Home Again

With bloodshot eyes, I post this entry. Everyone else in my little family came into the house after our five hour red-eye flight and crashed. I sorted mail, listened to messages, returned urgent calls, and took a nice bath. Worked like a charm as I had major kinks in my back that I made in my Houdini poses, finding a way to get Daughter and Baby Boy comfortable enough to sleep. But, honestly, it took them about 90 minutes.

Meanwhile, Husband had Middle Child who promptly rested his head on his "Da" and konked out before the plane took off.

How many hours of sleep did I get? Oh, about 40 minutes. I was having this dream of George Stromboulopolis when I was awoke by a most pungeant smell. Seriously, I thought Baby Boy pooped but it was really the sandwich this guy behind me unwrapped.

Oh, and Daughter spewed chunks. Poor kid. She could have also been upset to leave. As we were taking off, she waved out the window to the disappearing west, saying bye to all her relatives. She was pretty much reciting the whole trip from, "Thanks for meeting us at the airport, Gramma" to "It was fun eating breakfast with you, Uncle N."

The wait for the plane was relatively bearable. There was a play area the kids enjoyed. There was also a TV, which was really just an ad for a so-called children's channel (no other channels were available). But there was a little bit of nookie going on (of the soap opera variety - under the sheets but seemingly naked and lots of tongue). The kids survived a week at their aunt and uncle's who don't have cable and they did okay. I'm sure they're thanking God for DVD players.

I think Husband missed TV more. We stopped by his mother's apartment for dinner before heading to the airport and before he has his shoes off, he flicks it to a sports channel.

Anyway, we're home and we're safe but so tired. I really tried to sleep but I couldn't, not at the airport (the description here of the Victoria airport is bang-on), not on the plane, and not even at home. I'm so screwed.

You can't go back

We spent yesterday back in the old neighbourhood, where my father-in-law still lives.

Man, has it ever changed. Waaay more big box stores. Big time development. I didn't see that many homeless and/or drug addicted people but the downtown was overrun by two cruise ships that had ported.

Father-in-law is still a strange anomoly in the fishbowl of life. Dead of summer and he's wearing jeans and a thick leather motorcycle jacket. Oooh, that jacket is something else. It is the colour(s) of everyone's lawns out here (there hasn't been a drop of rain for three months) and on the back is a painted embossed illustration of an eagle over mountains in attack formation. Sweet.

After lunch of deep-fried yuck (I chose a pasta instead), we spent the afternoon walking around downtown alone (Father-in-law's daily routine doesn't include family he hasn't seen in two years so we walked him back to his apartment to meet him for dinner after).

Anyway, we went back to the same hotel restaurant for dinner. Father-in-law still had a ketchup smear on his cheek from lunch. I was unsure if I should have told him, fearing his embarassment. Instead, i took his photo with my digital camera and showed him after. His reaction? "Sooo, how much was that camera? I like it!"

You see, I've never really got on with him. His brain isn't wired the way it was before his stroke over 20 years ago. Conversations with him are difficult and labourous. But I put on my best reporter's hat and formulate questions prior to our meeting. I stick with topics dear to his heart: his Manawaka-esque hometown in the rural prairies, his purchases, his stroke club, and cigarettes. Still, I'm lucky if he pays attention to me or if he answers with one word. Awkward as all get-go, lemme tell you. Anyway, we sit down; the kids on their best behaviour. And Husband starts reading the freakin' newspaper!!!

I couldn't wait to get out. But why? Father-in-law was in a rush too because he went 45 minutes without a smoke, dammit. So we sit around the parking lot, pretty much just watching the guy smoke. He finishes it, starts up the scooter without so much a "let's go," and launches a huge loogie for us to step over. Classy.

We go back for more tomorrow.

Safe and Sound

If I was a superstitious person, I would have thought the start of our travels were omenous.

We were stuck in Pearson for four hours, waiting for a lightening storm to pass so the plane could be refueled. Needless to say, we missed our connecting flight in Calgary. And there were no tvs on the flight from Toronto, despite the airline's claim that every aircraft had them. We did get them on the flight out of Calgary but it was only operational for about 10 minutes.

We got to our hotel but our room wasn't ready. Husband got a room change and all was well. My mother-in-law thought we cheaped out because we didn't take her advise and get a hotel downtown. Whatever. We got this hotel in the suburbs because it was close to her housing project.

We actually had a lot of full days. The first day there, Saturday, we went to Granville Island where we were invited to our old high school friends' daughter's 3rd birthday picnic/party. Mother-in-law tagged along, and immediately after having a brief conversation with Husband's old friend announced loud enough, "Well, he's still as pretentious as ever." I dunno. I found them both very rapped up in throwing this very perfect party so I spend loads of time talking with my friend's mother who was also visiting from Ontario.

Oh yeah, and Baby Boy ran away.

I told Husband and M.I.L. to take a kid to look after. I had Middle Child. MIL chose Daughter (no surprise for so many reasons; as it was, she needed to smoke so I had Daughter eventually as well). Anyway, Husband was busy being enlightened by Old Friend and I realized Baby Boy is no where to be seen. Husband and I take off, me in the wooded area, Husband by the ocean, where he was found throwing rocks in the water. Little bugger.

M.I.L.'s plan to have an open house for all her favourite hooker and crackhead friends come in and poke our children was thwarted as we just filled all the days with outings. But somehow, she kept directing us to drive back home through some of the worst neighbourhoods in the country. Don't do drugs, kids. It isn't pretty.

Now we're with my very sane brother-in-law and his family. The kids are much more relaxed. There's some great parks right by their home and Middle Child is able to bring his sketchbook where ever.

Oh, and my nephew? Well, Husband and his brothers look very much alike. We walked in the door and my 2-year-old nephew pointed to Husband, whom he last saw when he was 3 months old, and has yet left his arms. He's still not sure of me though.

Bad Timing

As soon as Husband told me he booked this trip out west, I had a weird feeling.

My gut was right.

My uncle, my godfather, died yesterday evening. He was surrounded by my grandmother and his brothers and sisters at his home, which I'm sure was a comfort to them. My uncle was in a coma, so I assume he was already comfortable.

Anyway, funeral home visitation will be on Friday, with burial on Saturday. I won't be able to be there, which is fine with everyone except for me.

And now I just got word that Husband's grandmother, who was rushed to the hospital Monday, is having her pacemaker surgery postponed because they still haven't been able to get her blood pressure down.

I haven't even started packing. What can I say? My mind is on other things.

Musical Wank

Yesterday, our city "celebrated" the anniversary of the big ol' blackout by urging us to not use electricity from 3 to 10 pm.

So I slapped some sunscreen on the kids and we met up with friends at the park where local chefs were having a hibachi cook-off and a non-amplified concert was going on.

The stuff the chefs were cooking were, um, not so kid-friendly. And, well, they were restaurant prices. For example, the price was $5 for two samples. So once you spend the $40, you'll actually have your sea scallop meal. Restaurant prices but in a park. But my kids don't do scallops. Or sushi. Or fois gras.

The concert was a little excrutiating. Most of it was free-form jazz or whatever. I call it Musical Wank - just a bunch of people goofing off. The five kids (actually six because one stranger kid just decided our children were more exciting to be with than her grandma) kinda got bored so they decided to have a grass fight and scream, which, frankly, just added to the Musical Wank. It didn't make it worse.

So when husband finally found us almost three hours later (we waited for him, blanking out everything but our always good conversations), we got out of there and went to a restaurant. Hey, WE weren't using electricity. We were just paying someone to. And who's to say they didn't have a bunch of monkeys in the back hand-cranking a generator?

The last time she gives us produce

So I made the aforementioned squash yesterday. Thanks to my friend JW who sent me a recipe, I made what the kids call Squash Volcano. I steamed the thing, scooped it out and stuffed it with bacon, bread crumbs, onions and the scoopings. Topped it all with some freshly grated Parmesan and baked it.

Husband told the squash giver what we did and she was horrified. I believe she only eats raw food. Her instructions were to just cut it and bake with a little olive oil but, y'know, the kids ate it my way.

But I'm still not one for squash.

Bye Kitty

Maybe my mother, who semi-silently disapproves of my decorating taste, willed it to happen.

The kids broke my Kit-Kat Clock. You know those black and white cats with a clock on its tummy? The eyes and tail move back and forth? Yeah. Mine is on the way to the dump. One eye popped right out, snapped off, as did the tail. Beyond repair.

No one confessed. Daughter tried to sell me on "It just fell," meanwhile they were right next to it holding balls.

I didn't lose control or anything. I just told them I was disappointed and I took off for an hour and a half buying milk.

Huh?

Huh?
Originally uploaded by Nimcheena.

Welcome to August.

It appears that everyone's backyard vegetable garden is coming to harvest.

Husband got two of these yesterday. Frankly, I thought these were just gourds you use as decoration at Thanksgiving.

Does anyone know if I can cook this? And how would I?
Or should I just get crafty?

There's a world outside your window...

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Originally uploaded by Nimcheena.

Daughter and I spent the weekend exploring Toronto and staying at my sister's place.

We took an early train in and met my sister at her very large office building in downtown Toronto. From there, the three of us walked through the underground malls, up Yonge a bit, went to the Eaton Centre, grabbed a street dog at Ryerson University, walked down Dundas through Chinatown, up Spadina, bought spices at Kensington and then streetcar and subway back to my sister's. A very full day and it wasn't even over as we still walked around my sister's neighbourhood later on.

The next day, we went to a South Asian festival by the Harbourfront where Daughter ate some food she never tried before (and the mango lassi was new too). I bought her a salwar kameez, something she's wanted ever since she saw her first Bollywood movie two years ago. She also got a mendhi (henna tattoo) on her hand which she loooves.

I could go into much detail but just let me say that this trip was great for her on so many levels. She got to ride on escalators and fast elevators (which she can't do where we live). She loved walking around the very tall buildings and through the subway. She got to see people from many walks of life and tried foods she isn't exposed to here. She saw where I grew up, where I went to school (and how far I had to walk). She got to visit relatives we don't see often enough.

Best of all, we got to spend time alone, just Mumma and Daughter.

Cover up

I popped in a full-length DVD for the kids so that I'd have time to be on the computer and give myself a pedicure. Yeah, yeah. Water and electronics. Whatever. I have no time for myself and I have to juggle where I can.

Actually, I'm making a compilation CD of all my strange cover songs. Gotta love Great Big Sea doing REM's End of the World. God bless the Newfies!

What do you get when you mix musicians, the 70s, and a big bag of coke? (This has sound...not all good)

Damn you, Mark Burnett

Bless me, father, for I have sinned.

I'm hooked on another mildly entertaining reality TV show, Rock Star: INXS. Granted, my penance shouldn't be too harsh as I don't watch American/Canadian/Hungarian Idol. At least I don't have to hear warbled Whitney Huston, and the contestants seem more like my people. Okay, except for that barefoot hillbilly guy.

I admit, I find it a little distasteful that INXS is doing this show, but I'm still watching. I realize this was their bread & butter, but c'mon. It's just bad manners. And can anyone else really sing Never Tear Us Apart? Michael Hutchence was an icon in his day. Even during his "Fat Elvis" stage (see the "Eloquently Wasted" video), he had a very compelling stage presence.

It makes me love Nirvana more.

I derided Van Halen when they went around changing lead singers (and, ironically, they approached Michael Hutchence once). I don't care how talented the rest of the band is, but most people identify a band by the singer. That would be like changing the voice of Kermit the Frog after Jim Henson died. It just wouldn't be the same.

That being said, I think there's some serious talent there. Deanna has a hell of a voice but are INXS really planning on hiring a female lead singer? Finding a new lead singer would change the band, but replacing Hutchence with a woman, sheesh, they may as well change their name. Actually, they should just change their name anyway, regardless of who they hire.

Mind you, I'm sure this is just a long probation period before they just hire Mig. Maybe because he's Australian and seems so polite, he appears to be a perfect fit with the rest of the band. If I learned anything about management and hiring, you gotta get along with the people you work with.

And, shit, if I have to hear Dave Navarro, a guy I USED to think was sooo sexy, refer to the female contestants as "sweetheart" again, I'm just going to use my old Jane's Addiction lps (yes, I'm that old) as decorative bowls.

Perhaps my penance should be to wait for Mark Burnett's other offering of crack, Survivor, to come back on TV. Maybe then I won't be wondering if J.D. Fortune (another contestant and, to my knowledge, not a porn star) will pick a better song next week.

A waste of time

There's a former city counsellor here who is walking around saying, "I told you so."

Apparantly, he's been going around for years talking about how we should all change daylight savings time by a month either way, just as the Americans are now going to do.

Personally, I'm not crazy about the idea. They're trying to sell it on the idea that it will save energy, but that doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, if there's an extra hour of night in the morning or evening, either way, you'll be using electricity for that time. And, like most mothers, I'm up early.

Probably the biggest reason why I'm against it is because I don't like the idea of getting the kids off to school when it's dark. I have a hard enough time when the sun is out and the birds are singing. And then there's the visibility factor when they're walking.

I think if we're going to seriously look at this idea, we should just take Saskatchewan's lead (and the lead of Creston, B.C. and a few other small Canadian towns) and scrap daylight savings time entirely.

I'm sure people in the far north are just laughing. Seriously, in the land of the midnight sun, how do these people put their kids to bed?

But does he also do the laundry?

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Originally uploaded by Nimcheena.

Oh. My. God.

Sure, I'll sample your hot buns.

I saw this article in the Toronto Star about a guy setting up a country inn in Collingwood. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs. Fitzmaurice and Miss Hutchinson at St. James School for teaching me how to read.

Creepy

There was a daytime execution-style murder right by the front entrance of the very large mall my mother works in yesterday.

As soon as I saw it on the news, I recognized it right away. I used to wait for the bus just steps away.

Could you imagine if you were there when it happened? Man, there must have been kids watching. Worse, what if one of the bullets ricocheted?

My mum wasn't even aware that this happened when I called her that evening. Like I said, it's a very large mall.

There's TWO!!!

But don't call him "Chuck"

Daughter's friend has a new baby brother. They named him Charlie. I don't know if they got the idea from me talking about a boy I know, but that would be the second Charlie ("Gawd, not Charles! Could I be that cruel to someone I love? No. It's Charlie) in as many years.

There's this real trend toward 100-year-old baby names. Take for instance the register for a nursery school near my house. There's kids with names such as: Lucy, Alice, Edmund, Oscar, Sadie, and Warren.

The other day, Daughter was having some mixed emotion upon finding her relatively unusual name on one of those racks of personalized items. One part of her thought it was cool that she now has note pads with her name printed on it (bonus! They have horsies and doggies wearing hats on it!), but the other part was downright concern that, in time, she won't be the only girl with her name in her school.

Believe me, you get over it. I swear, every 20-something woman is named Jennifer.

My dilemma for the day: Husband's birthday cake. No one wants to eat cake this year, so I'm thinking of Husband's two favourite snacks. Shall I stick some candles in a bowl of chips or, what I've done before with much success, get some Timbits and either put them in a trifle bowl or get a styrofoam cone and toothpick them?

Works Like New

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Originally uploaded by Nimcheena.

I had my old sewing machine tuned up and now it works like a dream.

I decided to make a few more Kool-Aid Jammers handbags after my sister saw the first one (the orange one here). She was really impressed and was happy to hear that I made a swim bag for her daughter (the blue and purple one in the back).

My nephew overheard, so I just whipped up a change purse for him. No sweat for me and yet I remain Cool Auntie Jen in the very big eyes of my nephew.

As I was sewing up his change purse, I marvelled at how smooth my machine was running. So, I woke up a little early today and spent my stolen 30 minutes by creating the green and purple ones here. Okay, I still have to sew the bottom on the purple one, but isn't the feather handle a scream? And you can't really tell in this photo, but the orange one has this cute ribbon and opalescent sequin trim. The green one has shiny dangly green beads at the top.

I still don't know what I'm going to do with them: probably sell them at a craft show or something. Post a comment here and tell me what you'd pay!

The best day of my neice's life

My neice is visiting for a few days and has proclaimed on several occasions today that "This is the best day of my life."

Sure, we took her swimming, which is her favourite thing to do. I took her to the grocery store and told her she could pick any cookie she wanted (she picked those plain wafer finger cookies - the ones with the same consistency as holy communion). But she loooved watching TV.

Apparantly, she doesn't get Teletoon. I thought she was going to pee herself when Atomic Betty came on.

I thought for a moment I should unearth my old VHS copies of Peewee's Playhouse but that would mean getting the kids to watch it on the attic TV where it's, like, Africa hot. We have an air conditioner but it takes a while to cool everything down.

Oh, and I forgot the girl takes forever to get to sleep. Everyone was in bed except for me (I watch Rockstar:INXS with much guilty pleasure). Daughter and the neice were reading books and playing Barbies until 10 when Daughter basically told her cousin she was packing it in.

So Neice came downstairs and watched TV with me. I thought Rockstar would be too exciting for her so we watched a documentary on an Emily Carr contemporary named Pegi Nicol. When my sister called the next morning, asking what time she hit the sack, I replied, "Well, she watched The Daily Show with me."

After all that swimming (6 to 8 pm), she konked out on the chesterfield at 9:30.

Drama

Oh, hooray! I finally got a hit on the Where's Willy website. Okay, the fiver only went 14 km down the highway, but it's on it's way!

I am so easily amused.

Took the older kids to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Husband reads too many newspapers and actually listens to reviewers. Yes, Johnny Depp was channelling a cross between Carol Channing and that actress who played Ted Knight's wife on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Yes, he had that Emo Phillips haircut. Whatever. Have you read the book? Roald Dahl meant Willy Wonka to be a freak.

All three of us loved the movie. It ain't Citizen Kane, but it isn't supposed to be.

My parents came over on Saturday. They planned to bring my grandmother but she doesn't want to leave my gravely ill uncle alone. Poor woman. She doesn't want to sleep because she doesn't know what she's going to wake up to.

Out of nowhere, while we were eating dinner, Middle Child pipes up.

"I hope we get invited to your brother's funeral."

My mum just about choked.

"Oh, he's not going to die," she said with much fervour. My mum is convinced that despite the fact that cancer has built condominiums in several organs and bones in her brother (the one on his back is particularly troublesome-looking), he will survive this. After she made this announcement, it was swiftly followed by a hush and the burying of heads into the plates.

The Neighbourhood Grandpa

When we first moved to this house a year ago, we used to see this rather dapper-looking old man on our walks around the neighbourhood.

He would always stop to talk with the kids and then give them a loonie or a twonie.

He and his departed wife never had children, he explained. He was an only child and his wife was an English war bride so they don't really have any neices or nephews either.

"I have no one of my own to be grandfatherly to," he said. "So I adopt all the children I pass in my daily half-hour walk."

We don't see him around anymore.

An Unexpected Turn of Events

I have this very sick uncle living with my grandmother. His body is riddled with cancer and it just doesn't look good.

Husband and I made the plan to go visit him this past Saturday and, moreover, spend time with our grandmothers. Hey, as long as they're still alive and "with it", we try to get down to see them at least once a month.

Anyhow, I more or less was steeling myself for my visit with my uncle. Even at Husband's grandmother's house, I was picturing how he may look and how he may feel.

Now, I love Husband's grandmother. She's 86 and totally spry, always with a great story and stuff to do. But it's that 86 thing that got Middle Child all wrapped up on the long drive to her home.

"She's close to 100, right? Will she live that long? Or is she going to die soon?"

Que sera, sera, Middle Child, we said but if that kid didn't have some kind of premonition or something.

The kids were playing in the backyard (oh, yeah, and she lives by herself in the cutest house you ever saw where, as of last winter, she was still shovelling the snow). Husband and I were with her in the living room talking when, all of a sudden, her hands are on her face. She suddenly had a severe headache, extreme nausea, dizzyness and the shakes. Her breathing was loud and very shallow and it looked like she was getting a hot flash. We didn't take long to decide she needed to go to the hospital.

So I stayed back with the kids while Husband drove the short distance to the nearest emergency room. I called Husband's aunt, because I thought that if Gramma was incapacitated, she'd be one who would have a handle on her health. Gratefully, Husband's aunt told her daughter who is a nurse. She came down to the hospital with her mother and asked all the right questions.

So after blood tests and and EEG, nothing came up. They all came back to the house about four hours later. Gramma said she felt that it had maybe been "the time."

Then we went to my grandmother's. My uncle looked pretty good, actually.