Yesterday was the day. Life was finally “settling down”. By 8.35 a.m. Mike had left the house for work. The children were at school. The babysitter was booked to handle all after-school needs. My work engines were revved. I had a work call – booked over skype - at 9 a.m.
I had no internet. Not a flicker. After fiddling around for an hour, and failing to reach the other party to my call who was working from home, I proceeded to spend 50 minutes on the phone with Bell Canada. Inching ever closer – I thought – to connection.
At 10.25, I realised that someone had just called me 3 times while I was studiously following Bell techie’s basic instructions. I switched over to the other line, only to discover the children’s allergist saying that if I could get Sebastian down to the allergy clinic at Sick Kids within 40 minutes, he could get his H1N1 shot under supervision ( he is allergic to egg) and that there would not be another clinic this flu season. Last chance, Mom.
So I made the rash decision to stay on with Bell. We were so close to solving the problem. Right? 10 minutes later we had not solved the problem and I bailed. Call Seb’s school to say that I had to pull him and could he be waiting for me? Busy line. Dash over in the car. He zooms out of class and we are downtown in a few minutes.
Only for me to make a wrong turn and end up in the bizarrest news story of the day. A deer is on the loose in the city’s core. Yellow police tape everywhere. Slowly I make my way round and to the Hospital.
Now to find parking. Try the car park. F-U-L-L “Full!” exclaims my budding reader in the back seat. “But full doesn’t mean ‘FUUUULL’. There are a few spots in it, especially as cars are pulling out” I say and plunge underground.
After circling round and round ever deeper. I give up. Drivers are literally tracking people as they get out of the elevator and head to their cars... Besides our gas tank empty light is flashing and the car is making a funny sound whenever it is pointed upward since the gas level is too low. Just as I pull out of the parking lot (having firmly told the gatekeeper that I was not paying $4 for having had the privilege of stressing out in his underground car park), a car pulls away from a street spot. I pull in, shove money into the meter and run for the clinic (Seb in tow).
We make it.
But instead of the 1 ½ hours I thought it might take (I knew there was an observation period), it was 3 ¼. So I end up nipping back to the car and pumping the meter full for extra time.
Seb braved his way through the vaccination, which is doled out in 2 bits when allergic to egg – 10%, wait for 30 minutes and observe; 90%, wait for 60 minutes and observe. Unfortunately, the nurse mis-pricked him, so it was 3 jabs... and he has to have a 2nd round in 3 weeks. I have to admit that I haven’t told him that, as hopefully the Canadian guidelines will have changed by then to take the WHO guidance into account.
It was 2.33 by the time we left. School ends at 2.45 and he had left his kit there. Not only that, but he had promised to share his fruit leather (a treat for having gone to the allergist and been retested for egg the day before) with a buddy. He had
promised, he told me in tears. A promise is a promise. We positively zoomed – as zoomed as any Dr Seuss character has ever zoomed – back to school. Rushed in to get his kit and chased his classmates across the school grounds to their bus. Shoved the fruit leather into his stunned buddy’s hands. Jabbered away about a promise being a promise. And headed for the library to meet Sophie and Carrie, our babysitter.
The gas tank was still on low. But I managed to get to a gas station (not so plentiful in central T.O.) and headed for home. It was 3.50. I still had no internet. There were two messages waiting for me from Bell. It turns out they had seen some “problem” on the line and referred it to another branch. I called said branch and dealt with a very nice guy of Scottish tongue. It took us another 20 minutes but I was re-connected. Wrote out a note to our tenant to tell her how to connect to the internet given the changes.
It was now 5 pm; the children were home. The overdue library books, the overdue dvds, the skirt to be taken to the tailor with the broken zipper, the business cards of the two mattress shops that I was supposed to have visited, the various family and work e-mails unsent stared me in the face.
I bolted. I headed for our fancy deli about 10 minutes walk. Bought some overpriced but yummy cabbage salad to spruce up a basic sausage supper and headed for home ready to be a mum.
All in a day’s non-career.
Oh, and if anyone knows where we have put the camera with all the photos of Sophie’s party, please get in touch. It’s somewhere in this house, unless a pint-sized guest made off with it in disgust at the fact that we didn’t hand out loot bags.
