The Canadian Chronicles 2014: The Summer of Pestilence and Disney

Knowing that my personal woes are on a small scale, I am nominating summer of 2014 for the title "Summer of Pestilence."

Let's set the scene.  The girls have been asking and asking to go to Disneyland.  We promised them a trip attached to no particular date.  That was the first mistake. Looking at the calendar, we pigeonholed ourselves into a visit to the Happiest Place on Earth that had us getting home and leaving in a day and a half for our summer in the Canadian wilds.

Knowing our time was crunched, we did every bit of preparation we could do before our "Happy" excursion.  We dialed in the mail, the pets, the bills, the summer chair cushions, the car storage, the laundry, the packing, etc.  I tried to out fox the foxes and was feeling very satisfied with my organizational skills as we were sitting on our plane with our friends bound for L.A.

Even on the plane, we got seats together, our flight was on time, we got to the airport packed and ready to go without incident. My friend Paula and I were seated in a row directly in front of our "Happy" girls. The flight door was closing, and as my friend's daughter was just about to switch off her cell phone for the flight as one last text chimed in...

"Mom,  So and So has lice."

And they had both just spend the night with So and So.

And so it goes...the plane took off and that began our Disney trip...with many many little stow always flying on both of their tiny heads.

Canadian Chronicles 2014: Creativity and 4 Board Monopoly

4 board Monopoly was the talk of the summer.  The kids had to play it, and the dilemma was we did not have 4 boards.  In the wilds, this is how you settle that problem.

Anyone that has visited us in Canada, will recognize the Boardwalk, Park Places and pitfalls that might greet you or be your undoing in this game.

It is still a work in progress, but come next summer, the game will be on!

Fish, Fish and More Fish: Traveling Portugal

Those of you that know me know that I don't eat fish.  Clams, oysters, octopus, lobsters, crabs, shrimp--you name the sea creature (including seaweed) and I don't only not eat it, but am sensitive to the smell.  I've taken a beating over this throughout my marriage to my husband. I didn't know there was even anything wrong with me until I met him and his family.

Yes, according to the family that travels the world and is so tolerant of every culture and custom, they cannot wrap their heads around a girl raised in the Midwest by a vegetarian mother.  I never knew I was odd or that I should be ashamed of my tendencies to lean towards the vegetarian side of the menu.

Or the fact that I am a careful, patient person. I am not a risk taker.  I think this trait is actually a perk in my chosen profession of pre school and junior high school teacher, well, and even mother.  I mean, every single time I've tasted seafood it has had the effect on my taste buds of touching a hot stove. Really, I'm not very interested in trying it anymore.  I'm 46 and I figure I will spend my years left choosing the things that I actually might enjoy to eat or experience, call me timid, but it's not like I'm locking myself in my house and refusing to come out.

Some people, if they die tomorrow and are checking in with St Peter at the gates, they might say I wish I tried that spiny sea creature, it looked so delicious! My regrets might be more along the line I didn't burn some journals or shave my armpits  Hey, that is me, and I am not you, or that other girl over there, and this is my thought.

Well, all of this to say after dining at about every fish restaurant we could possibly think of for twos weeks, I had had it.  I am not exaggerating.  We were at Fish House, Fish Grill, Fish Market, Fish Night, Sea Life, Ocean Fish, Town Fish, Sun Fish...all with very nice wine and white tablecloths, but oh boy.  I am becoming an expert at recognizing fish in multi-languages.  

I threw a bit of a fit, seeing that our restaurant for the evening was a place with a giant grill on the middle so you could see your fish cook--the name:  Fish Grilled in the Middle of the Restaurant. After the last restaurant, where the man was showing off a lobster bigger than my 13 year old I could only imagine the parade, the grilling, the de-boning and the aroma. No thank you.

I googled vegetarian restaurant Lisbon.  The first one popped up with many accolades, why not?  My husband reluctantly cancelled Fish Grilled in the Middle of the Restaurant and made a reservation at Terra. Yum.

For starters, we got in the cab and it was the first restaurant that the doorman or the taxi driver did not recognize. A little red flag, but not everyone enjoys a full vegetarian menu.  We found our weathered looking restaurant and entered.  We then were informed it was a BOO FAY. Mmm. My husband pouted across the table and I had to stifle my laughter, as this restaurant was the antithesis of every single place we had eaten on the trip.

We were clearly in someone's backyard sitting in metal folding chairs.  We ordered wine, that if you got through the first glass, tasted better.  Birk and my husband sat arms crossed across the table, but I was able to try everything on the buffet without fear for the first time on our longish trip.  They ate a little.  I ate a lot.  The dinner will not go down as the best on the trip, but it will be remembered for being able to enjoy someone's back yard.

Copy Cats and Washing Machines

This has been a strange week and it might get even stranger as it goes along.  After all, it is only Wednesday.

There is a cat missing in our neighborhood.  Signs with pictures are everywhere around town, on our neighborhood site and up and down the bike path.  There is a $500.00 reward for this cat's return...our only problem at our house is that it looks exactly like our tortoiseshell cat, Patch.  Same age.  Same sex.  Same color.

This missing cat looks so much like our cat, that I had to do a double take.  I actually had to do more than a double take:  I had to analyze the picture while staring at our cat! 

This brought to mind a book that I read to the kids when they were little.  It was by Barbara Abercrombie and called  Charlie Anderson.  It is about a cat that lives at two houses, one during the day and one at night.  Neither family knew that they were in fact sharing a cat.  It had me thinking...

However, if you looked really closely, the cats were not a match.  However, I was looking with the trained eye of the owner, not as a person on the bike path hoping to make 500 bucks.  This did not occur to me to worry about until my husband chimed in and told me to keep her indoors for a while.

Of course, then she goes missing for a night.  Yes, I am the bad owner of a cat that lets the cat outdoors.  Our mostly outdoor cat is technically grandfathered in, she was an outdoor cat before all of the coyotes, foxes and giant raccoons invaded our suburban neighborhood.  Now it seems like cats go missing daily and a few are heard being devoured in the night.

I have curbed our cat care.  We keep them in the house most of the time, and usually, they stay on the patio.  Patch has been known to wander, but usually if you call her, she comes right back. 

She limped back in after her night away.  I made a vet appointment for the next day.  Later that night, I saw that she actually had two bleeding bite marks.  I called the vet first thing in the morning and moved her appointment up.

The vet said she would be fine, it looked like a fight with another cat.  They drained her wounds and gave her a cone.  We were to go back to the vet in 3 days.

I put her in our laundry room to keep her quiet and from jumping around.  Somehow, Patch wedged herself, cone and all, into a little nook under our cabinets.  Now, she has to come out somehow... The dimensions are not in her or our favor.  There is no way to reach her behind the laundry machine and in this little tube of a nook.

Her cone is basically keeping her from pushing through the opening.  My mind is thinking fire fighters right now.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.  She is due for pain meds in a couple of hours....

Tiny Handprints

I am now staring at a tiny handprint made by my daughter in December 2004--or so says the back of it.  That would make her a newly turned 3 year old at the time of the handprint.

It is green and glittery, I suppose it is a Christmas ornament with its red trimmed hanging loop.  That makes sense, a perfect holiday gift for the parents, made by the class.

As a teacher, this is brilliant.

However, years later, twelve-ish to be exact, I am sitting here, procrastinating paying the bills and staring at it.

I now know why exactly bronze baby shoes, foot prints and hand prints are so valuable--they are actual proof that your child was ever a tiny child.

I look at her now, 15 and ready to take on the world by automobile, and it is hard to believer that tiny hand print belonged to her ever.

And it is also hard to believe how that tiny hand print squeezes your heart, every day since the day her handprint was even tinier.

Day 2: London Sights

Here Comes Spring! April 2015

We find ourselves in spring.