Filed under: random whining
When I was walking from my office to my car after work today, someone threw up on my shoes.
I’ll let you just contemplate that for a bit.
***
Still there? No, it wasn’t anyone I knew. Drunk stranger puke. On my shoes. All I have to say is thank god I was not wearing sandals or I might have thrown up myself.
I don’t work in the best of neighbourhoods, in case you hadn’t guessed that by now. The shortcut I sometimes take from my parking lot to my building requires walking through an enclosed lane I call “the tunnel of bodily fluids” since you just never know what might be on the ground there. Oh, and one time some crazy lady spit on me on the street as I was walking by. But I think this is a new record for grossness.
I mean, I did notice the dude staggering around in front of me. But whatever, that is not particularly unusual, so I just moved over a bit to pass him. And I was almost level with him when suddenly he wheeled around to the left and … projectile vomit, baby. With splatterage. I stopped dead and he just continued to turn, and walked back the way he had come. I stood there frozen, jaw gaping, and stared at the woman who had been walking towards me and who had witnessed the whole thing. “OH MY GOD,” she said, “HE DIDN’T JUST … WAS THAT…. OH MY GOD.” Personally, I was incapable of even that much speech. Fortunately I did regain the ability to move fairly quickly and practically ran the rest of the way to my car. Then I got out my One Step Purell wipes and mopped off my shoes. But really, there is not enough disinfectant in the WORLD for that one. They were only $5 at Old Navy last year… maybe I will just throw them out.
Filed under: offspring
As you might imagine, this art project from French class required a little explaining when I picked Sport up from school on Friday.
Yes, that’s supposed to say “frère”. (Also, I appear to be wearing a dress over jeans. Not a look I support, in case you were wondering.)
The teacher was at a bit of a loss on this one, possibly because I had matter-of-factly told her at one point that Sport does have some family members in Ethiopia, and he may talk about them if the topic of families comes up in class. But I didn’t specify what sort of family members. So she was totally unsure how to handle the other kids saying, “Wait, you don’t have a brother!” Sport apparently told them he did so, and left it at that.
We talked about it later at home. Sport’s explanation: “Well, Little Brother is in my family. He just doesn’t know yet.”
On Saturday I bought the screen tent I had been considering. I also bought a new camp stove (I only have a little single burner backpacking one), a folding cot, and another camp chair. Then I went out to the parking lot, and could barely fit it all in the trunk. Hmm. Problem. After we got home, I hauled the screen tent out of the packaging for a trial run at setting it up. The good news: it is possible to do with one person despite what the instructions say. The bad news: it takes a while, and it’s pretty swear-worthy. Once it was up I was a little bit disappointed – it was not quite as good as I was expecting considering all the rave reviews online. Also it’s pretty big. I stood there staring at it, and flashed back to the camping trip last year when our campsite was composed largely of gravel, and my air mattress had a hole in it, and I was so frustrated by the time camp was set up that I came THIS CLOSE to turning around and going home. So is adding another tent-like apparatus that needs to be assembled and staked really a good idea? Setting up camp with one adult is quite different from setting up with two adults, which is the only way I had camped before. Sure, Sport helps (up to a point) but it still takes about double the time & effort.
Plus, the cot is lovely and would fit in my tent, but takes up way too much space in the car. Even with a rooftop carrier, it might not be do-able. So here’s the thing: if I return the cot, camp stove, and screen tent, and don’t buy the rooftop carrier, then I could just use the money and rent a cabin somewhere for a week. Hey presto, no equipment or setup required. It’s mighty tempting.
Filed under: random whining
Thankfully, this week is finally over. As weeks go, it pretty much sucked. The only highlight was Sport’s first baseball game on Tuesday night. I really wish I had video, because it was high comedy. Seriously, if you ever need cheering up, take a bunch of 4-6 year olds, stick ‘em on a baseball diamond, hand one a bat, and prepare to laugh until your stomach hurts. Also prepare to shout things like “RRRRUUUUNNNNNN!” and “The other way! OTHER WAY!” and “Touch the base! The base! Tag the base! Tag the… oh, ok, good try.” We had kids going from second to home, lapping each other on the bases, running the wrong way, standing and admiring their hit until they were tagged out, and of course, my kid, spinning in circles at shortstop until he fell down. But dammit, at least he knew how to run the bases. I taught him that much.
Lowlights, on the other hand, included:
- pouring rain for about 30 hours straight, resulting in a giant pool of water in my basement
- plummeting temperatures the night after it rained, resulting in all the car doors being frozen shut in the morning
- an hour-long meeting that I should probably not really blog about, except maybe to say that I have never been so close to just walking off the job as I was then. Too bad that whole rumour about me being rich isn’t actually true.
- assorted animals wreaking havoc in the house and yard. All I am going to say is, thank god the guinea pigs are in a cage, at least I don’t have to worry about what THEY are doing when I’m at work.
- sending my kid to school in brand new jeans, and then picking him up in brand new jeans with acrylic non-washable paint on them. And a hole in one knee. That makes seven pairs of pants he has put holes in the knees in since January, although usually they lasted quite a bit longer than one single damn day. Sigh.
- a middle of the night power-outage which I discovered after Sport woke up, realized he was in pitch blackness, tried to turn on the light with no result, and then commenced screaming in terror at the top of his lungs. (Have I mentioned he really, really does not like the dark?) Nothing like waking up at 2 am in a state of sheer panic.
- and, of course, the ongoing daycare saga. I swear I am going to throw a party the day he finally has a permanent daycare spot somewhere that stays open during school holidays, so I never have to worry about this again. I’m thinking I should just make up an imaginary name and date of birth for Little Brother and get him on the lists now.
And there you have it. On the bright side, we are now heading into a 3 day weekend, and although the weather is not looking great, we have some fun indoor activities planned. Plus for a little retail therapy, I’m going to go get that screenhouse for camping. (Exciting, I know.)
Filed under: life in general
… for my lovely friend Haze. Go stop by and share in the joy!
Filed under: random whining
Today I spoke to all three of the daycare centres who have Sport on their waiting lists for before & after school care in September. He didn’t get a spot at any of them. He has been on the lists since last September, which is when I bought the new house and knew which school he would be attending, and therefore which centres would bus him to school. I should not be surprised that putting my kid on a list a year in advance doesn’t get him a spot, since I have a friend whose daughter has been on a list for two years for another school, and she’s still 130th in line. But this is an older neighbourhood, with less kids… I really thought we would get in to at least one of the three options.
Obviously that means he didn’t get a spot for the summer either, but that’s not really a problem, since there are summer day camps galore that I can sign him up for. September, however, IS a problem. Three and a half months away, and no daycare. Just shoot me. This is shades of last year, when I put him in private school primarily because I couldn’t get daycare anywhere else.
Sometimes this province really sucks. Of course, so does working for a living. My best strategy at this point might be a large investment in lottery tickets.
Well, the snow stopped, although baseball practice took place indoors due to the freezing cold. After a couple of the players had pounded whiffle balls into the walls hard enough to break them (the balls, that is) the coach switched to tennis balls. Which were certainly more durable, but were probably also more painful when Sport hammered one directly at the coach, who was pitching from about 12 feet away. He walked around rubbing his shoulder for a bit, exhibit A in “why I bought Sport a batting tee instead of continuing to pitch to him.” When he connects, be afraid.
In addition to his introduction to baseball, today also served as Sport’s introduction to another great spring & summer pastime – garage saling. He was less than enthusiastic at first, but at the first sale he was inspecting a big box of 5 cent toys when the lady in charge told him he could just take whichever one he liked for free. Not surprisingly, his view of garage sales improved immensely as he strode off with his new Mr Incredible figurine. (Later he was forced to shell out some cash for a package of hockey cards and a couple of Bionicles, all for less than a dollar.) I have not gone garage saling since before Sport was home, and I had kind of forgotten just how good the pickings can be. Today I came home with: a box of K’nex toys, a vintage Scrabble game (turns out it is missing an “i”, but really, I think we can get by with 8 of them instead of 9), clothes for Sport (four pairs of pants, two sweaters, two long sleeve Nike shirts, and a fleece), a frying pan, a handle for my corningware dishes, corn cob holders, some cooking utensils for camping, two cake pans, and an unopened Junior Scrabble game. All that for less than $40. SCORE!
As for the tent/screen house dilemma, I have decided to go with the screen house. I can’t really justify the bigger tent for just the two of us, especially if we can have a bug-free and dry place to hang out and can use the tent just for sleeping. Of course I dithered long enough that the one I want is no longer on sale… ah well. Anyway the bigger tent will come eventually, once we need to sleep 3 instead of 2. For now I think I will spring for a cot or two and eliminate the air-mattress-inflation step of camp set-up. We’ll have room for them if I break down and also buy the rooftop carrier. So that’s one screen house, one rooftop carrier, and two cots. Too bad you don’t tend to find THOSE at garage sales.
Filed under: life in general
It’s May 9.
It’s Sport’s first baseball practice today.
It’s snowing.
Un-be-frickin-leivable.
Ok, I’m guessing other people like shopping vicariously through others as much as I do. So here’s your chance to spend my money. Based on the comments on my post about our summer plans, there seem to be a lot of campers in the crowd. So which one should I buy: a bigger tent (bigger, as in sleeps 6 or 8 and I can stand up in) or a screen house, with our current tent for sleeping quarters?
(And no, Barbara, you may not vote for “stay in a hotel instead.”)
Here’s how I see it: A bigger tent means only 1 thing to set up instead of 2 and the ability to use a camp cot instead of an air mattress. A screen house means bug-free and dry suppers, and more flexibility in how the campsite is set up. Plus, of course, it would only cost about half as much as the tent.
Vote early, vote often!
before: a wheelbarrow full of chunks of grass and weeds that I dug out from the former (and future) garden beside the house.
after: a wheelbarrow lying on its side, with grass and weeds cascading everywhere.
the explanation from Sport: “Luke convinced me to do it.”
(Yes, Luke is the dog.)
After I stopped laughing we established that Sport was a little hazy on the meaning of the word “convinced”.
