Category Archives: Diary

Revenge of the Argh: In Which She Gnashes About Traffic

Feel free to move along; I’m whinging. Most local people were probably affected by these same problems.

Liam and I spent a total of six hours in the car yesterday, most of it not going very fast at all. The only time we spent at home was the forty-five minute wind-down to a two-hour nap.

We wanted the car yesterday so that we could go visit the Preston-LeBlancs, and HRH had a reno job out in west Kirkland. So we drove him out, then drove back through traffic into the city for our (now-brief by necessity) visit, then went home for the nap (2-4 PM). Then, at 4:20, we left to go pick HRH up. What should have taken twenty minutes took an hour and fifteen minutes. And then it took three hours to get home. We pulled off and had cheeseburgers at 6:00, and it was a good plan, too, because if we’d waited till we got home at 8:20 PM Liam would have been ballistic. As it was, a half-hour off the road in Harvey’s was a huge adventure for Liam, and fun for us too as we watched him enjoy his first eat-in burger experience. And this ludicrous travel time was clocked taking the Lakeshore to avoid the horrifying traffic on the eastbound 20 that was backed up to the Dorval Circle.

We were at a loss to explain the traffic everywhere, in all directions. There was snow falling, sure, but it was nothing compared to what had fallen before. There were no obvious accidents; the roads were mostly clear-ish of snow and all lanes were open. (Although looking it up in the news, there were a couple of accidents that affected the eastern parts of the highway system, which may have affected the volume of traffic further west.) We kept as calm as possible; there was no point in blowing up. But we were tired, and achy, and bored, and irritated, and there was a two and a half year old in the back seat who couldn’t understand that we couldn’t just “ready, set, GO!” when he commanded us to, or why there was no more milk, or no more crackers, or why he couldn’t get out of the seat to curl up with someone. We pretended it was a relaxed drive to look at the Christmas lights along the river.

So, the plan for Thursday has been redacted: Liam and I are staying home instead of shopping, because otherwise we’d have to drop HRH off again and there’s no way we’re battling theoretical traffic there and back twice. This means HRH and I have to shoehorn everything in on Friday morning after dropping the boy at his grandma’s, and before HRH goes to the office holiday party. We’ve reassigned the essential gift-buying so that everything comes from two stores, which simplifies matters somewhat. I have a couple of little things for Liam tucked away in my office cupboard for rainy days, so those will be his gifts; with the things he’s getting from grandparents he’ll never know we didn’t get him something more substantial. He’s still young enough that we can get away with it.

I received an e-mail from the accounting staffperson I spoke with yesterday, confirming that my cheque had been written and sent out this morning. That was pleasant news. Depending on the volume of holiday mail I may even get it Friday, or Monday. And today’s mail yielded a surprise cheque from my dear grandmother, as well as a little parcel for Liam.

I hate being this behind on gifts and general Christmas preparation. I like to be done weeks before the insanity hits.

Possibly Less Argh

And blessings be also upon the head of Rosy, who has talked me through a business problem. It’s nice when Accounting offers to call you to confirm that your cheque has been written and mailed out. I won’t get it before Christmas — not that it matters overmuch now, as it’s too late to use it for clearing the credit card in order to do the on-line shopping that needed to be done a week ago — but if all goes well I should at least have it in time for next month’s rent.

If there’s something I hate more than worrying about money, it’s worrying about money when both HRH and I are theoretically working — money I should already have, and don’t. It throws the budget way, way out of whack.

Tea Break

Gnash, gnash: I hate, hate, hate cover letters. Particularly ones that have to sell my writing.

Vetting of edits done at last, hallelujah. I’m ready to print the MS out and I’m stalling, because every time I’ve tried to print out a massive document over the past two years something has gone Horribly Awry. I’ll do it in twenty-page increments; that should stave off complete disaster.

I tried to put up a new curtain rod earlier today. One bracket was just fine. Doing the second one, the screwdriver slipped and drove into the little finger on my left hand. It is now swollen, stiff, turning lavender, and the bleeding gash has only just stopped seeping. Although I don’t use that finger to type, it’s making it awkward for the rest of the fingers on that hand to move.

I’m also testing out a new brining method for the holiday turkey on a chicken today. The kitchen smells delicious. I’m a fan of dry-brining, and I’m curious to see how the more traditional brining in a liquid solution works.

Thesecondcircle captures my feelings these days rather well:

Being this far North, we’re desperate for the solstice to come. The sun is setting so damned early. It’s charmingly pagan, but makes me just want to sleep and sleep.

Back to wibbling over my cover letter. My synopsis keeps turning into a hook.

Kissmas: Gearing Up, Counting Down

Saturday: Santa.

“Did he cry?” Sandman7 asked when I saw him that night. “Yes,” I said, “when it was time to leave Santa’s lap.” (I suspect Sparky may not be quite clear on the telling Santa what you want in order for him to deliver it on Christmas Eve thing. It’s possible that he expected Santa to hand him a new train right there and then. The ball he got was appreciated, but it wasn’t a train.) Then he fell asleep in the car on the way home, and woke up when we tried to carry him in without waking him. And he didn’t nap at all, other than those five minutes.

Saturday evening I went out to dinner with not one but two fabulously talented, witty, and suave men. Sandman7, Talyesin and I went out for a special dinner at a local steakhouse and had a lovely, lovely meal with delicious wine. I have not had such a wonderful meal or night out in, er, longer than I can count.

Sunday: Tree.

Wait, no; first it was two hours of shovelling. Then we went out to get the tree. In the blizzard, yes, because if we didn’t do it Sunday morning, it wouldn’t get done. It was frigid. The boy had great fun trotting around the lot saying, “Ooh, look, Kissmas trees! Look at all the Kissmas trees! Look at them all!”, tears streaming from his eyes from the wind, his little button nose bright red. We put the tree inside the car to take it home, as tying it on top of the car would have made driving even more dangerous in the gusts of wind and lack of visibility due to blowing snow than it already was, and he held one of the branches all the way back. I remember that he did the same thing last year. (The tree-buying experience couldn’t be more different, however; last year we were looking at a green Christmas. This year, well, there’s a metre of snow in the backyard already, from fence to shining fence.)

We put the tree in the front entryway, and rearranged the living room. Then HRH shovelled for another two hours.

Then the damned stand broke when we tried to put the tree up, postponing the actual assembly of tree and decorating till some undetermined point later in the week. The tree was put on the back porch to collect piles of snow overnight.

Then HRH went out and shovelled for another two hours.

This morning the blizzard had passed and the sun rose and the world was white and sparkling and a sea of snowdrifts. HRH went out and shovelled for yet another two hours (I know, it’s repetitious, but so is the work), and all the neighbours banded together and helped one another uncover cars lost in snow drifts and to clear the piles of snow left by the ploughs. It’s so fabulous to see people actually helping one another instead of taking snow clearing for granted.

After dropping the boy off at his caregiver’s this morning, we bought a new snow shovel and tree stand to replace the broken ones (yes, bad things to have happen to one around blizzard time — and when HRH fought his way through the storm to arrive at the doors of Canadian Tire just as someone was coming up to close them yesterday, he was told he’d had eight hours to get what he needed and they weren’t letting him in. Was I not just expressing astonishment at the lack of civility among the retail workers this season?). The tree is now inside, in the new stand and the boughs are falling into place properly. I suppose we’ll decorate it tonight.

HRH is off doing a snow fence for someone today, and I’m finishing up the YA edits and printing it out, come what may.

ETA: Environment Canada says that we got 30 cm of snow yesterday, and that the record for December 16 is 41.2 cm. We’ve had 78 cm so far this month, and the record is 118.1 centimetres in 1972, so we’re two-thirds of the way there.

Cranky

Not one — not one — of the clerks I dealt with today while shopping wished me some form of holiday joy. A couple of them didn’t even say hello or thank you or goodbye, or tell me the total I owed aloud.

Now, I’ve done my trenchwork in retail; I know how bone-wearying this time of year is. But this was a Friday morning, and it’s only mid-December. And I don’t care how tired you are, you talk to your customers. Pretend to smile, damn it. My trenchwork allows me to sympathize, but it also allows me to disapprove of how you aren’t holding up your end of the clerk/client relationship.

I wished every single one of them a good holiday season, as sincerely as I could. One of them looked up at me in astonishment, a tremulous smile appearing on her face. “Thank you,” she said, “thank you so much. And you, too.” And she’s the one that I have the most sympathy for, because the client ahead of me was giving her a hard time and she was having trouble recovering. I was polite to everyone, I made eye contact, I smiled, I was as warm as possible, because this is a thankless time of year. But I really, really hate not being met halfway by sales staff, particularly when I’m not the one being paid to make the experience a pleasant one.

Then I came home and wanted to get my ergonomic chair up from the basement, which I couldn’t do because there’s an immoveable trunk in front of it downstairs and it’s wedged in behind it, hooked under something. And none of the lights work down there for some reason.

And, of course, no cheque in the mailbox.

Also, despite the snow last night, I did not see a single snow removal vehicle anywhere on the slippery roads today.

So yay! I am cranky again!

I did remember to buy antihistamines, and multivitamins, and intensive skin lotion, and Q-tips. I also got my ink cartridge refilled. And I bought vitamin C as well, because HRH brings all sorts of fun little colds home from school.

Now, to finish vetting the Track Changes in the last third of the YA manuscript, and print the bloody thing out.

Strike One

So, that doctor’s appointment today?

It didn’t exactly happen.

Yes, we made a sixty-kilometre round trip for Liam to cheerfully play in the waiting room, voluntarily pull a chair over to the doctor’s desk in her office, and play happily with a set of Russian stacking dolls while she asked me about his food intake and sleep patterns. She uses a big exercise ball as an office chair, and when she went out of the room to take a call Liam rolled it around and bounced it and chortled. When she returned and asked him to come over to the other side of the room so she could start the examination, however, Liam suddenly backed into the corner of the office, slid down to crouch on the floor, and cried. Big, berry-like tears squeezed out of the eyes, and pitiful “no, no, no, no”s came between the sobs. He kept asking to go back to the car. He was miserable.

I am informed that this is very normal for children his age, as they are developing a sense of personal space. The doctor even told me that it’s a good thing, as it’s a form of self-defence. As he’s always been fine with our GP I can only surmise that the sudden refusal to go along with the appointment was probably a combination of that developing sense of personal space and the new, unfamiliar office location. He was happy all morning, repeating “going to the doctor’s house, going to the doctor’s house, see doctor!” over and over. But he asked to be carried down the stairs to the office, which is indicative of needing a bit of reassurance, and came back to me often while he explored.

We have another appointment scheduled for three weeks from now. In the meantime, we have been instructed to buy him a toy doctor’s kit and for us all to play with it a lot to accustom him to the instruments and how they’re used. (I foresee Bun-Bun being a patient in the coming weeks.) The doctor also said that it might take a couple of ‘play dates’ with her before he lets her actually do the examination. She was so unfazed by it that it must happen more often than I think.

Halfway home in the car, he asked to hold my hand. I reached back to give it to him, and he held it all the way home as long as I didn’t need it to shift gears. Five minutes away from the house he said, “I have a hug?” I promised him a big cuddle when we got home, as we were both strapped into our seats. He had a quiet lunch while watching some Beatrix Potter, but then it took over an hour to get him to nap.

On the bright side, in his exploration of the new office he found the scale and weighed himself. And it looks like yes, he’s 33 pounds, unless he’s 34; the needle was vibrating a bit, because no two and a half year old can ever, ever stand still. He is officially one-third my weight.

We’ll try again the first week of January.

On The Lack Of Common Courtesy

There are times when I really, really wish I could turn the ringer on my phone off completely. And I think people who don’t identify themselves when they say hello should be given a good hard smack. I just had someone who called the wrong number get mad at me for saying ‘obviously’ when he asked if he had the wrong number. The conversation went like this:

A: Hello?

STRANGER: Hello.

[PAUSE; SILENCE]

A: Hello?

STRANGER: Hello. [WAITS EXPECTANTLY]

[PAUSE; SILENCE]

STRANGER: Do I have the wrong number?

A: Obviously.

STRANGER: [AGGRESSIVELY] Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sor-ry —

A: [HANGS UP]

Now, I’ve had many pleasant wrong number calls, calls where the person is very polite or warm and genuinely distressed because they’ve bothered me, and those callers I reassure and even wish them a good day. I am as polite to them as they are to me, or more so.

Nine times out of ten I know exactly who’s calling when they start talking if we’re acquainted, before they’ve identified themselves. That doesn’t mean the person on the other end of the phone should deny me the common courtesy of identifying themselves. I don’t care if you think the person you’re calling has call display or if they were expecting the call, you still say “It’s So-and-So” after your initial hello. All my friends do it; I do it. That’s also how I knew you had the wrong number. No one I know who calls me would ever be so discourteous.

So don’t get mad at me when your discourtesy earns you a short response, stranger. Especially when the wrong number was your error to begin with. You get what you give.