I am Back!

Here I am back from the far off land of No-Internet, having crossed the burning deserts of Too-Little-Sleep, and braved the death defying cliffs of Van-With-Children I am happy to announce to you all that I am still alive. Yes, while it is true that I have been mostly absent of late I hope to rectify that quickly with a vigorous outpouring of mental gymnastics. Not too vigorous though, I wouldn’t want to pull a hamstring. So, strike the mental gymnastics. Instead, what I will now offer is an enthusiastic sorry and some pathetic cat mewing noises, none of which you can hear, I know, but after all what is imagination for?

Well, what has kept me? To sum up, flood, pestilence, long desert wanderings, punctuated by short bursts of familial bonding. Yes, that’s right, my home has turned into a symbolic rendering of the Children of Israel. If I had done my education in Performance Art, Jewish Studies or was a teen in the 70’s I might be really super happy, however, I only learned how to put on stage plays. That said it may prove useful some day. Now that I have summed up, let’s break down:

1. February to April is a very busy time for our family. My husband is at work a lot and there is usually a few extra crises’ that need to be dealt with. So we were surprised to find ourselves, the week before Easter, with ne’er a crisis in sight. In fact everything was so well in hand we indulged ourselves by speaking the following sentence:

“Actually, things are going pretty well.”

WARNING!! Speaking the previous sentence out loud brings great destruction upon the speaker and those in close proximity. So don’t even try it. Really, don’t. It is wildly rumored amongst scholars that speaking this simple phrase was the direct cause of the Fall of Rome, Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, and the extinction of the dinosaurs. Some unfortunate soul merely mouthed these words at the launching of the Titanic and sent countless hundreds to their deaths. This has been a carefully guarded secret in the hopes that one day the world itself will fall and scholars (being the only ones who knew not to say anything) will rule the world. They are probably coming to lynch me now. Book and movie to follow.

As you are probably aware the moment we spoke these fatal words time shifted and we were thrown headlong into a series of events that will eventually undo mankind. Or at least give a couple of us a hard time. At that moment the phone rang offering my husband a job far away. While, admittedly, the offer was very nice, it now gave us a lot to think about during the chaos of my husband’s busiest week. Due to time constraints most of that thinking was moved to replace sleeping. Ah, we sighed, that was ok, for next week we could rest … why wait for next week …

1. Just a few days later our basement flooded. In approximately two hours we had enough water for a small splash pool in my office. Admittedly, a nice, interesting addition to a place that already had plenty of distractions, but I’m not that into foot baths. Insurance company, construction guys and friends waded through our house for a few hours, helped us move stuff upstairs and then left, leaving us with a promise that we would never be parted, at least not until the end of the summer while drywall dust flies merrily about our heads.


2. We packed the kids in the van for the 8 hour (read 10) drive to visit relatives for Easter. After all, I’m not sure I could find my roast pan. We arrived back home after a whirl wind visit were we attempted to break our Olympic visiting record of 5 individual visits per day.


3. Our construction guys are fast, our construction guys are clean but do they know that chicken pox is also on the scene? My oldest goes to school for one day and arrives home with many, many spots. We frantically try to contact all the relatives we have just visited to let them know she was contagious. I call the school, friends, and the Canada Tax Bureau. We fly the plague flag at our door.


4. No sleep. Miserable child. Parents climbing the walls.


5. 2 weeks later … two year old, and nine month twins get chicken pox. They really get it. No couple of marks here or there, they are covered. No sleep, miserable children, Spy Kids Episode 3, 24-7


6. My husband has to go to a conference … for 4 days.


7. I get strep throat. Funny though, I just thought I was sleep deprived.


8. My husband comes home. He has strep throat.


9. Everyone is healthy in just enough time for my son to have his birthday party. One I almost entirely forgot about. Surprise! The presents we bought for him have been carefully packed by the construction crew in any one of a number of nameless boxes in the basement. I try to make a cake while the twins, no longer crying from the pox but now teething, try to chew their brother, the birthday boy. It takes me, I’m not kidding, three days.


10. Pack the car we’re visiting the folks.

I believe this must be the end of it all, mostly because we had a good time on our little trip down south. So, in conclusion it is very important to NEVER utter the aforesaid phrase. And, if you must think it, think softly.


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