nights of no sleep. I missed Lanes terribly, having not seen her for a day.

I called my friend only to hear Lanes and her BFF jabbering in the background begging me to have another sleep over. She did have another set of PJs there just in case, but I asked that she return.

By 8pm, I was well medicated and P made sure Lanes was ready for bed. I squeezed her and hugged her and she then asked me what would happen if I kicked the bucket. I assured her that I did not have any such plans, and in fact, I already decided I'm moving in with her in my old age. I added that I would prefer to be on a meal plan too.

Ever practical, Lanes wanted a back up plan just in case I pop it. She then wanted back up plans to her back up plans, and when she was happy with the chain of custody that comes with my untimely demise, she accepted the fact that I have decided to be around to pester her for a long time to come.

I was amused though that she discounted her father and her uncles, and solely wanted to know all the female relatives that will be in charge of her. Hmm.

The net result of all of this was that I had to cancel my birthday lunch, which left me in a really bad mood. I was also now terrified to eat anything at all and was severely put out by certain foods.

However, things looked up towards the end of the week. My nutty sister jet propelled herself across the border for a day, bringing us food because we were too tired to cook or go grocery shopping.

She is also always in constant fear of me popping off, I have no idea why. For some reason she can't live without me. Must be my charm.
I was greatly cheered up by her arrival and I felt I returned to life soon after. Gosh, I hope she is not reading this blog.

That evening we got a lovely surprise by my buddies the Mishras, who have been keeping in touch through my ordeal. A lovely bouquet of flowers that made Lanes gasp with joy! A nice reminder to literally and metaphorically smell the roses at all times.

That being said, I must sign off as it's finally time for me to go to the chop shop, i.e. surgeon's office. Wish me luck! More musings from BC next week...

Faulty Internal Affairs

2013-10-15T12:37:00.004-07:00

I have been haunted by all the foods I've loved before. That is the main reason I have been unusually silent. Visions of chicken tikka masala, sour cream and onion chips, and hot chilli oil from greasy Chinese restaurants have returned with more ferocity than the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future; only in my case, they are the Ghosts of Foods Oily, Spicy and Preserved.

I spent most of Sunday night in the emergency room. The weekend was packed full of get togethers and I valiantly avoided landmines such as fried foods, sweets and meals after 7pm. Having successfully navigated the weekend, I ate dinner a friend's house in the spirit of Canadian Thanksgiving.

Oh my goodness! By the time I got home, I couldn't stand or sit or lie down. I felt like fired up iron claws were tightening my ribcage and after a particularly charming bout of vomiting, I announced to my bleary eyed, worried spouse, P, that the day had finally come when the gall bladder sent me to the hospital.

By that point, I couldn't even fathom how long it would take to get to the hospital or how soon I could be tended to when I got there. Time stood still as the pain took over. P was left to haul our slumbering six year old, Lanes and jet propel me to the hospital. That was not an easy task since she weighs as much as ten gunny sacks of rice easily.

I stumbled into the ER, like a tipsy walrus, clutching onto a chuck bucket firmly in hand. I must have looked deathly ill because I was seen quite quickly.

Some genius of a nurse couldn't find my veins for the IV, but luckily the pain in my abdomen and back was so great that I didn't notice the mini-butchering going on to my left arm.

Mercifully, she gave up quickly, and a chipper nurse came in and found the appropriate vein on my right arm. I was given some stuff for nausea and lots of morphine.

It was already 3am and I was really tired. The pain refused to subside though, and I was dizzy and sleepy to boot thanks to the morphine. By that time, P was summoned and sitting uncomfortably on a very upright chair by my bed, with Lanes draped on top of him.

She woke up briefly, and I was horrified that she would be terrified after seeing me lying down in a hospital bed with tubes on my arm. Worse yet, I feared she would leap onto me like a baby squirrel.

In her sleepy state, she smiled at me, said 'Happy Thanksgiving Mommy', and returned to drooling on the crook of her father's stiff neck. To this day, I don't know how P held onto her on that tiny hard chair.

I wanted desperately to get some rest, but the folks in the room next to me, now feeling better because the drugs they were given were working, started chatting loudly like it was happy hour at a bingo game. They were yakking away for at least three hours. What were they? Vampires? Go to sleep already.

The chipper nurse then decided I needed a Voltaren suppository, but I was in too much pain to be suitably horrified. At that point, I would have happily cut out my gall bladder without any anesthetics. By about 6am, they decided my blood work was ok and I was sent home, faulty body parts and all.

I think P was the worst off having stayed up all night, carrying Lanes to boot. In addition, it is now Tuesday and I'm still worse for wear. I could barely stand up this morning and I really needed much rest.

Lanes decided to cough up a storm, but the minute her father called the school to say she was not well, she miraculously stopped sniffling and proceeded to bounce off the ceilings. Considering I'm was still a little dizzy and loopy, this traumatized me greatly.

An avid eavesdropper, only when she heard me telling P that she is right as rain and I might send her to school with a friend of mine, did she simmer down. She later came in and announced she stayed home to take care of me. I guess her intentions were good, but she seems to be taking care of me more in a Godfather sense.

I narrowly escaped being kicked in the gall bladder and she has been sitting on my tired feet, playing while I'm trying to rest. Fortunately, the Disney channel has come to the rescue at this moment.

I called the surgeon's office to see if my appointment could be expedited given the sad state of internal affairs of my organs, but they are still completely booked up. Apparently, after him, the surgery could take months to be scheduled. Oh great.

Basically, not only do I have to knock, but possibly make a pizza delivery at death's door before I can have this silly gall bladder out. So between the general discomfort from this illness and having lots to do at work, I'm rather tired most of the time.

I will try to get better about blogging though. Next time, more drama involving about job fairs, playground antics, and computers invaded by 90s superstars. More musings from BC next week...

Big Wheel Keep on Turning

2013-09-22T16:21:00.002-07:00

I battled a cold, raged against the system and staved off dramatic antics.

I spent the greater part of last week anchored to the sofa thanks to a horrible cold. Why not a bed? They were out of bounds for fear of inevitable cross contamination in such close quarters. The last thing I needed was to share the bug with my long suffering spouse, P, and our six-year-old offspring, Lanes.

Lanes not only rotates around her bed, at around 3am she migrates to ours, where she continues to make cute snoring noises while she ferociously pummels our backs and vital organs with the vigor of a soccer champ kicking a ball to score the winning goal of a big match. After two days of staying home and leaving a large impression on the couch, I arrived at my temp job to find everything turned upside down.

In general, it had the vibe that was a cross between a Genius Bar and a Starbucks. This day, however, through my rather stuffed ears I thought I could hear that corny Western tune that comes in just as tumbleweeds scoot across the way and two cowboys size each other up before a showdown. I shuddered at the chill and asked for a heads up. Surely, it wasn't because everyone missed me so much.

Turns out that the temp agency that hired the temp agency (yes, we are twice contracted out—no wonder we have only pennies to rub together at the end of the day) that we work for had some sort of meeting with the company that we temp for and the net result was that whereas our contracts were to be renewed, they are now only allowing us to work for five months. From them it’s ‘thank you, have a nice day, don’t come back again’.

Seriously? When do I get to retire my interview suit? I am getting rather tired of constantly job hunting. Next time round, I think I’ll ditch the temp agencies and try my luck on my own.

I was so annoyed with the entire situation that I decided perhaps I should do practical things like buy lottery tickets and hunt down the end of a rainbow instead of trolling the internet for jobs.

My boss was in a flap about being unable to retain us, coworkers whose contracts were up before mine were making life line calls to find alternate employment, and I got landed doing not only my job but someone else’s as well. That was the icing on the cake at the roundup of a horrendous week.

Perhaps it was a foolish idea to leave my sickbed, I mean sick sofa, that day. All this happened in an already dramatic week. I was still reeling from the fact that my charming and witty niece, who sadly has the motor skills of a newborn deer, decided to fall off her stool in school and give herself a concussion.

In between bouts of coughing up phlegm that had tentacle like grips on my sinuses, I nearly blew a fuse when I found out she hurt herself. Just two days before that, P and I were remarking on how refreshing it was that she had stopped that whole falling down thing.

My darling niece is rather notorious for suddenly falling backwards off chairs at restaurants and tripping over random inanimate objects. She inevitably pops back up right away, in a flurry of long arms and legs, but we are all rather worse for wear and down several heartbeats each time.

When I was stuck in the hospital after Lanes was born, I lived in fear that she would trip and yank out my catheter or IV, because you know, that’s the kind of thing that would happen to me. Every time she pranced into the room, in my barely lucid state, I would mutter and wave my arms furiously to a clueless P to quickly block any wires that were attached to my person.

Then there was the time at Lanes’ fist birthday, when my niece was about eight, where she decided to go down a covered slide. She proceeded to get gloriously stuck towards the bottom and in the meanwhile, a small child had gone in behind her and now she was stuck as well.

That girl’s father was on all fours, peering in trying to see where his precious child was and my little darling was still stuck up there, clogging up the entire chute. Five minutes later, out comes my niece, all limbs first, looking like a breached baby foal at the moment of birth.

That other little child flew out of the slide then, hoping to run into her father’s arms, but by that time, he had climbed up in an attempt to rescue her from the top. I was so thunderstruck by the entire episode, I couldn’t help laughing. If it was hysteria or mirth, I still can’t tell.

In other news, Lanes came home from school and as I was trying to spin her into the kitchen to wash her hands, she announced that some boy kissed her on the cheek. Her father froze and I thought I misheard as a result of my ears still being a little clogged up.

She then batted on ‘I don’t know what is wrong with him. I was trying to climb the ladder to go on the slide and he kissed my cheek and then when I came down the slide he was there and he kissed my cheek again!’.

P, who looked fine, immediately announced that he feels sick and that he caught the cold from me. He left the scene muttering something about needing to rest. That was helpful (not). He spent the rest of the evening in a funk that suddenly cleared up the next morning.

Meanwhile, I have not been getting the best sleep thanks to pains in my side that come on in the wee hours of the night. I feel like performing and exorcism on my gall bladder. At this point, I don't want to fight to keep it. It has as much appeal as an unwanted tenant. It's time to secede.

I have been waiting forever to get an appointment with a surgeon. The family doctor scheduled me with one, but it appears that doctor has a lawsuit against him and there are some Steven King quality horror stories in his reviews.

Needless to say, I called in and said I’ll keep the unruly gall bladder until a better surgeon comes my way. Hopefully, I’ll get an appointment for at least the end of next month.

With that I must sign off. P is at the breakfast table, jabbering under his breath because Lanes brought up the topic of her kissing bandit classmate. I think I'll have to give him some booze to survive the teen years. More musings from BC next week…

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLING KR!!

Growed Up

2013-09-07T12:02:00.002-07:00

So our six year old, Lanes, finally got her ears pierced! Of course with our family, that rite of passage had to be accompanied with drama. It also opened up our little world into a whole new host of firsts and I am about to traumatize our neighborhood by getting up on my roof with a fiddle and wailing 'Sunrise, Sunset' 'Fiddler on the Roof' style. Where is that little girl I carried?

My diligent spouse, P, meticulous to a fault, painstakingly looked up everything that was ever written about ear piercings and he arrived at Lanes' appointment with his research, a print out of the store's policy on piercings, charts on aftercare and half a box of tissues in his pocket in case our little dumpling would cry from the pain.

Clearly, P has never been a little girl before. Who bursts out crying from piercing ears these days? While P fluttered around the store, jet propelled by his angst and anxiety, Lanes was seated in her chair with her game face on. She was on a mission, after patiently waiting months for this day, and she was not even going to blink until the hypoallergenic Hello Kitty studs were in her ears.

The lady who was doing the piercings was trying to give us instructions, but P was interjecting with addendums and reciting fine print. When she used a pen to show us where the earrings would go, P stepped back, deliberated and offered suggestions on proper centering of the spot. Luckily, that woman had a sense of humor and shared a quick wink with me about how anxious P was.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine who accompanied me and I were watching the entire thing with our mouths open. Lanes was staring ahead and I was afraid she was holding her breath in anticipation the entire time. Eventually, probably to keep him and the nervous energy he was radiating contained, P was asked to put Lanes on his lap.

Kiddo was a real trooper, but P was priceless. Anyone would have thought he was having a root canal done by a blindfolded dentist. His face was tilted up, his eyes were squinted and he seemed absolutely tortured. After it was done, P probably needed a drink. Lanes was matter of fact and happy, especially since she got a lollypop to boot.

After laughing at P, it was suddenly my turn to feel a little ill. With her ears pierced, it solidified the idea that she was no longer my baby and that she was now my little girl. It only highlighted the fact that her hair was longer, her cheeks were less chubby, and her front teeth were missing (we clearly underpaid the Tooth Fairy).

I trapezed besides her while she was skipping towards the car with joy, talking nonstop to my friend, all the while thinking I want to grab her and cuddle her nonstop. I realized then that I'm so going to be the mom that accidentally on purpose gets a job on her college campus her Freshman year.

To make it worse, the days of play dough and cartoons are gone, now replaced by teeny bopper sitcoms. I never thought I'd miss hearing 'The Wheels on the Bus'. Now she is singing along with Taylor Swift. I'm one step away from taking her to a Bieber concert, at which point I might have to take up yoga or practice breathing exercises.

Lanes has also taken to answering our phone. So much for screening calls. She happily offers the most unflattering accounts of what her father and I are doing before putting each call through. The inspiration for all this was a little boy from her kindergarten class.

He called and left a message on the answering machine asking to speak with her and she was over the moon because apparently 'all the girls love him'. I called him up for her and they were going on rambling about their imaginary dogs for forty minutes! They would have yakked on had it not been for the intervention of that child’s grandmother, who needed to use the phone.

With all this growing up going on, when I was putting her to bed the other night we started talking about Grade I and reminicing about her kindergarten graduation, when she announced that she wants to be a mom when she grows up.

Always one to extract compliments by force, or engineer situations wherein praise would be thrown my way, I teased her and said, 'aw did you say that because you love mommy so much?'. I was hoping to get a big hug at this juncture, coupled with a Hallmark moment.

She looked at me in a matter of fact way and said, 'well, no, it's just because that's the best job there is'. Hmm. For someone who was relieved to finally be back in the workforce, I was really glad for the time that I stayed home with her.

I felt really stupid for all the times when I tried to camouflage being a full time mom by saying I was a 'writer'. I guess this is where the saying 'out of the mouths of babes' comes from. Leave it to Lanes to put things in perspective for me.

In other news, I am almost certain to part ways with my gall bladder. P has been shoving apple juice down my throat so much that I feel like a goose being force fed in order to be turned to foie gras (which I am adamantly opposed to). He read that the juice softens the stones--thank you internet (not).

Clearly, I am beyond this but every day he comes up with innovative unpalatable ideas. I'm still waiting to get an appointment with a surgeon because I'm at a point where I am waiting to kick the faulty organ out!

Ever one to look on the bright side of life, I thought at least it's a good way to lose some weight. Like when I had Lanes, I lost ten pounds in one day! Voila! My nutty sister quickly burst this bubble by announcing that the gall bladder probably weighed but a few ounces. If my scans are right though, I got some boulders in there, so I'm hoping at least I'll get three pounds off :) More musings from BC next week about my misadventures with appointments...

Check Up and Out

2013-08-25T17:21:00.001-07:00

My nutty sister is back in Seattle after a holiday in Europe where she must have left half dozen Swiss people scratching their heads and wondering what hit them. She called me just now in a sleep deprived, jet lagged stupor and tried to play twenty questions with my gall bladder being the main topic of interest.

This exercise, surely derived from the same family as Chinese water torture, led me to realize that my voice could soar through crescendos I had thought not possible previously. Several dogs in the neighborhood have fled due to the shrill pitch, and now I’ve doubled the work of the BCSPCA. Thank goodness I give them biannual donations.

Meanwhile, Lanes’ best friend is spending the day, and he no doubt will go home and complain that he is scared of me. Poor child. Between my hysteria and Lanes’ propensity to randomly hug him, I don’t know what’s to become of him.

The reason for my sister’s interrogation (or rather ‘in-terror-gation), is because I’ve been scanned so many times now that I’m waiting to be bagged and checked out.

In addition to random bouts of pain in my side, I have been battling with hives the entire summer. I really think that one should get a license to surf the internet, because through unsupervised research, I concluded that I have gallstones and the hives were a direct result of these. I also decided that I needed a liver transplant (at which point my diligent spouse, P, slammed his palm into his head).

I was further vindicated when my homeopath made the same diagnosis (without being preempted by me). However, he suggested that I lay off the internet for unsolicited medical advice and assured me that I do not need a liver transplant. He did, however, strongly urge me to get my gall bladder and liver scanned.

After waiting around for almost two months, I finally had my appointment last week. I was under strict instructions not to eat or drink anything for twelve hours. For someone who is constantly thinking of food, being asked to be cut off from it for half a day was horrific.

I decided to sleep as much as I could and put post it notes around our ghetto fabulous apartment reminding me not to accidentally drink water in the morning, the time of day my brain patterns most resemble that of a zombie.

I was so busy deciding that I would surely collapse from the lack of food in my system that I didn’t think to be nervous about the scan. P was determined to tag along, but since he is in the business of dispensing unwanted medical advice, I thought it would be better for my sanity if he was busy taking our six year old, Lanes, to daycare.

Of course on the way there, P calls me saying Lanes has had the runs and he was home with her. He wanted to know since I already had half the day off, at my new job, mind you, if I could take the rest of it off and come home and stay with her.

Meanwhile back at the radiology office, half the technicians were out sick, so I was told that my appointment that was to be at 9am might be pushed back.

My stomach growled violently and my head spun as I waited for my appointment to be over with so that I could stuff my face. I was lamenting that I could no longer walk across the way and indulge in several bar-b-que pork buns, because I had to run home.

Before I knew it, my angry digestive tract and I were whisked into a room. I thought I was getting only my liver and gall bladder scanned, but they threw in my kidneys, intestines and what not in with the deal. I knew it was a bad sign when the technician put the ‘mouse’ on my gall bladder and said ‘you were not supposed to eat breakfast!’.

Considering I looked like I was answering a casting call for ‘Les Miserables’ she apologized and said not to mind what she just said. That’s when I knew she found something! The rest of the scan seemed to take forever and I was getting confused between pushing my stomach in and out.

I have never in my life purposely made a concerted effort to puff my stomach out. It seemed so unnatural, that this simple order took a lot of concentration.

By the time I was done, P and Lanes came to pick me up and after we were secured at home and I was fed, P jet propelled himself to work. Lanes had a marvelous recovery, which made me wonder if it all was a ploy to stay home.

She was packed off to daycare the next day, feeling right as rain, but then in the afternoon she threw up the lunch she never ate. That’s how we wound up at the doctor’s office for the third time that week. It seems she had caught a stomach bug.

Lanes is now back to her normal self, and as I type this, she is involved in an intricately nonsensical conversation with her best friend. P, meanwhile, is surfing the web and coming up with all kinds of charming remedies for my gall bladder.

On Monday, I got a call from my GP asking me to come in immediately to discuss my scan results. That put me in a tizzy and I left in search of dim sum to drown my sorrows. P decided he was taking time off work and invited himself by force to my appointment.

I knew he had researched because when I returned home cranky from my fruitless attempt to find Chinese food, he supplied me with twenty questions I had to ask the doctor even before I took my shoes off to get into the house.

I blanked him out, which resulted in him being even more determined to come and torment our GP. When I walked in with P looming around behind me, the doctor and his assistant couldn’t help giggling and asked me if I thought I needed backup!

Long story short, I did indeed have gall stones. Lots of them apparently, with two huge ones to boot. When they told me that I felt rather lumpy—like I had marbles in the right side of my abdomen. So that’s where all the marbles I lost along the way had accumulated.

The doctor suggested that with the proper diet and exercise the stones could dissolve. P chimed in, fearfully at least, that losing weight helps. No wonder they say there is a fine line between being bravery and stupidity. At that point the doctor probably feared for P’s safety.

P has done more research on how to dissolve gall stones and he has come up with this charming concoction involving drinking Epson salts and olive oil. Just the thought of it makes me gag. Adding to my nausea is the thought of P and my nutty sister joining forces to plan the future of my body parts. Perhaps it is easier to just break up with my gall bladder. More musings from BC next week…

Play Time

2013-08-11T21:19:00.001-07:00

It’s been two weeks of long nights, early days, play dates and malfunctioning body parts. In theory, I have had enough time to paint orange polka dots of mismatched sizes on my finger nails, in practice, I feel like I’m in a giant relay race.

My diligent spouse and I have enjoyed babysitting our now six year old, daughter, Lanes’ best friend from playschool, ‘Andrew’. They were packed off to different kindergartens and now that it is summer, they are rekindling their friendship. This mostly consists of Lanes randomly and quite spontaneously squeezing Andrew and declaring her undying love towards him.

Andrew, on the other hand, does not like physical displays of affection, and always looks like he is either constipated or terrified (perhaps both) each time she manhandles him. P is left to physically tear them apart and I have to give Lanes lectures about personal space. That being said, he asks to come back to our house, so I’m guessing he likes the abuse.

For the past two weekends, Andrew’s mom, who is my BFF here in Canada (fear not sidekick—you are irreplaceable), and I have been taking turns having the kids over. I am typing this in peace because Lanes is packed off to his place, where she is probably smothering him this very moment. Poor chap.

Meanwhile, I have not been following my homeopathic diet because I’ve been tantalized by various fried delights by the way of dim sum and iced coffee, so my liver and gall bladder are protesting violently. They have pretty much packed up their bags, put up a white flag and are ready to depart. I have thus been asked to scan my faulty organs to see if they need any help before they secede from me for good.

At this juncture, most people would be concerned about the outcome of the scan. My greatest fear is starving for twelve hours before it. My gosh, however will I survive? I’ll be cranky on the way to the scan—hungry equals grumpy in my case.

I also just got a temp job that requires me to wake up at 6am, so staying up until 3.30am doubled in pain feeling like a seasick pirate with a hole in her side is not an option. I am forced to attempt to eat healthy until the matter is resolved, but I have as much will power as there is rainfall in the Sahara.

In between all this, I’m randomly breaking out in hives. So far, the common denominators for the cause are sunlight and chocolate chip cookies. Sadly, on the few days we have of sunshine here, I am unable to walk about unless I want to spend the rest of the day furiously scratching at my arms and legs. The red blotches make me look like I fell into a vat of suction cups.

Considering little things like fruit flies outsmart me on a daily basis, I’m rather stumped as to the root cause of the malfunctions of my skin. My family doctor is equally mystified, and as such, I’m packed off to the allergist next month. In the meantime, I have some allergy meds that double as grizzly bear tranquilizers.

Meanwhile, P has been fluttering around the house claiming he wants homemade Chinese food. I presented him with a noodle dish as a surprise. P, blunt enough to be a judge on American Idol or tell someone they look like a beached whale if they do, claimed it was not what he was looking for.

When I told him I was offended, he told me he cannot tell a lie. And that is now he came to wear the noodles on his head. No, just kidding. I must be getting old, because I took it with a pinch of salt—literally.

P insisted on going to the library yesterday and he returned with two cookbooks. He rolled up his sleeves and was concentrating so hard on the ingredients that I thought they might levitate.

Lanes and I were being uncharacteristically unobtrusive, yet he wanted us out of the way to focus on his mission. So off we went to hang out with a friend of hers from kindergarten and I had a fun play date with her amigo’s mom. We returned several hours later to find P sprawled on the sofa looking rather pleased with himself.

This morning he made a Chinese egg dish with oyster sauce which was rather delicious, but perhaps better with rice for lunch rather than breakfast. I peppered him with praise with hopes that he will get obsessed with Indian food next weekend. Fingers crossed.

With that I must sign off and send P to pick up Lanes. Last I checked in, I could hear her chattering nonstop in the background. Our friends might find the silence deafening when she leaves! More musings from BC, next week, providing I don’t get in trouble for attempting to eat everything in the doctor’s office after my scan!

Sore Green Thumbs Up

2013-07-29T14:11:00.003-07:00

If there was an organization like PETA that defended the welfare of foliage, I would have had paint and flour thrown on me almost every time I stepped out of my ghetto fabulous apartment. Even with the greatest care, I manage to dispatch all potted plants that come to our place to greener pastures (no pun intended).

Back in the day, my alleged nature loving spouse, P, thought it would be lovely to have some flowers on our balcony. Inspired by our daughter, Lanes', favorite cartoon, we got enough potted plants to name after the entire Scooby Doo gang.

I seemed to suffer from selective amnesia when it came to watering them. I would always remember at 3am, when I'm just about fast asleep and then despite all good intentions, I never made it out of bed to tend to them. First Daphne fell, and then it was a free for all, with Shaggy holding on to the end.

After successfully obliterating the entire gang, I was full of remorse and promised never to bring home anything with roots. Of course, a few months later, while looking at the empty pots discarded on the balcony like shells on the beach, I decided we could use some green.

I happily brought home an aloe plant from the supermarket. P held his head and smirked. It lasted awhile but then it suddenly began to droop, possibly from over watering. I heard that Sprite perks up flowers in a vase, so I figured it would do wonders in this case. Of course, the next day I found the leaves on the floor.

Poor Lanes was accused of playing ball in the house and tipping it over because she was found with her mouth open in horror at the scene of the crime. It turns out, I was the real culprit, so that was the end of my quest to go green. But fate had other plans.

Last winter, Lanes was invited to a birthday party at a greenhouse. Part of the activity was that the kids get to paint a pot, play with some dirt, rub their hands off on their parents' shirts, and then pot a plant. I explained my serial killing tendencies to the person at the garden store and pleaded with her to give Lanes the hardiest of plants.

We came home with a self sufficient Christmas cactus with a strong will to live. I thought it best to leave it at that, because it's summer now and it appears to have survived.

So what did P do last week? He came home with a plant! I was not amused because it definitely looked like it was high maintenance, being all leafy and already slightly limp in some areas. After a lot of dramatic exclamations about extra responsibilities, I settled it next to the cactus.

I was fretting because Lanes was due to go to another birthday party at the greenhouse and she was sure to bring a summer time plant home. P agreed that it would be rather tragic if she did, but two days later, he comes home with a sheepish grin and produces two more frail looking plants. Oie ve.

On a happier, very unrelated note, our little Lanes turned six years old! How did she get so big? She still feels like a tiny little prawn when I hug her. Always one to come up with daunting requests, she asked me to make her a princess cake.

Hmm. Again, since I have only been cooking for three years and baking for far less, I smiled at Lanes while blindly agreeing. On the inside, I was freaking out and panic and ideas were swarming my head like turkeys let loose on a field.

In between all this, I was on standby for interviews. The temp agency has a tendency to call me at 4:58pm to announce interviews for the following day. I was on pins that I would get called in for one the Friday before the party, when I planned to bake the cakes from scratch.

Luckily (?) no one called, so I was free to shake and bake. I had the bright idea to bake two levels: the bottom one was to be the ocean with Ariel on it and the top one to be the hill with the castle and whatever other princesses on it. After that I was left to go crazy with food coloring for the icing, having too much fun adding seaweed and starfish to the bottom of the cake.

I then pilfered Lanes’ room and commandeered any princess related toys to use as decorations. The net result can be seen below. Luckily, she is still small enough to think even the gaudiest of things is beautiful, so all was well.

As a back up, my adorable niece fervently and I must say very lovingly baked and iced two dozen cupcakes. She also was given instructions by Lanes to come to her party dressed up as a fairy Godmother.

Meanwhile, my nutty sister was fluttering about announcing that she found a fabulous yet reasonable apartment for us to move into. Turns out, she was trying to check us into a retirement home! Luckily, this conversation happened mostly between her and P and I was spared a hysterical moment.

In the meantime, I finally am taking a scan of my cranky liver and gall bladder next month. In between all that, I'm still randomly breaking out in hives and I have to prepare for the job hunt. Oh and I also have to sign off to water those pesky plants. In an ironic turn of events, I have grown fond of them and am secretly harboring ideas of adopting more. Quelle horreur! More musings from BC next week...

Here is Lanes' birthday cake made by me:)

Hairy Tails

2013-07-18T15:31:00.004-07:00

I feel like a buck toothed rodent in the Whack-A-Mole game. Since I last wrote, I have been catching viruses like I'm trying to qualify for the Olympics. If someone sneezed in Portugal, I would get a cold here.

After our holiday fiasco, I was rather glad to be back in our crazy ghetto fabulous apartment, but my throat was sore and I noticed little bumps on my hands and feet. Something didn't feel right. Turns out, I had a souvenir from my trip--hand, foot and mouth disease!

That's not to be confused with hoof and mouth, which farm animals get. However, I am stubborn as an ox and often make a donkey of myself. Considering, hand foot and mouth generally only effects children, it's a true talent that I caught it--for the second time in my life!

After being holed away in my room until I was no longer contagious to children, I did not so much emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon. I then proceeded to get hives, and on hot days, they were particularly vicious.

I was in a huff and a puff (literally) and whining about possibly having the plague. The more I freaked out about it, the more ferociously it spread. I looked like I stuck my arms in a jellyfish aquarium (which I am perfectly capable of doing).

This led to a series of visits to my family doctor, and between the two of us, we couldn't figure out what I was allergic to. I stopped responding to medication, and due to the nature of my discomfort, he ordered a very strong antihistamine for me to take twice daily.

In fact, if I bumped my head and forgot who I was and suddenly decided to go camping, something I wouldn't be caught dead doing normally, I could use those pills as a tranquilizer dart should I come across any bears, hippos or woolly mammoths.

Out of desperation, I took a dose only to find no respite. I took my second dose and boy, I was out like a light. I woke up briefly at noon, had lunch and planned to make a birthday cake for my diligent spouse, P.

At 3.30pm I found myself still on the couch in my PJs. I snapped out of it in enough time to bake the cake, but then a few hours later, it was lights out again. This went on for the next day as well, and considering I was making a birthday dinner for P, I had to put alarms on to remember to put the stove off.

Meanwhile, after I stopped acting like I was auditioning for the lead role in the neighborhood production of Sleeping Beauty, poor Lanes was taken to an allergist to see why we are sporting around EpiPens with us where ever we go.

She was not thrilled to have several pin pricks on her back and so in an attempt to ignore the issue, she sat on P’s lap and squeezed her arms around his neck.

The net result was that P turned a brighter shade of blue, and we are still none the wiser as to what triggered the major allergy attack Lanes had a few months ago. Lanes made out like a bandit, delighted that she got to eat some shrimp (as part of the allergy test) and she got a trip to the Disney store (the bribe).

She wants a princess themed birthday party for herself, but her guest list is mostly boys. This should be interesting. I’ll just put a tiara on a dragon and call it a day.

I eventually had a bout of rash free days and I decided to really get back into the job hunt. I announced my arrival to my temp agency and they called me at the end of the day on Friday to say they scheduled an interview for me on Monday at 10:30am.

The weekend plans were hectic between homeopathy appointments and Lanes’ social schedule and on Sunday I looked on jealously and she pranced off with her father for a day of fun in the sun. I languished at home doing prep work for the interview.

On Monday, it took me about an hour to tame my hair and groom myself. I donned my interview suit, switched my cell phone off, and arrived bright and early to my appointment. My instructions were to call the manager in charge from the security desk.

Well, no one answered. Another lady from my temp agency befriended me in the lobby and she said she was waiting for a small eternity for the person interviewing her to show up.

I then wondered if everyone in that company had no sense of time, or if it was some sort of weird test to see what we would do. Twenty minutes later, I turned my phone on to call my temp agency.

Turns out the person performing the interview called my agency at 10 to cancel my 10.30am meeting because she ran out of funding. Seriously? Even if I lived next door, by 10am I would have left the house just to be professionally on time.

Where was the funding when she desperately needed someone at 4:54pm on Friday? Where was the funding when my Sunday was rendered utterly boring? Where was the funding when I was threatening my hair and spraying it till the cows came home?

I was livid. I was dressed up, prepared, and by that time my bus ticket expired. This meant I had to fish out another one. As usual, all dressed up with nowhere to go. I felt like a mashup between Cinderella and Cruella de Ville.

Meanwhile, the other girl from the temp agency had her interview, three feet away from me and she was fluttering around trying to cheer me on. I half felt like joining her interview!

Any old how, at least I made a friend (always look on the bright side). However, as the day went on, I got more and more annoyed. The next day, I went into Vancouver and signed up with two more temp agencies!

I got home exhausted and at 5pm my temp agency called and announced I had an interview at 2pm the next day. I was so tired, I just went to bed. That interview brought me flashbacks of my other job where I took two buses and a train to the middle of cornfields. Where's Toto when you need him?

Although the commute was not as long as with the previous job, again this place had no proper ‘civilization’ (by that I mean food options) close by. Always with my priorities straight, after I hiked up to the office, I asked the security guard if this joint had a cafeteria!

If it only had a vending machine that sold stale potato chips, I was going to run down the road screaming. Although taken aback, it didn’t faze him much because when I left he said he really hopes I get the job. My nutty sister thinks that he said that because having me around would be pure entertainment value for him.

I thought it was because I was a people person. Any old how, I was not sure I did want that job though. It wasn't 'the one'. I’m pretty fussy for someone with not much options.

Darn it, I’m going to be employed by August if it’s the last thing I do, plague or no plague! Any old how, that tom foolery aside, I now have to go shake and bake. Got to go make a princess cake for my little boo who is turning six years old this weekend! Aw little Lanes is getting big!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! More musings from BC next week…

Five years ago on July 16, I lost my beloved black Labrador and loving companion, Muttley. Please do something kind for an animal in memory of him. Thank you.

Just In Time

2013-07-04T12:44:00.003-07:00

After what seemed like a month of Sundays, we are finally back in the greater Vancouver area. We had an eventful journey. During the two day production that it was, I almost got banished from an airport lounge, made deals to smuggle food, and nearly had a heart attack due to bad weather.

My over industrious spouse, P, ever prone to bright ideas, decided that we should bring back three tea sets, a couple dozen wine glasses and some ornaments with us. If I didn't put my foot down, he might have added the seven dwarfs and a travelling circus to the mix.

He bought three flimsy suitcases, each one more styling than the next (that's sarcasm folks), to fit all these. After much swearing and bubble wrapping, or in other words, excellent multi-tasking on my part, they were all packed and ready to go.

As we were leaving the house, I realized that almost two days later, when we hit North America and had to retrieve our luggage in Chicago before resending it to Vancouver, we might have no recollection of what the new pieces look like.

My mother, like Doraemon, always has just what we need, so I ran up and got some red ribbon to tie on the handles. Not very classy, but I figured it would save us the drama of figuring out what is ours in a limited amount of time.

With that, we set off to the airport with our five year old, Lanes, pasted against her father and me with my handbag on my knees, praising myself for my foresight in operation ‘Luggage Gate’.

I was rather pleased to see the cases off at the airport counter, little red ribbons flapping in the wind as they went off through the conveyor belts, only to no doubt we shoved, thrown and abused in transit (we had several casualties, as I anticipated).

P, the mileage king, got us a spot in the business class lounge, even though we were barely one step up from cargo class. I was relieved since the seats were comfy and we had time to spare.

The added bonus for me was the provision of refreshments and access to a low traffic public bathroom. Nothing makes me happier than a buffet.

So what did I do? I angled my ample behind into a seat and turned to check on Lanes. My backpack, still on my back, whacked a glass lamp on a coffee table and it fell to the ground with a huge CRASH BANG BOOM.

All passengers who were asleep were now suitably awake and all eyes were on me and my Mr.Bean moment. Luckily, I didn't break the glass top of the table as well. P looked on in amused horror and Lanes rallied to my side, stunned at the dazzling spectacle before her.

Much embarrassed, I went to the front desk to confess. The receptionist did not look amused. If she had a spare dunce hat and a stool, she might have asked me to sit in a corner and think about what I did.

I felt like I was going to the Principal's office or perhaps directly to jail without collecting $200. Someone eventually showed up to calculate the damage. Initially, I was asked to pay for it (at which point P started to sweat a little).

After the manager assessed the situation, he decided that the accident was because I was bumbling buffoon and not because I was intoxicated, so I was let off the hook, after I promised to make a confession in writing.

P, stunned into giggles by my lack of grace, was acting as if though an invisible man was tickling his armpits. He went on with a charming spiel about how these things only happen to me. An hour or so later, P's hilarity was cut short by the sudden emergence of a bout of diarrhea. I think the only way we will be welcome in that lounge again is if we go in disguise and with false documents.

He was looking rather queasy as we were taking off. The plane taxied for a long time, and just when the engines revved for takeoff, a massive thunderstorm hit. Talk about timing!

Water was skirting the floor and the windows were rendered opaque with curtains of water. I had a really uneasy feeling about the huge plane on tiny wheels racing down a runway with so much water on it. I had visions of it spinning off the airstrip like one giant gutter ball.

I had a minor panic attack and chose that moment to become very religious. The engines sounded like ancient propeller planes and we could hear the rain beating on the shell of the aircraft.

I couldn't stop looking out the window and the plane was wobbly upon take off. Against all regulations, I slammed the window and my eyes shut. It was a good time to click my heels and wish we were somewhere else.

Luckily, before I needed oxygen or a stiff drink, P had another bout of the runs, and that distracted me. He has such considerate bowels.

On the miserable fourteen hour flight, which boasted all kinds of fancy food options since it was a 'five star airline', we had to wait a small eternity for our turn to come.
My temperament is very dependent on my access to tasty food, so I decided to do some investigating to see what the hold up was. I also sometimes fear that I could die from starvation if I am not fed every two hours.

I heard the flight attendant serving us whispering in Thai to a coworker that there was a shortage of food, and that only vegetarian options were left. Hold on, what am I? Jessica Rabbit?

I spied the entrees of some of my luckier neighbors who were actually served before us, and was disgusted that the veggie dish was some sort of lentil rendition, rice and mystery green goop. That was not going to make me happy.

As the flight attendant ran down the aisle, I stopped her, stunned her by speaking Thai and told her that vegetarian food just doesn't cut it for me and asked her if she could be so kind as to hook a sister up. Fortunately, Lanes chose that moment to look up with big eyes, looking suitably like a cute baby seal.

The attendant, delighted to find someone who shares her native tongue, dutifully saved me random chicken meals. I was kind enough to share them with my spouse, who was not amused by that time, having bumped his head while reaching under his seat because the person in front of him was almost on his lap.

I was not faring much better because my seat wouldn't recline and the lady in front decided to bash my knee in while putting her seat all the way down. I was spilling out into the aisle and several ladies en route to or from the loo kept swatting their scarves on me as they sashayed up and down.

Since I am petrified of germs and public toilets I imagined those scarves touching the toilet seat and then landing on me and I had to break out the disinfectant wipes. Then the man next to me, who was wolfing down vegetarian meals and whisky like he was qualifying for the Olympics started to have a sneezing fit for the last four hours of the flight.

Resigned to my fate, I watched a horror movie from the screen that was now one inch from my face thanks to the annoying lady in front of me. Considering I am as brave as a gecko stuck in a jar, I was jumping out of my skin and grabbing Lanes’ knee from time to time much to her amusement.

I was never so happy to land in Chicago. We were exhausted, and the lines at immigration were long. The luggage was piled off the conveyors and I saw familiar red ribbons in the distance and rushed P to them. He ignored me as I trailed behind with a cart, praising myself for my brilliant idea to mark them.

So, turns out, twenty four other people on that flight had the same plan, because there were two dozen or more suitcases with identical burgundy red ribbons on them. We were left to rely on memory and glimpses of name tags once again as we realized our stuff was still on the conveyor belt.

After much ado and rerouting, we tried to get to our next gate, but the train that was to take us to the terminal we needed was broken. Passengers and crew were packed like sardines waiting and Lanes looked like she was about to melt.

One lady was in hysterics when she was told the only other way to get to another terminal was by taxi. She didn't realize that her pilot was standing right there behind her, and so the odds of her missing her flight were slim to none. I guess she is my competition for the ‘Genius of the Year Award’ for 2013.

Eventually, we got to our terminal with time to spare, which was a good thing because the airline was playing musical gates with all the passengers and due to storms, several flights were delayed.

The rest of the layover was a blur. Relieved to finally be able to stretch my legs, I fell asleep with my mouth open so wide that squirrels could have stored nuts in there for several winters.

The last flight of our trip felt like a long carousel ride, you know how the horses go up and down as they go round and round. It was not pleasant. That pilot really had his work cut out for him because he spent the majority of the four hours avoiding bad weather.

All three of us were delighted when we piled into our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building with all its faults at 3am. We were worse for wear, but Lanes was up and at it the next day.

P and I felt like we had a hangover minus the fun that brought it on, and so she was unceremoniously packed off to kindergarten, much to our relief and the delight of her teacher and her friends. The following day was her graduation.

As she got her 'diploma', she was asked what she wants to be when she grows up. All her friends said teachers, doctors, policemen and ambulance drivers. Lanes said 'I want to be a mom’.

I had a nice Hallmark moment, and then it was back to reality. Plans to find a job are on hold thanks to a souvenir bug from the Motherland that got a hold of me and my niece. Now that I’m ‘cured’, that miserable red rash has invaded my arms again. Although I can catch a cold from someone who sneezes in Portugal it seems I can’t catch a break! So hi ho hi ho, it’s off to the doctor I go. More musings from BC next week…

Never Ending Story

2013-06-23T02:41:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of the worst vacation ever. So far, the sky nearly fell on me, I escaped a near poisoning, and I might be returning to Vancouver with a travelling salesman. That's just the gist of it all.

When last I wrote, I was down with a wretched stomach flu that was doing more rounds about town than Wee Willie Winkie. Every one from the town crier to the village idiot had fallen victim to this nasty bug. My poor five year old, Lanes, was up chucking for at least a week.

Staying put seemed like a good plan during most of our holiday, but my mother was getting some construction done at the house. Lanes was in between bouts of vomiting, happily stringing along some beads to make a dapper dolphin necklace for her grandfather in not so masculine pastel shades of pink and lilac, and I was huddled on the floor next to her trying to figure out how to use my phone. Yes, I'm challenged that way sometimes.

Suddenly, I felt like someone was beating my back.Water was oozing from the roof, and straight onto me. And just me. Like a bulls eye! I mean someone might as well have peered in from above and cut a hole and targeted me specifically.

Lanes and I were under a ceiling fan that was on full speed like a stationary helicopter and I screamed and squealed like a pig being chased. By that time Lanes, who had no idea why her crazy mother was flailing about, decided she had to join in the frantic squawking and jumping about I was doing while hustling to get her out of the room.

I had an instant fear of electrocution and electrical appliances falling from ceilings. Some theatre is really missing a drama queen. Maybe I should audition for something when we get back to Canada. I do need to find employment after all.

My trip has been fraught with events such as this, although it was peppered with fun events like birthday parties and a weekend trip with friends and family. One the days Lanes was not sick, I woke up with a rash on my arms that stung and itched.

I looked like I wrestled with a giant angry octopus that was trying to knock some sense into me. This had to flare up at its worst during our weekend trip to the beach with family and friends. I knew from the alarmed look on my friends faces that my upper arms, which I could not see without a mirror due to my lack of flexibility (one of my many charming attributes), were a ghastly sight.

Luckily for me, my nutty sister who pretends she is a doctor of medicine, got tired of me floating around the house in a cloud of melancholy claiming to have the plague. Before I started googling my symptoms and prophesying doom, she took matters into her own hands.

She dragged me to the pharmacy and medicated me with much delight. The pharmacist is probably still sitting with his mouth open. I begrudgingly have to admit that although I thought she was trying to bump me off to get custody of Lanes, I am rash free--for the moment.

Meanwhile, my super efficient, airline mile savvy spouse, P, realized we had some frequent flyer miles that were about to expire and he exchanged them for vouchers to a spa.

My maternal aunt and I were rather excited about it, and considering the time I was having, I opted for a stress relief massage. We were going to get our treatments done with P, hoping to leave Lanes under the care of my sister and her children. Sadly, they got the stomach flu too, and I was about to cancel to hang out with Lanes!

P felt sorry for me because I couldn't catch a break on this trip because I was more or less home bound so he changed his appointment time and my aunt and I were dropped off and instructed to have a good time. In our heads we were going to luxuriate and relax in plush surroundings.

However, we were placed in an Aryuvedic hospital! We gingerly did surveillance on the place, with it's lack of air conditioning, open doors and windows and dim natural lighting. We were petrified of being chased my mosquitoes given the surroundings (due to dengue scares) and we were not so keen when we nosily peeked into treatment rooms. To make matters worse, we were told we had to see a doctor!

We sat in the waiting room, my aunt with her purse on her lap and her eyes wide open and eyebrows up so high, she was able to see from the back of her head. She sat in stunned silence and I finally voiced what we were both thinking--we needed to break out. We called P to put a feeler to see if we could get a refund on our vouchers.

P, ever matter of fact, told us we were there for an Aryuvedic treatment, not some sort of fancy nancy spa experience and that we should basically just zip it and enjoy it. Rightly put in our place, we pasted ourselves to each other and went for our consultation together.

We were then separated and any hopes of absconding where put to rest. I was taken to a darkened room, with a lonesome wooden window and one leather bed. I felt a little like I was in the prison room from some archaeological site.

I decided to stop thinking of mosquitoes and worrying about the stuff that looked like mud on my hair. I was dreading having to wash my hair there because I can't deal with public washrooms--so many mental issues at such a young age.

As I was finally letting go of my anal retentive nature, suddenly some hot seeds were placed on my back. After twenty minutes of feeling like a cow that was being branded, I left feeling more stressed than when I came in. So much for that.

Meanwhile, my native vocabulary being as rudimentary as my surroundings, I had been referring to my aunt as my mother-in-law the entire time we were there. They must have thought us to be a rather odd pair.

That night, after several failed attempts to wash the gunk from the massage out of my hair, I went for a meal with a good college buddy smelling a little like the spice rack at an Indian buffet. Rather used to my uncanny knack for getting into situations, he was kind enough to enjoy the story and ignore the odor.

We had the craziest waiter on the planet. I asked for a chicken burger and he asked me if I wanted it well done. I was rather confused, because the menu said it came with a side of fries, not salmonella.

I reiterated to him that I don't eat cows, on account of them being cute and all, and so I would prefer the chicken to be well done, feathers off and so and so forth.

I didn't want to wind up in the hospital. He batted on, asking me if I was sure I didn't want the chicken medium done and if it's ok if it was hard and well done. I felt afraid at that point, and I thought perhaps the fumes from my Aryuvedic treatment were causing me to misunderstand the situation. Sadly, my friend was equally alarmed.

That should have been my clue to order something else. Five minutes later he presented me with an orange juice instead of the iced coffee I asked for and eventually when I got the burger, it tasted weird (perhaps it was in my head) and I ate the fries and an ice cream to fill myself up.

The manager came over and asked if we liked our meals and I said the chicken burger was not to my liking, and then he asked me if I had a problem because it was well done! At this point, it was too much for my confused brain and my friend chimed in 'but it's CHICKEN!'.

I spent the rest of the night queasy and my stomach was in pain and I was back to having an upset stomach. I snapped out of it quick fast because just when everyone else in the house was recovering from the stomach flu, I was chasing Lanes to eat an omelette in the morning when I found she had red bumps all over her arms and feet. To make it worse her poop was green!

I was turning all colors of the rainbow and a lighter shade of pale at the same time.I wish I was one of them fainting dames. I could have used the time out.

I was so engrossed in Lanes that I forgot to call friends I promised to meet. While I was fluttering around nagging my only child, P, ever on the pulse of getting things done, decided we should hand carry some of the ornaments and glassware we left behind because we had some extra luggage allowance.

I was left to fret and fume and bubble wrap like it's 1999. When the bags go through the scanners we're going to look rather like travelling salespeople. I told P if we are taking 24 wine glasses, he is to drink from each and every one to justify their transport.

All we need is to have a tiny monkey wearing a vest and fez clanging some cymbals to herald our arrival. I really feel rather stressed about the entire episode. The customs people are going to think we are eccentric at best.

It doesn't help that Lanes has been having rather unusual bowel movements (sorry future Lanes--this justifies you wanting to put me away). I'm sure I'll go on to do and say far more embarrassing things.

Other than that, few hours to departure, I slashed my arm shoving stuff into a suitcase. I really think now is a good time to start drinking--if only I didn't have a bum liver. I feel rather anxious about flying in a couple of hours. Please send good vibes our way and hopefully the next blog will be from BC...

Ghosts of Vacations Past

2013-06-09T13:46:00.001-07:00

Three planes, two days, and a major migraine later, we descended upon the motherland. As if getting here was not enough of a hoop la, we have been playing dodge ball with a scurry of unseen mighty enemies in the shape of viruses, bacteria and insect borne diseases.

We left Canada tired already. My Christmas cactus, which is the only plant in living history I did not bump off, was left to fend for itself, and the keys to our apartment were left with my friend Janine. You might remember her as the one who is fond of trespassing.

I was hoping Janine would be so inclined to check out our place considering she has access and all. I knew if I could just get her through that door, she wouldn't be able to resist doing a quick clean here and there while she was doing her inspections. She is the type that takes a mesh door off its hinges to give it a good clean.

Sadly, she is not into the whole ghetto fabulous decor thing, and is more into snooping Pacific Northwest chic, so the odds of her popping over without my official request are slim to none. Oh well. I kept the vacuum by the door just in case.

After the usual drama of packing gifts for everyone's third cousin and his neighbor's goat, we were on our way. The first flight was bumpy because they were expecting not one but three major thunder storms in Chicago, our first port of transit.

To make it worse, we were stuck in a holding pattern and we were informed we might be diverted to Minneapolis, which meant us missing our next two connections. After much praying and fuel loss, our flight was given clearance to land and a panic attack was suitably averted.

Suddenly, the plane dipped down and there was a collective gasp. Lanes and I thought it was great fun, despite our stomachs being up in our throats. Considering it was a North American airline, besides our free sodas, that was as much action as our stomachs saw on that leg.

When I turned to check on P after looking out for Lanes, I found him looking rather pale. He looked like the poster child for an Indian face whitening commercial.

Two more long flights later, Lanes had spilled water on herself and gone through more outfit changes than an actress in scene I of a Bollywood film. She was chattering incessantly trying to figure out who was coming to the airport to pick her up. That kid’s got her priorities straight.

We got to the homeland amid more threats of storms. I was exhausted from two days of no sleep. Our baggage arrived with a gaping hole in the back. P was out of it but didn't notice, but thanks to my hours of watching random TV shows way past my bed time, I checked each piece and called it to his attention and insisted he file a complaint.

So it turns out, like mixing plaid with tights, it was not one of my best ideas. The person in charge looked like she was an extra from the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". She kept staring at the computer and the paper before her with big round eyes that looked even more vacant thanks to an unfortunate choice of thick black eye liner.

She wouldn't blink, talk, or even move. It was like the airline placed a dummy (pun intended) in front of the counter after hours. I’ve seen cardboard cutouts with more animation than this.

I was tempted to check for a pulse, and P, an avid micromanager, was trying his best not to swivel the computer around and do the work himself. Lanes, like a runner who trips before the finish line, was staring at the doors, waiting to get out and jump into the arms of her grandparents and grand aunt and uncle.

I was left to appease Lanes, who after all that pent up anticipation looked like her little heart was going to break. Eventually, after empty eyed lady got two other people to look blankly at the computer, we got a voucher to get our bag fixed. In the time they took to do that, I could have reared and raised half a dozen farm animals.

I was looking forward to passing out in my childhood bedroom but there was no rest for the weary. My parents had hired someone to help them at the house because my sister and her brood were also to come for a visit.

Sadly, this lady contracted viral fever, but decided to grin and roam around the house freely, like a like the Ghost of Vacations Past. P, Lanes and I were petrified because it brought back the nightmare that was our previous vacation here wherein we contracted viral fever and missed our flight back to Canada.

This lady was blissfully oblivious to our horror and she was floating around, gleefully infecting doorknobs, table tops, banisters, and kitchen utensils, all to her heart’s content. Meanwhile, every germaphobic cell in my body was going into shock.

I missed my Chlorox wipes so immensely that I wrote the company several love songs. In between that, we were told to be careful of mosquitoes, and everywhere we turn, we seem to have one as an appendage. They are speedy and annoying, and seem to have spread the word that my arms are the new twenty four hour buffet in town.

While I was scratching at my limbs, to add to our misery, P and Lanes started throwing up. They had caught a stomach bug that is going around.

P often misguidedly thinks he is some sort of physician, so he medicated himself. Poor little Lanes was up chucking for a number of days. Luckily, my mom’s cousins are very kind pediatricians and we have been pestering them every day. I bet they are wondering what stroke of fate landed us as their next of kin.

The next day, I felt queasy and then there you go, I was down. I had twenty four hours to fix myself up because I had to be dolled up to go to my father-in-law’s 80^th birthday, a fancy costume do at that.

Thanks to the barrage of anti-vomitting medication that P supplied me, I was able to put a cork in it so to speak and show up to the big bash—present but not present. It was really great to catch up with everyone we have been missing, but my head started spinning and I found myself confined to a small area willing myself not to pass out and/or run to use the public facilities.

As an avid food lover, I was rather depressed to give funky canapés, the buffet table and the desert assortment a miss, but I felt it best to be prudent. P’s cousin, realizing my discomfort, was kind enough to sit and chatter with me and keep Lanes amused until it was time to go home.

So that was week one in the Motherland. So far, not so good. I’m exhausted. Let’s hope that the rest of the vacation will be much much better—or else I’m going to need a back up holiday. Someplace wrapped in a sterile bubble sponsored by Chlorox perhaps. More musings not from BC next week…

Dress It Up

2013-05-22T13:55:00.001-07:00

I have been on a quest. So much drama has gone into it that I could have made an Indiana Jones sequel based on it--Indiana Jones and the Hunt for Tummy Tucking Hip Hiding Dress. No doubt, as all the comedic tragedies in my life play out, the root of all nonsense is my beloved nutty sister.

We have been given strict warnings by our maternal unit (also known as mom) to 'wear proper clothes' when we descend upon her for our upcoming visit to the home country. She is having a big do, and as per her stipulations based on superstitions, we are absolutely forbidden to wear black, white, and possibly grey. My sister got it into my head that I need a dress, not just a disco ball top and black trousers.

Sadly for me, anything fabulous I came across was in exactly the banned colors, or some combination thereof. My sibling and I, brave as chickens during a thunderstorm, dare not go against this outfit decree, despite making a mockery of our mom's other superstitions.

Some of them include but are not limited to: spitting three times to prevent the evil eye (I strongly advice you not to sit to her left when you give her a compliment--if you do, bring a parasol), wearing a necklace and earrings all the time for good luck, and the random placing of lucky 'omens' such as full glasses of milk at the entranceway when anyone begins a journey or visits home after being away for a long time.

To show our strong defiance of these other superstitions, I’m constantly parading around without jewelry and my sister has made herself lactose intolerant, thereby eliminating the need to have full glasses of milk around the house.

When it comes to spitting, we leave it for the camels, because in general we are far less graceful that our mother, who can actually get away with it. Perhaps it’s because she only makes spitting sounds, and is not actually spitting. Plus, she is elegant and my sister and I are more like baby elephants in tutus.

As such, my sibling has gone through half of Washington state and I have scoured all of Burnaby and we have come up empty. In desperation, I bought a lovely lace lilac number, but my painfully honest spouse, P, asked me if I was going to an Easter party in June.

Yes, I'll be dining with Mad Hatter's but I was hoping I could swing it for an evening function. P vehemently shook his head and quickly fanned off any lingering hopes I had for pulling that one off. Poof.

Hi ho hi ho, it's back to the mall I go. The only thing I discovered from spending inordinate amounts of time in changing rooms was that my five year old, Lanes, was right. My stomach was getting rather jiggly and it does produce some sort of ripple effect--the result of my not exercising since March (when I started working--what I was doing all of May is a mystery).

The next day, I came home with a really slimming black dress, that was in no way appropriate for my trip, but was perfect for a Moroccan Night ladies only extravaganza that a friend of mine invited me to. At least I looked fabulous for that. For once. If only the dress came in another color!

So two dresses, one huge credit card bill and a minor headache later, I was back to square one. In a last minute attempt to find something suitable, we were to meet up with my nutty sister in Bellingham over the weekend. We were to merge our broods and conquer the shops.

After spending close to three hours at the border, we discovered that half of Canada was crowded into the one store we had time left to visit. It was so populated in there that I was feeling slightly claustrophobic.

We squeezed into aisles, bravely pulling dresses off hangers before someone else did. I was most grateful to have a thirteen year old niece who adores me and stood guard while I valiantly forced myself into several numbers.

I did forgive her for constantly shoving the door open with full force when I was mid-change, causing me to scream hysterically, 'I'm in my underwear!'. In hindsight (horrible pun intended) perhaps I shouldn't have drawn more attention to that.

We grabbed some dresses and I just settled on one. It got my nutty sibling's seal of approval and if it fails, I was just going to bank on that. Then came the next series of searches based on the new idea that was put into my head by you know who. So began the trek for the perfect tummy concealing undergarments.

That kept me busy for the rest of the week. I tried on some ‘shapewear’ but they left me looking like high school wrestlers or orcas on maternity leave. So I decided to go with comfort and to grin and bear the inevitable comments at the party 'have you put on weight? Such a shame'.

I think it's nice of me to give people something to talk about. P raised his eyebrows and was about to say something, but I gave him a warning glare and luckily for once, he got the hint, and remained mum. I think.

Most likely, it was the coughing fit he had at that exact moment. He has been battling a sinus infection and has resorted to things like netty pots and steam inhalation to get himself unclogged.

I'm afraid I might find him standing upside down in an attempt to drain his sinuses one day. As I type this, our ghetto fabulous apartment is smelling of l'eau du Vicks vapor rub.

And that my friends, is how I have been spending my new found unemployment. I now know almost every nook and cranny of almost all fitting rooms in the greater Burnaby area. Other than that, I've been driving my spouse and spawn insane and catching up with friends.

I greatly enjoyed the Moroccan night. I learned that I can actually use my arms and hands to dance--I have no idea what I was doing with them before. The ladies there were really nice--not the annoying kind of nice where you can picture unicorns sprouting out of their ears. The good kind of nice where you can talk and laugh and have a great time with kindred spirits.

With that I must sign off, as there are eggplants to be cooked. More musings from BC next week...or wait, where will I be? Never mind, I shall write sooner than this..

Diss-Missed

2013-05-07T20:27:00.005-07:00

You will not believe what happened to me this week! Day time soap operas would envy the plot twists and curve balls that come my way. I might as well hire a sound guy and a director with a camera to follow me around.

As if the whole episode with my five year old, Lanes, being in the ER over the weekend was not enough, I was in for another shock. I took Monday off from work to take my little munchkin to our family doctor, you know, the one we took two years to find.

Despite having an appointment, we waited an hour and half, through lunch time (yes, that went well), for him to promise to make an appointment with an allergist. The net result of all this is that we literally have to wait a month of Sundays to see the specialist.

I now proudly sport an Epipen with me wherever I go with Lanes. Let me tell you, it's not a good look. It doesn't help that as a general rule of thumb, I should not be left around sharp objects.

I hate to carry around a handbag, but now I have to because of my track record for being clumsy. It would be unwise to keep the Epipen in my back pocket—I’d definitely jab myself. As we all know, the last thing I need is an accidental dosage of adrenaline. Well, perhaps it's not such a bad thing.

As much as I enjoyed not having to wake up at 5am to rush to work that day, I was really concerned that by not showing up, everyone in the office would be back logged. My boss assured me that everything was fine on the Western front so to speak.

I waltzed into work on Tuesday, and everyone was really great about my absence (another person was sick on Monday and so they were down two people--they didn't tell me because they thought I had enough to worry about with Lanes).

We had a huge volume of work come in on that morning. We were all working steadily and racing the clock, when some man walked in shortly after 2pm with our regional manager from Quebec.

The thought flickered in my mind that it was unusual for her to be in our office that day since she had just been by recently. However, the idea fizzled and popped in my head like a fly bouncing off an electric swatter when I saw the paperwork before me.

The man, who looked like a bouncer who had seen better days, called us all in for a meeting. We begrudgingly left our files and turned our phones off. I had no idea who he was or why his chin kept quivering. It hardly seemed like the time for a public nervous breakdown.

Our minds on the time and the work we had before us, we only half listened to what he had to say at first until he said they were closing down our branch effective immediately! Say what now? Did they not know there was work to be done?

I turned to a colleague to ask if it was a joke, because as fond as I am of pranks, there really was no time for hilarity, particularly in such poor taste. Before we knew it, those of us on contract were ushered into one room, and the rest of the staff was herded into another.

We got apologies for the sudden news and then ten minutes to pack up. The bouncer guy was no longer crying, I guess it was part of his act, and he was watching us like a hawk to make sure we wouldn't do something scandalous on our computers.

Why the big muscle was brought in is a mystery because there were only eight of us in this branch and I was by far the largest person there. I'm five foot four inches (at least when my hair is poofed up) tall. We had one token guy who was slightly taller than me but really, even I could take him on. I do have delusions of grandeur.

As part of our 'compensation', we were offered a ride home, and as I'm the only genius who didn't drive to work, they got a cab for me.

The cab driver was very friendly and he asked me if I was some big shot because two people came out to make sure that I was not charged a penny for the ride.

I laughed and told him, it was quite the opposite in fact and explained what happened. All he said was 'welcome to North America! Now you have had the complete experience!'. Hmm.

After spending a day to digest what just happened, because it all seemed to take place in fast forward, I decided everything happens for a reason. I did learn a lot about dealing with interesting characters in the work place and I also now know that I can learn just about anything at my next job.

Plus, now I finally have that elusive wispy thing called Canadian work experience, even though it all went up in a puff of smoke. Waking up early and coming home late with the commute also was proving to be much, no matter how good the company or the job was, so all is well that ends well.

I remain sad for my coworkers who spent years at this business. I'm taking the next few weeks off because we have a trip to the motherland planned any old how. I'll let the job search begin in a month.

To 'celebrate' or rather to commiserate, I had an outing with a friend of mine yesterday. She had the day off and the kids were packed off to school so we had a lovely lunch with fancy pink drinks and all.

Of course who has to call in the middle of all that? My nutty sister. She is determined for us to confuse our geriatric relatives by showing up in identical dresses to a party. I'm sure the last thing our gene pool needs is for us to splash around the party looking like the Bobbsey Twins in stereo.

She called to say that she misdialed my number and had asked the unsuspecting man she called by mistake his dress size. Typical. In the end, she was too busy laughing at her faux pas to get my measurements, which perhaps might be yet another blessing in disguise.

After realizing I had no fancy phone upon which to check my e-mail to see an outfit she found for us, she decided she was done with the call and I was mercifully released.

I returned to my half eaten burger and I assumed that because she called me back immediately once not twenty four times like she normally does that she found some other hapless soul to traumatize in the greater Seattle area.

With that I must sign off and start to think about packing, you know, make mental checklists. My meticulous spouse, P, will no doubt orchestrate and follow through with the actual physical packing. He's far more proactive. More musings from BC next week...

Stating the Emergency

2013-04-29T19:21:00.001-07:00

I'm going to make it an effort to resume blogging weekly. Between the commute and the somber nature of the work I do, I never seem to have the time to write and entertain myself. No, I'm not a mortician or anything so grave (pun intended), but I might as well be because I think I might have to do a post mortem on my sense of humor at the rate I'm going.

After work, the evenings are spent in a blur of exhaustedly trying to catch up with playground politics and news of jollier offices on the home front and the weekends come and go faster than Wonder Woman's outfit changes between trying to cook for the week, running errands and *shudder* ironing. Gone are the days where I would give clothes a good shake after the spin cycle and chuck them in the dryer. My theory was that it gets all the wrinkles out. Sadly, it does not seem to work on office attire.

The good thing about being really busy at work is that it makes the time fly by when I'm there. However, if you blindfolded some hapless stranger and walked him into our office, except for the constant beeping of security clearances to enter the premises, the fellow might feel free to pass gas loudly thinking he is alone because most of the time, one could literally hear a pin drop in my office.

Asides from all that, I got requests to blog during my commute, but I am prone to getting motion sickness if I so much as attempt to even read, let alone write or type on anything that moves. As such, I've opted to squeeze in writing on a random weekend and keep the contents of my stomach to myself.

In other news, my little offspring, Lanes, has not taken after me in the living to sample every buffet in town department at all. She would be happy to skip all meals all together. Eating is a speed bump in her plans to pounce from and conquer various pieces of furniture.

In fact, on Friday, she spent the day running around the playground in the hot sun and proceeded to come home and throw up all over the carpet in the kitchen. Yes, I know it's odd to place to have a carpet, but it was the only hand my meticulous spouse, P, had in decorating this crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment of ours. Prone to random bouts of sensibility, and having worked in insurance, I thought of it as a hazard.

I was very concerned thinking she had a bug, but she seemed to feel much better after that episode. She slept well that night, which is more than I can say for myself. I slept beside her with a bucket in my hand, much to P's horror. The next day, she ate a little and produced a lot of gas. I'm sure when she is older and reads this blog, she will make it reason number one hundred and seventy two to pull my life support.

That evening we went to a friend's house. She was so sweet, she made each of our favorite dishes. In Lanes' case, it was a shrimp stir fry. Our little pumpkin was so delighted, she set the table and was sitting there swinging her legs in delighted anticipation. I have never seen her that excited about a meal.

We were so relieved to see her eating and even trying to scrounge some shrimp off our plates. I wanted to tell her to stop, but I let her have at it because she had not eaten properly for the last two days. Soon after dinner, she started to scratch her eyes and her head.

Next thing we knew, her left eye was swollen and her forehead was red and she had a dry cough. I told P that she has an allergy and we have to go get her some Claritin immediately. This is where watching copious amounts of TV pays off. A few years ago, I was on the edge of my seat watching a show on allergies and symptoms to look out for.

P was trying to put a warm compress on Lane's swollen eye, but I insisted we should get the medicine right away. We rushed out leaving our very concerned friend and popped over to the nearest pharmacy. I took Lanes in for the pharmacist to look at just to make sure we were giving her the right medication. I also knew if we had to wait hours at the ER, this will help slow down the gravity of the allergy.

By that time, both eyes were swollen, as was her upper lip and she had hives all over her face. Luckily, our friend lives right near a hospital and we rushed the poor child to the ER. The nurse there said we did well to give her Claritin. I took a moment there to be proud of my TV watching skills.

I remained calm on the outside, but inside I was doing my best Italian soap opera impression of dramatic wailing soliloquies. Meanwhile, Lanes, who has inherited nosiness from my nutty sibling, in the middle of nearly scratching her nose off, spotted someone in handcuffs strapped onto a hospital bed, behind a glass door, at the other end of the ER.

P and I were so anxiously waiting for her name to be called that we didn't hear her whispering and inquiring if all patients had to be handcuffed. I didn't realize until another patient smiled at her and told her that was only for very naughty big boys.

I tried to divert our little munchkin's attention but she was opening her swollen eyes as big as she could to watch what was going on. Luckily, because of her age and the severity of the allergy, we were seen to almost immediately. Lanes was given some additional medications and kept for observation.

She must have misunderstood what they meant by observation because as soon as she felt better, she left her bed and was trying to watch the other patients. We were instructed to get two Epipens that night itself and to see our family doctor at once to get a referral to an allergist.

Poor little Lanes is feeling much better today. P and I are rather exhausted after all the drama. I have to miss work tomorrow to take Lanes to the doctor. Plus, with a trip to the motherland coming up, we need to do fun things like get a letter from the doctor to take the Epipen on the plane.

With that I must sign off. I have procrastinated ironing all day, and so I must go do that. More musings from BC next week...

Reappearance

2013-04-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

I'm back from outer space. The silence is because--I got the job! The bad news is that it meant I had no time at all to blog. Due to the commute, when I come home and dinner is consumed, I cuddle my five year old, Lanes, up and then according to unreliable sources, aka as my diligent spouse, P, I can be found snoring and slobbering with my mouth wide open.

In my over active mind, I imagined myself to look much like the whiskered rotund villains in the cartoons Lanes is fond of watching. Charming, I'm sure. P remained diplomatically quiet about the whole thing but I think he stifled a smirk when I brought this to his attention.

Meanwhile, I teased my nutty sister, who always wants to be in the know, with tid bits of information regarding the nature of my work. She is constantly googling information while simultaneously holding onto a conversation, and she deduced, based solely on location, that the job had something to do with the automotive field.

An avid car test driver and investigator of various auto parts, she decided she should come down for a visit and pick me up from work one day, with the hopes of taking the latest model of a certain vehicle for a spin.
Luckily, she mentioned this to me, because otherwise she would have been booked for grand theft auto by now, and I'd be happily doodling in moustaches on her mugshots.

I would have had to bail her out of jail when she sped off with the car of some poor sap in my office building. I can imagine the talk around the water cooler (which incidentally, I have never seen anyone pooling around), about 'the new girl's crazy relatives'.

After she realized that I did not work for a car dealership, or was remotely close to selling anything with wheels of any sort, she decided to come down, husband, children, dog and all for a one day visit last weekend.

Tiredness and crankiness are directly proportional in my book, so apparently she had some trepidation about descending upon my doorstep because I now spend the greater part of Saturday cooking for the week so I'm spared doing that after I get home from work.

I got a call from my mother, where she politely put out feelers to see the level of my grumpiness and I was given strict instructions not to terrorize my sibling. I acted offended as I stirred my lamb curry, but secretly I was delighted that I had the power to instill fear in anybody.

I have not been on Facebook or e-mail, and I'm in serious jeopardy of forfeiting my Words with Friends games. I am vaguely aware of what is going on in the world, and my days are a blur of bus and train rides and quick dinners followed by the partial digestion of Lanes' excited tales of her activities in the playground at kindergarten.

Lanes is usually done eating by the time I arrive from work because she opts to ignore her lunch and she comes home starving after spending her energy attempting daring tactics on monkey bars. This causes me some level of mild hysteria, but I think it's a run of the mill thing for normal people.

The week before last she came home with blisters on her hands and I found P looking exhausted on the couch and Lanes sitting on the sofa opposite him with palms outstretched crying her eyes out. She was right as rain after I rummaged through the closet and found her some Strawberry Shortcake band aids.

Between Wednesday and Friday, her two upper front teeth, which have been wobbly for a long time, finally fell out. She currently looks like a grandmotherly pirate, something she is rather proud of. P calls her his toothless wonder. It's really not a good look, but she sports it well.

With that, I must run off. I have much sleeping to do before I wake up again at 5.30am and I have to figure out lunch for the three of us, especially when the one of us who is under four feet tall refuses to eat anything.

I asked her what she wants to eat and she claimed she wants to eat BBQ dim sum buns, which she insists on calling sushi. How in the world I'm supposed to produce that at this time of night for lunch tomorrow is a mystery to me. With that I must sign off, and hopefully I'll blog more often as I get used to this new routine...more musings from BC....soon....

Technical difficulties...will resume blog after April 15th:)

2013-03-31T16:26:00.002-07:00

Over the Rainbow

2013-03-12T15:46:00.001-07:00

After much heartburn and belly aching later over not finding suitable employment, I decided to join an agency that will help me to find a temporary job. As such, I finally got a long coveted interview. After rejoicing for thirty seconds, it dawned on me that I have not been interviewed in over ten years, by virtue of being asked to work or adopted into work for my previous jobs. This brought on a whole new set of digestive disorder like symptoms, and then later, an entire comedic series of events.

Thanks to my five week course on job preparation, I had practiced answering questions. The location of the place I was to go was a long distance from my ghetto fabulous apartment, by transit at least, so I decided Google was my friend and memorized the map of where I needed to be.

It would take me two buses, one train and a mighty long walk to get there. I might or might not have needed a broomstick. That morning, I was up and at it early. Our five year old, Lanes, was doing her usual morning routine of alternating between flailing and going limp on the sofa in an effort to avoid getting dressed and drinking her milk. Don’t even get me started on breakfast. She was stunned that I paid her no mind.

I was focused on getting ready and double and triple checking my route. Some say I’m anal retentive, but I would rather describe myself as meticulously cautious. My OCD paid off, because guess what? The bus I was supposed to take was cancelled! So was the one fifteen minutes before it.

I had no choice but to take an alternate route, which would give me some time to spare. When I was taking the second bus, I felt slightly glad for this mishap because the ride seemed to go on for what felt like forever. We were definitely not in Burnaby anymore.

I tried clicking my heels to escape, but it didn't work. I was relieved I asked the bemused bus driver to let me know when my stop came up, because I was on literally unfamiliar terrain and the signs on the inside of the bus were not working.

After a small eternity, the bus driver called out my stop on the intercom. I was glad I was proactive and alerted him to my cluelessness, because otherwise, I surely would have missed this unmarked spot. As I approached the exit, he asked me if I was new in town and if I’m on the way to an interview.

I guess I must have really been channeling Lil Bo Beep’s lost sheep that day. Now slightly disheartened that my appearance was giving away my country song of a story, I said I was and told him this was a long ways for me. I was nervous about the interview, but not sure of it because of the commute.

He turned to me wisely and told me that he came to Canada from Singapore, and in a market such as this, if anyone offers me a job, I should take it. He then wished me luck, gave me specific directions on how to get to my interview (because I had about a 10k walk ahead of me) and packed me off. It was a perfect Fairy Godmother moment--perhaps I should have left a shoe on the bus, but with my luck, that might have been considered littering.

Something about this conversation made me feel like the universe was giving me a message, and suddenly I had a fire in my belly to do well in the interview. It was a very different feeling from the indigestion I was having earlier, so off I went down the yellow brick road (metaphorically speaking).

After a very long walk, I approached my destination—still an hour ahead of time. And lo and behold, there was nowhere else for me to while away the time. It was just me and not even a tumbleweed in this vast openness of residencies and industrial wasteland. Didn’t anyone tell Starbucks that there was this uncolonized expanse of land? Why didn't they get the memo?

So I was standing outside, now eating Lanes' teddy grahams to appease my butterflies, pacing, and yakking on the phone with my dutiful spouse, P, and my buddy Janine (you know the one who I constantly accuse of trespassing). I told them I fear that I look like the friendly neighborhood street walker, so after a consensus we decided it best if my frozen digits and I went in and asked to sit around the lobby until it was go time.

I explained my bus debacle at the front desk and waited politely in the lobby, making chit chat with the extremely welcoming receptionist. So it turns out the downfall of coming early, is watching the competition walk out.

She looked like she fell out of some corporate magazine. Calm and collected, flashy suit, shiny shoes, professional briefcase/purse. Here I am five foot four inches of hot mess from ghetto fabulous. All I had was my integrity, work ethic and experience, and none of that could be seen from the outside.

If we were on a reality show with music videos, she would have walked out in slow motion with a Pussycat Dolls song playing in the background. As for me, I'd be sitting on the chair to the tune of frogs croaking in a well and Honey Boo Boo as a backdrop.

My heart sank as I watched her leave the office. I looked as sad as a deflated Good Year blimp, and I think the receptionist caught my look because she smiled sadly at me. I felt like the loyal frumpy wife watching the glamorous young girlfriend.

I kept the bus driver's words in my head and tried to not let it throw me off my game. The interview was only half an hour, with very specific questions. I felt I rambled on. I was not sure how it went, and I was so disappointed in myself that I got on the wrong train and didn't even realize until three stops later.

Conveniently, it was at a large mall, so I cheered myself up with fast food—which only resulted in making me miss the bus home. Eventually, I did get home. By that time, half of my attempt at a hair do had flopped on my face. Bobby pins, like belts and white pants, are not a friend of mine apparently.

With that I must sign off, and check my mail and phone for some good news. More musings from BC next week…if not, I might be stuck in some industrial wasteland again looking up in the sky for flying houses. Feel free to leave comments…