(no subject)
Well. This has been an unreasonably long time. If you have a lot of time on your hands, Since my last entry there has been the move, Jennifer's visit, and my holidays. Since I can't remember anything beyond two weeks, the move and Jenn's visit are blurred into one fuzzy little blip on my personal calendar. I only know that I miss her so much more for the first few weeks after physically seeing her - it's like her visits remind me that she really exists outside the computer and then her absence starts to bother me again. We had fun, I think. Shopped, went to lunch together, Jenn won $50 playing pull tabs, a feat I am yet to manage.
During that period we moved, and that's enough about that. Suffice it to say it was traumatic. Then Denise (my partner midwife) went away for 3 weeks, so I was on call and doing clinic and and and....just worked my butt off.
Until...the long awaited time off! I did one more week on-call then we left in our newly purchased (but used) motor home with Malice the attitude, Maddie the hyperactive, and the little boys Trav and Kenny. We made it to Abbotsford. That's a whole 15 km folks. The motor home developed one of those problems that just kept escalating in a time-consuming and frustrating manner. End result $1000.00 to charge card before actually leaving home turf. Ah well. Now we have good brakes and new tires.
Trip was wonderful for the most part. We went through the Rockies - my first time since my own family of origin were firm believers in plastic "nature" so we always went to Disneyland. Every cliche exists for a reason, it turns out. I took many, many digital pictures, which are now on my desktop in a folder. I hope someone will eventually help me do something with them *Jenn*. Alice spent hours sleeping with headphones on. She claimed it stopped motion sickness, but I think she was just avoiding too much painful contact with her family. Maddie & Travers read compulsively, sometimes more than a book a day. We camped, shopped, cooked, saw animals, went to West Edmonton Mall, and stayed 4 days at a lake we liked so much we booked a week next year.
It was the day after we bored the kids with the heritage town of Fort Steele that Jimm had a heart attack - at least we believed so at the time. He was grey, sweating, chest pain & pressure, dizzy....all the signs. We had to drive 75 km back to a campsite - call an ambulance from there and then wait another 40 minutes for the ambulance. I don't know about you, but where I'm from when you say "middle aged man with chest pain" it gets a better response than 40 minutes. He was given nitroglycerin spray to use if it happened again, as his blood chemistry was ok - a warning maybe. But I truly thought I'd be calling my brother to drive the damn motor home back with the kids while I stayed near Cranbrook hospital for a week. But all was well, eventually. Now he has to go for some other tests, but I'm refusing to worry too much.
Back at work, my first day, and the proverbial shit has already hit the fan. I hate this - it's so hard not to be resentful. The one person I really, really, infinity really didn't want to attend is being induced today. That's right - she went 10 days past her due date, at great personal discomfort, to give me the privilege of delivering her baby. I had 6 births while Denise was away - she had 3 while I was gone. One of them so fast she didn't make it to the delivery. And now she is gone for another 3 weeks, so it's back to the slave labour mode. I am never doing this again - there's no fairness in having 3 weeks off in the summer but spending 9 weeks on call!
Pity party over now. Off to lie down for an hour (I hope) before evil fat woman pages me.
The new place almost feels like home now, although I wish there were some kids around for Kenny & Trav. Riley did not graduate due to a technical glitch i.e. bimbo theatre teacher put his stagecraft course down as fine arts instead of applied skills so even though he has enough credits they are not in the right place. I love bureaucracy. Jordan was here for a few days, (Jimm's daughter) much to my girls' delight. She will be going to Garibaldi. She will also, oddly enough, be living on 238B street. Life is indeed strange. She is taller than me.
During that period we moved, and that's enough about that. Suffice it to say it was traumatic. Then Denise (my partner midwife) went away for 3 weeks, so I was on call and doing clinic and and and....just worked my butt off.
Until...the long awaited time off! I did one more week on-call then we left in our newly purchased (but used) motor home with Malice the attitude, Maddie the hyperactive, and the little boys Trav and Kenny. We made it to Abbotsford. That's a whole 15 km folks. The motor home developed one of those problems that just kept escalating in a time-consuming and frustrating manner. End result $1000.00 to charge card before actually leaving home turf. Ah well. Now we have good brakes and new tires.
Trip was wonderful for the most part. We went through the Rockies - my first time since my own family of origin were firm believers in plastic "nature" so we always went to Disneyland. Every cliche exists for a reason, it turns out. I took many, many digital pictures, which are now on my desktop in a folder. I hope someone will eventually help me do something with them *Jenn*. Alice spent hours sleeping with headphones on. She claimed it stopped motion sickness, but I think she was just avoiding too much painful contact with her family. Maddie & Travers read compulsively, sometimes more than a book a day. We camped, shopped, cooked, saw animals, went to West Edmonton Mall, and stayed 4 days at a lake we liked so much we booked a week next year.
It was the day after we bored the kids with the heritage town of Fort Steele that Jimm had a heart attack - at least we believed so at the time. He was grey, sweating, chest pain & pressure, dizzy....all the signs. We had to drive 75 km back to a campsite - call an ambulance from there and then wait another 40 minutes for the ambulance. I don't know about you, but where I'm from when you say "middle aged man with chest pain" it gets a better response than 40 minutes. He was given nitroglycerin spray to use if it happened again, as his blood chemistry was ok - a warning maybe. But I truly thought I'd be calling my brother to drive the damn motor home back with the kids while I stayed near Cranbrook hospital for a week. But all was well, eventually. Now he has to go for some other tests, but I'm refusing to worry too much.
Back at work, my first day, and the proverbial shit has already hit the fan. I hate this - it's so hard not to be resentful. The one person I really, really, infinity really didn't want to attend is being induced today. That's right - she went 10 days past her due date, at great personal discomfort, to give me the privilege of delivering her baby. I had 6 births while Denise was away - she had 3 while I was gone. One of them so fast she didn't make it to the delivery. And now she is gone for another 3 weeks, so it's back to the slave labour mode. I am never doing this again - there's no fairness in having 3 weeks off in the summer but spending 9 weeks on call!
Pity party over now. Off to lie down for an hour (I hope) before evil fat woman pages me.
The new place almost feels like home now, although I wish there were some kids around for Kenny & Trav. Riley did not graduate due to a technical glitch i.e. bimbo theatre teacher put his stagecraft course down as fine arts instead of applied skills so even though he has enough credits they are not in the right place. I love bureaucracy. Jordan was here for a few days, (Jimm's daughter) much to my girls' delight. She will be going to Garibaldi. She will also, oddly enough, be living on 238B street. Life is indeed strange. She is taller than me.