Saturday 17 January 2009

OK, not.

It was supposed to be a multi-post day. It wasn't. Sue me.

Cheers.

Multi Post Day

Out of the mouths of babes. My daughter came down the stairs with three balloons tied with a paper clip. 

"Dad, don't throw these out, they're not balloons, they're an art project".
"Yeah? I say... Of what?"
"It's a parachute for a bird. I just haven't made the bird yet".
"Oh, OK", said I, as I shook my head and meandered off to contemplate life.

Kids. Gotta love 'em.

Cheers.

Thursday 15 January 2009

Life after TV

This company shut our cable off last week. Their fault, and now it will take 5 days and an $80 reconnection fee to get it back. So this week we practiced life the way it use to be done - We read books, played games, talked to each other (that was weird), and did the mundane things you do when you can only receive one channel. I am so news starved! Yes, we still have the internet, but local news is not really available online. I miss waking up to the local news and flipping to the war channel - CNN. It's been an experience. The kids finally realize that the TV isn't the end all be all of life. There is actually stuff to do. I haven't heard 'I'm bored' in three days now. So you might think that with no TV I'd have more time to post. Nope, I've not been here in days. The last time I posted, the TV was on in the background. This week has been nuts.

Kim's school schedule has been as always hectic, and every night this week there has been some place to go for some meeting or another. We just came back from a pasta night fundraiser at 10pm.  Good food, good friends and good entertainment - my youngest was hypnotized. Or at least she thinks so, I think she doesn't have it in her to relax that much to let the mind take over. Or she says, It's hard to let your mind fall under the power of suggestion when your feet don't touch the floor. She sat there for 45 minutes with her legs swinging and a silly little grin on her face. She played along but on her own accord. It was nonetheless, entertaining.

I finally had that hot soak in the tub I've been craving, and now I'm listening to the William Tell Overature while posting, with a nice glass of wine. Shit, I sound like my father. Don't get me wrong, some nights it's a cold beer with Metallica booming away. (Kim loves those nights!)

On top of everything else this week I've been helping a friend with a major project that's up my alley and out of her league. She learning quickly, but she needs the advice of a pro. I should go into consulting.

Tomorrow I will finally have the chance to go pay the cable bill and have my service reconnected. Being that it's their fault, I really want to walk in there with the payment in pennies and throw them at the poor schmuck who attends me one at a time until it's paid in full. Even better, soak the pennies in a foul smelling brine of my own concoction first. Make them nice and stinky before I start pitching them. Hundreds of them. Oh well, I can dream. I just have a difficult time comprehending paying for someone else's mistake. Like we can all afford to do that. GM and Chrysler should just send out bills to all of their customers saying they have to pay a penalty for their idiotic business practices. That's fair isn't it? Have your customers pay for your mistakes? Why would you possibly want to pay for your own when you can railroad someone else into it? That's life. It sucks.

Tomorrow is Friday and I don't believe I have anything on tap. That of course could change at my wife's discretion. Saturday we're taking the kids to the new arena for the first time for a Spitfire hockey game. It won't quite be the same though, new is new and that's great, but the barn is hockey and always will be in my heart.

Until then, I will be content to live life the way it used to be. Much simpler. Back to the days of reading books and using imagination. Only with the internet. 

Cheers.

Sunday 11 January 2009

A bad day that got worse

I woke up this morning with no grand plans. I intended to do some cleaning, kick my oldest in the ass to get him to clean his closet, play a game or two. Sunday crap. 

NOPE.

In the  process of getting Little one ready for church Kim found lice. Lots of lice. We went through this a couple of weeks ago and thought we had it licked. We washed all the bedding, bought the shampoo, blah blah blah. But it came back and both kids are infested. So off we went again to buy $50 worth of special shampoo and went at it again. I stripped down all the beds and started the laundry, vacuumed the furniture and carpeting while Kim started with the lice comb. 

Then it got fun.

In the process of cleaning little one's hair, should wondered why her earlobe was VERY red. It seems that she had pain in her ear for about a week and didn't want to tell us, thinking that the repair would be painful. If only she knew how painful it would be to remove the earring backer from INSIDE her earlobe.

Off to the emergency room. (After the lice treatment, of course)

I took her to the ER and my heart fell. Here I am thinking that it's Sunday afternoon, shouldn't be too bad, but I was greeted with a packed waiting room. I warned her before we left to bring a book (I had to stop her from bringing 6). I also went prepared with a book I was halfway through. Four hours later we were called in. Four hours. When we arrived we were told that she would be seen in the clinic by a nurse practitioner and there was only four people in front of us. OK, I thought, that's not bad. I finished the book.

She was a trooper. There were needles needed to freeze her ear and the nurse popped out the backer in a matter of minutes. He fixed her up and kept her entertained; he was finished in ten minutes. Great work on his part. He wrapped a bandage around her head and sent her off. Now she looks like a pirate who's patch slipped. We headed home around 6:30 tonight, my Sunday thoroughly and completely pooched. I'm still washing sheets as I type this.

This of course begs the question - If we waited four hours to have 10 minutes in the treatment room, what the hell was wrong the the four people that went in before us?

I detest the ER. Living in Canada we have the distinct advantage that we were not handed a bill when we left, but that's the only plus in this mess. Universal health care is the greatest thing since sliced bread but the downfall is that you must wait in a room with 40 or 50 other people before seeing a nurse or doctor. Add to that the steady stream of ambulatory admissions. Last week my friend took her daughter to the ER suffering from dehydration (she's 4). She spent 8 hours waiting before finally calling it a day and leaving. She fixed the problem herself. She was pissed. You don't think that horror story was top of mind when I walked in there? I apparently, I got lucky.

Sitting home tonight with the whole family, one bandaged, one in a heap of crap for the condition of his closet, one very tired from cleaning lice all day, and one who felt the day was stolen from me, we are a disgruntled bunch. We need to have another Sunday to make up for this write-off. 

And so the new year begins.

What's your ER horror story?