Thankful

This summer has been a summer of realization for me. Several people very close to us had literally the worst summers of their lives. There was injury, and loss, grieving and pain. Their stories are not mine to tell, but I felt them so, so deeply.

I am an easygoing person, and often seem to approach important things in my life casually. This is just my way - I like humor, I like sarcasm, I like to go for a laugh. But for once I want to get serious and say that I don't for a moment take anything in my life for granted.

I have a beautiful family and a beautiful home in a beautiful city. I have the best friends anyone could ask for who love us and are always there for us with our families so far away. I have work that I love, and have been able to pursue my passion with the full support of my amazing partner. This first summer with our beautiful, funny girl was a phenomenon, and every moment with her has been a gift all its own.

So as much as I gripe and complain and joke, they are just jokes. I am happy, and grateful, and joyful, and I feel so much myself, moreso than I have in a very long time.

30 weeks

Week 30 is bringing us into the middle of a slight conundrum. To travel or not to travel?

Both of our families are in New Brunswick. We haven't been home for the holidays for 4 years due to the old dog and cat business. We were both very much looking forward to a holiday at home.

Then we became pregnant people.

At first I was gung-ho. It's no problem. No worries. I'll only be 32-34 weeks during holiday time. It'll be fine. It'll be better than fine, it'll be great!

But the closer I get to holiday time, the less sure I am that it's such a great idea. Things that do not concern me: driving in a car for 10 hours. However, for some reason, everyone thinks that this is the part of the trip that worries me the most. I have no qualms about being in a car for 10 hours. In fact, I would probably love it being that I would nap all day if I could, and being in a car for 10 hours, what's a better way to pass the time then to nap?

Things that do concern me: Going into pre-term labor 10 hours away from home. I realize there are very few things that you can plan and rely on when it comes to labor and delivery, but if I gave birth 10 hours away from home, I think I would lose it. Not in the birthing centre we've visited and wrapped our heads around, not in the hospital 10 minutes from home, not with our chart handy, not with our doula, not with our little baby nest 10 minutes from the hospital to bring The Insider home to, not with our carseat, not with our baby clothing, not with our tub to labor in at home, not with our few weeks of settling in after filled with personal chaos, but in our house at our pace with our cats. I would lose. My. Shit. And right now the only solution I can think of that guarantees avoiding this situation is staying my ass right here at home.

Yes, in New Brunswick there is a great hospital where my mom knows most of the doctors, more of the nurses, they have a great NICU and comfy facilities. But, oh my hell, our doula, our house, our nest, our cats.... Plus a 10 hour drive back with an infant. After giving birth.

We have polled several councils. 1st being our doctor, who was only able to give a medical opinion, which was basically "sure, there's no reason you can't sit in a car for 10 hours." As stated, OBVS. This is not really the question.

2nd council consulted: My yoga class. 6 out of 6 polled there say they would never make the trip in a million years.

3rd council: A caucus of nurses at my mom's work training this week. I'm not sure how many were there, but they all seemed to think it was a bad idea too.

So, I'm at a loss. My heart and my doctor say we should go. But, my intuition, my sanity, and my councils say we should stay put. So, the jury is still out on this one.

Week #1

So, it's nearly the end of the first week post-business. I will be in a car for the better part of this weekend for another fantastic whirlwind trip to NB. Goodness I hate car trips more than I thought possible. Anyhoo, thought I should give you an update on how life is going so far.

It's great. I've been doing some work at home, and doing a few more hours at my vet clinic job. I really am loving that so far, and I feel really lucky that the timing worked out for that. Last night the most adorable puppy came in and we got to play with him. I had to resist the urge to grab him and hightail it outta there.

The new business owner seems to be settling in nicely. I have barely heard from her, which I take to mean she is getting along just fine. At least I hope so. I hope she isn't just scared to ask me questions.

We're going to NB for Eric's niece's christening. I have no idea what this entails exactly, but I do know that I will have to enter a church, so if you don't hear from me, it's possible I spontaneously burst into flames when I walked through the door. It will be our first time meeting her, so that's pretty exciting, and extra exciting that she is 7 months old now, so I'm pretty sure she can hold up her head and stuff. Yay.

Babies

And of course the day after I posted about Big A we received a card from our friends in Winnipeg with their baby Chloe on it. And holy eff if she isn't the cutest thing too. So I guess there really CAN be more than one baby that I find quite darling. And in real life she has actually liked me reasonably well also. Maybe I am not just a cat whisperer, but a baby whisperer also! I think I may make a fantastic Auntie after all.

I can't think of anything else to say right now because my mind is a little too full, but I'll be back on the weekend with some big announcements!

The Questions

Obviously after we graduated from University The Questions started about when we would be getting hitched.

Then when we finally got engaged, The Questions became incessant (admittedly we asked for those ones), and we deferred them by saying we would get married after we bought a place.

Then The Questions became "did you find a place yet?". When we finally bought our condo, The Questions reverted to "so when is the big day going to be?"

Well, the Big Day has come and gone. We are officially hitched, and it's great. But now The Questions have become "so when are you going to have kids?"

I realize this is the conventional order of things. But in keeping with my attitude of resenting questions about my life, please stop asking this question. Because, if you know me at all, you know:

1. babies terrify the bejeesus out of me - I can feel it deep in my soul that if left to my own devices I would break a baby. And probably not just in two, but I would probably shatter it.
2. I don't like things that talk back, and I do like quiet. I like to share my space with dogs, cats, and SB because they are all relatively complacent to my particularities.
3. Babies are so self-centered.
4. TLC's a Baby Story. 'Nuff said about that one.
5. My life is messed up enough, so I don't think it's fair to force that upon more humans than necessary, especially helpless ones that can't exactly run away until they are like 15, which is way too late. ****

So, please, please stop asking when we're going to have a baby. We have a lot of things to do in this life already, like working, and traveling, and spoiling Simon and Gang. We are certainly not in the mindset to add more chaos to all that.


****when my mother asked me The Question, this was my response. She said I was too cynical. Maybe. But this isn't something I'm willing to talk myself into.

And over on the East Coast....

It turns out that last night while I was playing the Oskar Schindler of muffins ("this banana, I could have used this banana to bake just one more...."), my sister was having herself a car accident.

Driving home at night on the highway, possible mechanical error, some swerving, and some rolling over of the car a few times.

My sister bought her car on Monday.

When she called to tell me about it, I asked details about the accident, and we chatted for a minute. She sounded so normal that it didn't hit me until hours later how lucky it is that she's okay.

I feel horrible for her, not only because her car is probably totaled, and now she is very nervous to drive again, but also because it appears that she may have inherited my luck. I hope she keeps her chin up, and I hope she keeps driving. But in daylight. And maybe at like 30km/h at first.


***note: sorry about the tasteless Schindler joke, but to my tired, sick, melancholic brain it was too funny to ignore.

Digging in to the routine

My sister left this morning after ten days visiting. We had loads of fun - did tons of shopping, mostly, but she was also jonesing for a ton of relaxing so of course I was game for that. However, after all that relaxing I feel completely behind in my work, even though I'm not really, but you know that sinking feeling that you know are forgetting something......

While visiting, my sister took advantage of us. For our cable. She doesn't have cable. I know, I know, I almost asked for a DNA sample to prove we are related before feeding her when she arrived. She says she is not home enough to pay for it, and that she gets free movies from work anyway, so if she will be home she just brings a few with her. Meanwhile I can barely survive 8 hours of sleeping time without TV. It's on constantly - even if I'm not paying attention to it, I like to hear it as background noise. It was especially fun for her that there was a marathon of LA Ink on yesterday.

I've been able to catch a few of the new shows in amongst my routine of old ones, and I have to say I have been overall pretty pleased with the new, and underwhelmed by the favorites. CSI premiere was a little un-forensic, ER was a little too ER not enough character stuff. Law and Order SVU was a bit too dense - they tried to jam a two-part episode into an hour. However, I am totally in love with Dirty Sexy Money (maybe because I have a major hard-on for Peter Krause), and surprisingly charmed by The Big Bang Theory. It was friggin' hilarious. I highly recommend it if you like sarcasm, nerdy humor, and sarcasm. I wasn't impressed at all by Big Shots - in fact I could only make it through about 10 minutes before switching over to Without a Trace. And that is saying a lot, because I could have easily caught the re-run of Without a Trace on Friday night. I'm very sad, because I have also been known to have a hard-on for Michael Vartan. Maybe if I watch it with the sound off or something.

Back!!!

Well hello there. Sorry for the absence, but I have been away. That's right. Off the island. Out of the province, even. I know, the insanity of it.

Two of our very dear friends made the jump to matrimony this past weekend, and we were lucky enough to be able to attend. The wedding was held in Digby, Nova Scotia, so we decided to meld the trip with a quick visit home to visit the fam.

I had a few trepidations about travelling (okay, billions of them).

1) our pets. This is the first time ever we have flown home, normally we drive and bring the brood along with us. But, this time we had one of our employees stay at the house to care for them. I know they love her, and obviously if she works for us I know she is more than competent and trustworthy, but for some reason I had anxiety. Oddly enough, though, once on the plane I rarely thought of them until we returned.

2) our business. Even though I brought the work computer and my Blackberry, I was still worried something terrible would happen and I would be out of touch. I tried to keep the work to a minimum, and only replied to emergencies of our regular clients, but I still felt like I didn't really get a break. However, I doubt I would have felt better if I was completely out of touch and had no clue at all what was going on. In fact, I think that would have driven me batty.

3) timing for the wedding. We landed Friday night. We drove to the wedding on Saturday morning. The wedding started at 2pm. It was 5 hours away. It was a long drive, and after checking into our hotel and getting dressed and ready for the wedding, we arrived in time for the ceremony, but missed the bride walking down the aisle.

4) travelling together. I just really hate going to NB with SB. Point final. I'm pretty sure I won't be interested in doing it again any time soon. Because travelling together to NB is pretty much like me going to London and him going to Paris at the exact same time and we'll just meet back up in MTL at the arrival gate. It's ridiculous and I think from now on I would rather we just vacation somewhere else, but together.

Aside from all the anxiety, it was so good to see my family, and to eat fried clams. More stories to come.

Long weekend

I had two days off this weekend! In a row! My first days off all summer. I haven't even taken any of the messages that people left after five o'clock on Friday. People seem to think that I am available 24/7. Well, I'm not. So, the messages, they have not been taken, and if there are any emergencies in those messages, it is not my problem. And I'm only feeling about 80% guilty about that.

On my two days off we have been doing NOTHING. Which is pretty fabulous, although I think it would have been fun to have rented a cottage or gone on a day trip to the outlets or something like that. But that kind of thing takes advanced planning, a luxury that I do not have. So yesterday we went to a BBQ, and today we went for a bike ride and hung out at a street fair. And ate mussels and beer. Awesome.

Next weekend we venture east, to a wedding and then a very quick visit with the families. We were supposed to stay for a week, but because SB has some work stuff that needs to be tended to, it has been shortened to about 5 days. Two of which involve travelling to and from the wedding and attending the wedding. The upside to this is we now get to fly. The downside to this is that we will probably only see each other at the wedding, and the rest of the time we will be trying to visit our respective families and friends.

I just realized my hands still smell like mussels even though I washed them twice. Ugh.

One thing to smile about.

One super fun thing that happened last week that I forgot to mention - my Mummy brought SB and I some super yummy lobster! We had a fabulous feast on Thursday evening, and it was AWESOME.

When I was little, I would only eat the "Little Legs" of the lobster - I liked to squish the meat out using my teeth. Then I graduated to eating those and claws, when they were properly cracked for me. I eventually was able to crack them myself. A few years ago I got over my phobia of eating the tail - the digestive tract runs along the top of the tail, and I was always terrified I would accidentally eat part of it and die. But now I am confident in my poop-peeling ability.

I still refuse to eat anything in the body/head of the lobster. SB tried to get me to dig into the meat on the side of the "ribs", but I kept getting these crunchy parts which really skeeved me. And don't get me started on the gross green stuff. Once I got all crazy and tried the red eggs, but quickly spit them out. So dry and gross they remind me of peas, which I HATE. Not that they taste like peas, but the texture is close.

I remembered the lobster feast this morning, and smiled. But I remembered it because I scratched my hands up breaking open the tail. And that memory was triggered by the fact that I spent the morning trying to give an insulin injection to a pissed off cat, who then scratched up my entire arm and hand, then shit in the closet.

I'm not loving my job so much this week.

14 inches, flaccid

A few months ago, Sexy Boyfriend's mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She's been doing great with her treatments, and so far so good, but it's only the second time I've ever known anyone with cancer. The first time was when I was in elementary school, and my neighbor who was a few years older than me had leukemia. I think I have been incredibly lucky, since it seems like this disease is everywhere, affecting everyone.

So, I've been thinking about things we can do - we've donated money to a friend doing a breast cancer walk, but that seems a bit...I don't know, like our little donation is going to make a big huge difference - it's just so obtuse or something. Then I thought about Locks of Love. And I'm thinking about doing it. I've been growing my hair for over a year, I guess, who knows really. I've lost hair direction since becoming a dog-walker - I never style it anymore, just put it in a ponytail - and since I have no ideas about what to do with it, I've just let it grow. And grow. And grow. Now it is quite long - my ponytail measures 14" and most places only require your donation to be 10" long. Hair is just hair, and it will grow back, but I've never cut my hair that short. That part of it is kinda scary, but it is winter and I will most likely be wearing a hat for the next few months.

Has anyone ever done this? What did you think about the whole experience?

I just need a little more "me" time

While watching TV the other night, a commercial came on for some kind of learning game for kids. It showed the mom with the kid sitting on her knee playing this game on the TV. It made me think about how terrible I would be as a parent. I don't think I would like to play kid games. I would need a child who likes to do crossword puzzles, or who could play quietly while I did mine. And the child must knit. I would most likely have a hard time concentrating while playing normal kid games. My kid would probably grow up thinking C is for dog just because I wasn't paying attention.

TLC is lessening my chances of procreating

It's my first day of pseudo-unemployment. It feels amazing! I had the best night's sleep I've had in months, without the aid of any sleep enducing medications whatsoever. As someone said to me as I was leaving work "No more headaches, or stomach problems - now you can get off the pills!". I think he was ready to stage an intervention.

The downside to being pseudo-unemployed and waiting for a Purolator pick-up is that all you can do is watch TV, and clean things. I hate cleaning, and that would be an absolute last resort for me. Besides, yesterday I did my laundry duties plus Sexy Boyfriend's dishes duties. I was exhausted!

So, daytime television. What can I say? Oprah and Dr. Phil dominate, and when you've seen one "My husband is cheating, please help me fix our marriage because now I'm pregnant" Dr. Phils, you've seen them all. And Oprah is in repeats, and I hate talk-show repeats. So, I get sucked in by TLC, namely, all those damn baby shows.

I have a love/hate relationship with babies. For the most part, babies make me uncomfortable. Like, when people say "Hey, hold my baby" I'm like "Ummmmm...." until they shove me in an armchair with pillows propped in weird places so there is no chance in hell I can actually break the baby, and thus no chance in hell that I can possibly escape the humiliation of holding the baby in my awkward, uncomfortable manner. Usually when people I know have babies, I just send something. I don't visit. And when people say "We should go visit that baby" I say "I'm sure they have their hands full enough with that baby, they don't need us around."

I can admit that babies are super-cute (usually) and they smell pretty good when they aren't crapping and puking all over themselves. And tiny babies who cry for food and dirty diapers, they don't bother me so much. But I hate when I'm out in public, minding my own business, and some person lets their baby cry and scream and tantrum all over the place like they aren't bothering anyone around them. People who choose not to have babies cause they think that the crying and screaming would drive them to drinking. Even Dr. Phil says "Anytime you go out in public with a child, you need to be ready to get out of there, and remove them from the situation, to teach them that this behavior will not be tolerated".

I have sought counselling about my aversion to babies with my friend Ems and her Sexy Boyfriend. They have two kids, who seem pretty normal to me. I babysat them once, on a brave day, and it went well. Anyway, Ems's Sexy Boyfriend said "You must be like me - I hate all other children, I only like my own."

With that in mind, I began preparing myself for the fact that in the future I might want a baby.

And then, I got sucked in by a TLC baby show.

There is nothing about the birthing process that makes me want to have a baby. Not even one thing. Not the cringing in pain, not the water breaking, not screaming, not the ice chips (what do these do/help, really?), not the breachness of babies, not the C-section possibility, not the cord cutting, nothing. Why do they put these shows on TV? Are they trying to control the population by scaring the crap out of all the non-parents in the world?

Then, on a new show they have that shows parents in the first couple of months after they have the baby at home, these two people were changing their baby, but instead of leaving her laying down on the changing pad, they picked up that half naked little baby for some reason, and then that half-naked little baby spurted out diarrhea all over her mom's arm. I gag when I change the litterbox!!!! How could I ever deal with crap all over my arm? And I've smelled baby crap. People lie when they say it doesn't stink. They lie like rugs. I would puke all over that baby.

So, all of this to say, for those of you who are rooting for me and Sexy Boyfriend to have a baby ever, until I am either a) working every day during the week, b)have plenty of movies to have on the TV while I'm home during the week or c) no longer have TLC, you will be hard-pressed to convince me that babies are a good idea.

Some people lose their shirt at the casino

While Mummy was here, we paid a visit to the casino. The casino is pretty fun, but since I have a pretty compulsive disposition for online computer games that involve little to no thought, it's usually best that I either a) go to the casino with no more than $20 in my pocket, or b) don't go to the casino. I'm sure if slot machines were free, especially those fun videogame-type ones with lots of fun music and cool character things, I could sit there for hours and hours and hours. However, they are not free, and I'm not particularly lucky, so I usually just don't visit the casino at all.

To get to the casino, we took my car. Parking is free in a giant parking complex, which is one thing I love best about the casino - sometimes tourist stuff isn't so fun when you have to give the finger to like five people on your way there, and then drive around for half an hour looking for parking. But the casino is out of the way, and if you don't go on the weekend, traffic isn't that bad, and parking is free. Once, we did go on the weekend, and not only was parking free, but it was so packed we got free valet service. There's something about valet service that excites me.

When we tired of losing all our money (me, $2, my Mummy, $20, her boyfriend, I lost count), we decided to leave and get something to eat. Approaching the parking complex I said "did we park in P3?" and my Mummy said, "Yes, I'm sure we parked in P3". So we went to P3, and walked along the little pedestrian pathway, and then turned off where the car should have been.

But alas, it was not.

I tried the "Panic Button" trick, where I press the panic button on my key, and the horn sounds, and we all laugh about how we're one row over, and pile in. But no horn sounded. No beeping at all, nor lights for that matter. Silence.

At this point I began to panic, because there had just been an article in some newspaper about how like 10 zillion cars a year get stolen from the casino parking lot and when I heard that I said something to the effect of "My Jetta will never get stolen cause she's super-smart and has a nifty alarm, and she'll be mine forever."

Wandering through P3, I almost crapped my pants at the fact that she might be gone forever.

We then decided to try P2, the next level up. This should have been the natural next step before my heart leapt out of my body and I lost control of bodily function, but of course I went straight to panic mode. But there was Jetta, in P2, safe and sound beside the same Porsche SUV we met when we came in. I clicked "Unlock" like four times to hear her reassuring greeting.

When we got in the car, before putting the key in the ignition, I hit the steering wheel with both hands and shouted: "Jetta, don't ever scare me like that again!! I thought you were gone forever!! You almost gave me a heart attack, god dammit!" Mummy gave me a funny look, but didn't say anything.

Surprise Mummy visit

Monday night when I got home from work there was a message on my phone:
"Julie, it's your mother, I'm coming to Montreal tomorrow, talk to you then. Bye."

Since my mom lives like 10 hours away by car, this is not a message that I regularly hear. She and her boyfriend arrived yesterday in the morning, and I picked them up at the airport and we hung out before work. Last night, as I worked til 10pm, I had visions of them stranded somewhere waiting for a bus or something on the wrong side of the road and looking pathetic with their bags and getting splashed by passing motorists. But, apparently they did okay.

Today we went to the casino, and then had lunch, then I dropped them at the airport for their flight back. A busy little visit, but nice to see Mummy.

So, today was the deadline my possible new boss (PNB) was supposed to possibly get back to me about a possible new job. I was thankful to be occupied with visiting and touristy stuff cause otherwise I would have no ends left on my fingers (when I get really nervous, anxious, stressed, or bored, I chew my nails and pick at the skin around. It's disgusting, I know, but I've been doing it since I was like 2 so I've given up all hope of stopping and have accepted it as one of my lifelong vices.)

When I got back from dropping Mummy at the airport, I checked my answering machine, then cell voicemail, then my email. Nothing. I was so sad. My PNB told me "If you don't hear from me, call me, cause it's busy at the store and I might forget if I get swamped." So, I called her.

GREAT NEWS!!!!!

I'm getting an offer, but it will be in writing so they will either mail or email it, and I won't get it until early next week :( I really wanted to quit tomorrow, and never go back to that dirty, rotten, miserable, crusty, mother-fornicating place, however, I will have to wait to make my grand departure next week.

In other interesting news, Omarosa (see previous post about the Axis of Evil) apparently has a master plan, that does indeed include me. That's funny, I wasn't aware she even recognized my existence. So, she was going to be discussing this with my boss today. That's also funny, that's she's actually letting us all in on the joke this time. Usually she just shanghai's us and laughs her way back to the corner office. Tomorrow should be interesting.