Americanuck

I’ve mentioned before how the boys can be gross pigs.

Well Chris just proved it once again in abscentia. I’ve been trying to air out their room as it’s been smelling kind of funky. I had the sliding door to their room open all day with a fan going to try and get some fresh air in there but man I tell ya it still was smelling blech. I know part of the problem is the amount of dirty laundry they have stored up (they do the BARE minimum of what is needed leaving stuff they don’t wear much) but there are also a bunch of smells that I just couldn’t place. Tonight as I went in to close the door I passed by Chris’ desk and got a whiff of something kind of sour. I saw there was a beer can sitting there. Chris hasn’t had a canned beer in a LONGGGG time. I reluctantly picked it up and shook it and sure enough there was probably about a quarter of the can sloshing around in there. I took a tentative whiff.  Trust me THAT is brave of me cos I have the MOST sensitive nose and bad smells will send me gagging. I yanked my head back quickly oh MY GOD it smelled bad.

I took it into the boys bathroom (no way were those contents gonna come near the kitchen sink and poured it into their toilet) out came some VERY brown liquid (no where near beer colour) and as I was bent down pouring something slimy dislodged from the can and fell into the toilet with a splash and UP came the brown tinged toilet water INTO MY FACE AND HAIR.

I IMMEDIATELY pressed my lips together as some of the liquid had hit me just below the nose and RAN to our bathroom and scrubbed my face and leaped into the shower and SCRUBBED some more cursing the boy with the PIGGIEST of children when he has them. UGH!!!!! Chris is VERY lucky he is several blocks away at his Father’s place this weekend!!

To add a cherry to that, Nutmeg decided to once again exit the cat litter box with poo stuck to his keister and decided to do his bum drag race through the house with me screaming STOPPPPPPPPPPP behind him.

I am now nursing my trauma with a cold glass of Vex Cranberry hard lemonade. The side benefit is if any of the liquid happened to make it’s way near my mouth the alcohol will disinfect.

Ahhh this whole long weekend thing.. I could SO get used to it! Apart from driving Sean over to his Father’s and getting busted at the mall for photographing puppies in the window I’ve barely lifted a finger, or my ass of this couch.

Ok, done a bit of laundry but that is so I won’t have to air dry after a shower and run around here bare-ass naked which frankly even *I* don’t want to see.

I completed the last bit of paperwork for Tom’s US tax filing. He gets an extension because he’s an “living abroad” which makes it easier on me cos I’m the one who fills em out but that June 15 deadline was starting to loom, so I sucked it up. The Canadian taxes are so much more straight forward, and having the online tax software and ability to file online is awesome. The US ones are a touch more complicated as you have exemptions based on the fact you are living and paying taxes in a foreign country, but as you have holdings there you also have to report them. Blah. Anyway, it is done for another 11.5 months yay!

We are so gonna scarf down Chinese food tonight for two reasons… one because our local place is shutting down for vacation (how dare they!) and two because my ultrasound for the gallbladder is on Monday and according to the paperwork I am required to eat a fat free meal that night (no meat, eggs, dairy or anything even slightly interesting boo) and then nothing until after my exam the next morning. Man I tell you they had better FIND something, cos I want it dealt with!!

Oh boy, Mom just called and she’s been given her two month’s notice to move out from her rental. Ish, I was hoping that last move would be literally the last move and she could live out her days there, at least until she wasn’t able to take care of herself anymore. The guy she rented from seemed like he was really intending to keep the place. I mean me must have bought it dirt cheap but I’m sure it is worth more now even though he is asking waaaaaaaaaaay too much for it. The weird part is, even his Realtor doesn’t know what is going on, the notice said that the Landlord or one of his close family is intending on moving into the place (could be him or a purchaser?) If it is someone buying the place you’d think the Realtor would know about it? Sounds slightly fishy to me. So add looking for another place for her, driving her around to look at them and packing and moving her to the stress I carry already. Yeesh.

Oh well not much I can do about it now, the new listings won’t be out until next week. I told her to call the Realtor and have him look into what is going on as well as to call her Landlord and get the straight poop. He basically handed her an envelope at the door and reminded Mom about someone coming on Monday, didn’t say who or what was in the envelope and just left. She opened it after he was gone, her cleaning lady read it for her.  I told her to call and ask if it was sold or if someone from his family is moving in. According to the law it has to be him or a close relative and they have to live there at least 6 months or he owes her two times the monthly rent plus the one month compensation and her damage deposit back.

Had another attack tonight afer a nice healthy dinner of chicken, veggies and brown rice. Go figure. It was mercifully short, maybe 45 minutes in total with the worst of it maybe 20 minutes in length. I was rocking back and forth, got up to go to the bathroom and all of a sudden it eased and then went. I almost felt like dancing. It is amazing how much of a relief it is when it’s gone.

I got my blood test results yesterday. The Doc’s office called me Monday afternoon saying I needed to come in to discuss them. I was shall we say a tad nervous. I didn’t know what they were going to say. It turns out that I have way better than the average person’s cholesterol, crazy good in fact and my blood sugar and all that stuff is perfectly in the normal range. However… my liver enzymes were in the mid to upper 200’s when they should be less then 36 to be considered normal. Before sharing that result my doctor asked how I was feeling. I told him I felt fine (apart from a bit of tenderness). He had thought from those levels I would be in constant pain so he sounded surprised. He asked when my ultrasound would be (June 2) and said I needed to keep an eye on things until then to see what we’re dealing with. He said it was possible the last attack either was the passing of a stone or just irritated the gallbladder (and liver) and then fell back in. He says if it gets bad I need to get to the hospital and be put on fluids to give the gallbladder a rest. If anything gets stuck I will see signs like turning yellow or clay coloured stools (oh how colourful!)

Of course without the ultrasound nothing is official, and no treatment is forthcoming. It is just a waiting game. I went almost 2 weeks without one, the time between the last two was 5 days so I guess that is good right? I will sure be glad when all this is over with.

It has always amazed me how many people drive really large vehicles who simply cannot handle them. I mean me? I know my limitations, Tom’s Chrysler 300 feels like a bus to me. I mean come on I used to drive an ‘83 Honda Civic Hatchback followed by I swear an even smaller ‘92 Geo Metro, the SEDAN thank you very much, at least so not quite as much of a pimple as the hatchback. Now I’m in a Mazda 3. Sadly it took me a while to get used to the sheer size of it so that should say something about my awesome skillz. However as I say I know my limitations.

Many times I’ve watched with amusement when Soccer Moms with a bazillion kids in tow attempt to back out from their parking spaces. This is usually only funny though when I’m not the poor sucker waiting behind them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being sexist against my own gender entirely. I’ve seen some pretty shitty SUV drivers of the male persuasion as well, but the majority of the drivers of these massive creatures in the Malls and Grocery store parking lots seem to be of the X chromosome variety and the bad far outweigh the good in my experience. Yes there are good ones too, I even have friends who drive Minivans/SUVs like pros.

These bad SUV driving women usually seem ok once they are actually pointed in the right direction and driving unless junior back there or something else distracts her. And the bad driving Men, well they usually seem to think that because they are in a bigger vehicle they can either try to intimidate you by tailgating or are somehow godlike in their ability to drive in inclement weather and goddamit people better just get the hell outta their way. Especially YOU there in that Mazda 3!

Anyway, back to the backing up thing. Usually it just requires a couple of tentative back and forths and they manage to extricate the vehicle from their spot but tonight, oh tonight was another story. It was dark and kind of “misty” raining. The kind that you really can’t run your wipers full stop or that make that hideous screeking sound and won’t activate your rain sensing wipers either until there is enough critical mass on your windshield to render you completely sightless. Ok so it was a little hard to see, but not impossible. So I back out of my spot at the mall and as I’m heading down the lane I see this Buick fricking monster Enclave with it’s back up lights on.

Instead of waiting until I pass the person starts to back up and I have to stop rather abruptly. I checked behind me and backed up to give them room. I mean this person was NOT gonna stop and I didn’t want Titanic there to hit my little Freddy.

I’m already impatient because of this steamroller deal but I chill waiting for the person to do their inevitable back up dance (go back cha-cha-cha, go forward cha-cha-cha) but this one, oh this one was PAINFUL. It took that woman no word of a lie TEN TIMES get that freaking thing free. Yes I counted. They weren’t fast times either these were slooooowwww times. I was starting to wish I had those light up sticks the ground crew use to help a plane back out.

Then I realize that not ONLY was this person not capable of maneuvering that very large vehicle which became obvious when I saw how well they went forward once they were pointed in the right direction, but that she was on the bloody PHONE the whole time.

Joy of joys I got to follow her most of the entire way of the thankfully short drive home. The little tykes in the car were blissfully watching a movie on the flat panel screens in the back not realizing how much freaking danger they are in on a day to day basis. Hopefully this woman will never teach her kids how to drive or if she does it is in a clown car (like my old Geo).

So ok, if you have a large family and need to truck them around in one of these large monstrosities please for the love of GOD take lessons! PRACTICE. Whatever. Don’t make the world suffer. I made sure my uterus closed up shop in time to ensure that I will never need anything larger than a sedan and if I have my way as soon as our last little birdie leaves the nest (or gets his own car whichever comes first) I’m getting me a freaking two seater sports car. Convertible of course.

Along with our TV which seems to be dying a slow pixelated death, our newish coffee maker decided to bite the bun this morning. When I’m on vacation. During Christmas. When we’ve already HAD our fill of stores!

We have zero luck with coffee makers. Granted they are used as opposed to sitting on the counter gathering dust but they should last longer than a few months or even a year without going to meet their maker. My coffee makers tend to normally die a dramatic death. One decided to dump all it’s water onto the counter while the heating element sat in the large pool of spreading water. Yay! I got to cheat death (or at the very least a nasty shock) by leaning over to try and unplug the sucker.

The last one we had would run the water through the filter and coffee and then splatter it all over the counter missing the carafe entirely. Fortunately that one didn’t have a keep hot element in the base as it was an insulated pot so the danger level went down a touch.

This latest death appears to be rather anti-climactic. I need to check with Chris later today to see if he had any issues when he made his pre-work pot this morning but by the time Tom and I got up later this morning, the light went on but no nectar of the gods was flowing for us today. No welcome burble, just a mocking silence and dry, dry coffee grounds.

Tom made a haphazard search for the receipt to take that sucker back but he had to leave for work.  We may just consider this another write off if we can’t find it. If he can, he suggested that he picks up another coffee maker and if we find the receipt for exchange we can put that in storage waiting for the next inevitable failure.

So here I sit, caffeine free and feeling quite sorry for myself. Sure I could run across the street and buy myself a coffee. I live a block away from a Tim Horton’s for crying out loud. But I’m lazy and I would rather wallow in my self pity than rouse myself to get dressed.