March is the New February

Last month my friend Chou posted this nice blog entry with a picture of flowers to counteract the ill effects of February.  In the past I have railed against February, but now I live in Canada, so I know that the cruelest month is actually March.  At the beginning of the month, Steve came home with real flowers to help get me through the month and keep me from threatening too often to either (a) run away to warmer climes or (b) murder people in their sleep.  

This week is by far the worst, though, and Steve can't even restock the flowers, because we had a blizzard yesterday and the snow drifts are higher than the snow blower and the snow shovel got buried in a drift somewhere, so our cars are trapped in the driveway.  If I can't get these kids outside soon, we're all going to go mental.  Today we did successfully, as per The Bairn's request, create the most ghetto little puppet theater you've ever seen out of a cardboard box and some old fabric.  It stars a lopsided felt puppet named Chicky Bick and a paper moon, star, and comet on popsicle sticks.  But it's not enough.  I must leave the house soon.  We got Ellen's passport photos earlier this week but if we had her actual travel documents in hand, I'd be shoveling out that driveway with The Bairn's plastic beach shovel and heading to my parents' house in Tennessee.

Christmas is Canceled

I spent yesterday evening at the walk-in clinic to check out a persistent sore throat and earache.  The doctor looked at my ear and throat and told me that my ear is in perfect health but that I have a serious throat infection called peritonsillar cellulitis.  "I'm surprised you're not in more pain," he commented.  I'm in plenty of pain, thanks.
The doctor prescribed the heavy duty drugs (as compared to the Ibuprofen my GP suggested when I went to see him about it almost two weeks ago) which will kill the infection and create an abscess that will have to be drained at the emergency room.

MBC: What symptoms should I be looking for to know when I should go to the hospital?

Doctor: Oh, the pain will drive you there.

Super.

That's supposed to happen about two days after I started taking the medication, so that should be about . . . Christmas Day. 

Super.

We decided to put off our Christmas meals, since I can't eat solid foods very well and because Steve developed a sore throat yesterday (although he's not getting as much sympathy as he would like, since he doesn't have the illness that killed Elizabeth the First like some of us do).

But Merry Christmas to the rest of you!

Bah Humbug

1. We took The Bairn to the after hours clinic last night for weird spots on his leg.  The Internets informed me that it could be something that leads to Meningitis.  The provincial health helpline told me nothing specific about what it could be but advised me to have him seen right away.  The doctor at the clinic didn't seem too concerned about it.  Maybe she doesn't read the Internet.
2. Amazon does not sell MP3 downloads in Canada.  Although we have been friends all these years, this makes me feel like we're going to have to break up, because they are holding my baby white noise hostage.  Don't they know I'm American?!  I should have downloaded the MP3 before we crossed the border.
3. I had to order more diaper covers and it took me FOREVER to find somewhere in Canada that sells the cheap kind.  The company didn't read my instructions and sent the package to Tennessee instead of Nova Scotia.
4. I itch.

THWARTED on every side

Actually, I'm only thwarted on the one side, but it's giving me a pain.

I love socialized medicine.  I thought our healthcare in Scotland was the bee's knees.  We just signed up for the medical practice closest to us and when we needed to see one of the doctors or the practice nurse or the midwife, we made an appointment and received very nice medical attention for free. 

The Canadian system is a bit different and in theory I approve of it but the actual practice is giving me an ulcer.  Here we receive health cards that can be used at any medical institution and we register with an individual doctor.  Should be fine except that NO ONE is accepting new patients.  I called around yesterday, starting with the office closest to us and then just working down the list in the phone book.  I called the hospital on the advice of one doctor's office and then the provincial Department of Health and Welfare.  Nothin'. 

I wouldn't be so anxious about it except that my sweet boy has not had a full check-up since the day after he was born and I have lots of questions to ask a medical professional, starting with, Is that gasping sound my infant makes just a fun noise he's discovered or does it mean he was some sort of stealthy baby smoker in the womb without my knowledge?

This morning I'm calling the District Health Authority and then wheeling The Bairn down to the closest doctor's office to see if they can really say no to his sweet, fat face.  Especially now that he laughs.  No one can refuse a laughing baby, can they?

It's a Rubbish Day

Oh, woe.  Oh, woe.

I'm very, very, very busy feeling sorry for myself.

We're dealing with fingerprints.  Again.  And I'm mourning the 100s of pounds that have been wasted on rejected fingerprints that no one will refund.  I have to cry every single time I talk to another unhelpful agency and I'm worried that the baby's going to be brined from all the salt produced by tears.  Poor pickled baby.

On a positive note, the new series of Spooks (MI-5) just started, so now I know secrets about the characters that my sister does not.  That makes me feel better.

Be Glad You're Not an Immigrant

Bah!

I have nothing to share with you except my bad, bad attitude.

If you come to visit me and you would like to complain about your job or the government or anything really (except maybe bunnies), I'd be happy to listen and validate by adding lots of comments like, "Yeah, I hate people too!  People are the worst!" and "No, that IS a horrible, bureaucratic nightmare.  You should bake yourself a pie.  And share it with me.  You deserve it."

Yesterday morning Steve and I were listening to the news while we lounged in bed.  The last several days, all the news coverage has been about the riots and looting in London and I was explaining to Steve that the UK needs to embrace rubber bullets and that if I were in London, I would be happy to shoot some looters in the eye with a rubber bullet or two.  This was before I developed my bad attitude and hatred for humanity.

We spent the day at Steve's office so I could proofread the first section of Steve's PhD and give him a scolding about the passive voice.  When we returned home, a much-anticipated piece of mail awaited us.  Tragically, it was not the identification record that we need but rather the THIRD letter explaining that the fingerprints we submitted (and which must be accepted before we can submit my immigration forms) had been rejected.  The prints I traveled to London to obtain.  On a night train, in a non-reclining seat, without a blanket, in a freezing cold carriage.  While morning sick.

I called the agency and asked them what the deal was and they said that some people just have fingers that don't fingerprint well.  I see.  I asked what I should do about that.  Here's what they said: submit some more prints.  Ah, yes, so helpful.  Because doing the same thing over and over again is bound to eventually get me a different result.

That's when the rage kicked in and I started suggesting to Steve that we go loot something.

Erglegrew (The Sound of Frustration)

I just completed my UK tax return.

Once I figured out what I was doing, it took about 10 minutes to complete, but first I had to spend way too much time on hold with the helpline and an anxiety-riddled period speaking to an advisor who put The Fear in me by making me think that I was in violation of tax law before he actually told me what to do and how to fill out my form.

Here's my big complaint.  I try to do the right thing.  I made a measly amount of money this year.  Between the two of us, Steve and I still came in well below the poverty line since neither of us was working full time and I wasn't allowed to work or couldn't find work for significant portions of this year.  In the UK, tax is automatically assessed, taken and returned (which is great), so tax returns are only necessary for exceptional circumstances.  I had income the government didn't know about so I set out to declare it and make sure I was square.  Steve warned me against it, advising me not to worry about it, because he knew I wouldn't OWE the government anything and therefore wasn't cheating anyone out of anything.  I gave him a little self-righteous speech about honesty and proceeded to enter the bureaucratic nightmare. 

I hate feeling punished for trying to comply with government regulations.  We're doing the same thing with our immigration and I can't help but notice that all the questions seem designed for people who are planning to cheat the system.  There are pages of questions simply verifying that our marriage is legitimate and not a ploy to gain access to a foreign country.  I'm tired of working with systems designed around the premise that I'm dishonest.  And, really, meaning no offence to Steve's country, if I were going to scam my way into permanent residency, I'd chose a country with a warmer climate and a better pronunciation of the word pajamas.

I'm Thankful for the Stupid Car. Right?

Yesterday Steve and I both had obligations out of town, so Steve left the car near the train station for me to pick up when I got back into town around 9:00 pm. He also sent me a text message stating that the car was very low on gas and that he'd left some money locked in the glove compartment so I could fill it up ASAP.

Well, yes, the car was very low on gas. I made it less than a mile before it lost power and died. But I'm grateful that it lost power close to the only spot on that particular road where it was easy to coast off the road out of traffic. And I'm grateful that there were chocolate croissants in the car that Steve apparently squirrels away because I don't let him make purchases in the grocery store as freely as he once did. And I'm grateful that we have breakdown insurance. And I'm grateful that a nice police officer stopped to see if I was okay, although he was driving one of those white rental vans without windows, so when he first stopped I thought he might be a kidnapper/criminal coming to offer "aid" but actually planning to chain me up in a basement (I read Reader's Digest). And I'm grateful that the car was just out of gas and not actually broken so the car could be easily fixed (after I waited for an hour in the car in the snow) and Steve could drive it far away to work today. But I now feel completely justified in refusing to drive the car. It does bad things.

Happy Thanksgiving!

MBC and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I had a job interview last week for a job I didn't get. I don't mind that I didn't get the job because it would have required at least 15 hours of commuting every week to a school with a very old-fashioned library in a very bureaucractic school system. The interview process was two days long and required waking up at 5:00 am on Thursday and spending the night in a different city to give my required presentation on Friday. The weather was terrible and I had to go straight from the interview to my actual job, which required 3 hours of additional travel and resulted in a long, hungry day, but the thing that I can't quite get over and still consider one of the worst aspects of the day was my wardrobe.

On Thursday I wore a pair of professional trousers and a sweater to visit the school in the morning and then I continued to wear the outfit in the wind and the rain walking around town and then I continued to wear it in a tractor at the college where Steve teaches. By the end of the day the trousers were not looking so great, which is one of the reasons I was so distressed to discover the next morning that I had not packed the second pair of trousers I had intended to wear for the interview. They were still at home, hours away, lying on the guest room bed. My only options were to wear jeans or to wear wrinkly trousers that had recently been riding around at a farm to my interview. AND the trousers did not match the clean top I'd brought to wear, so I wore mismatching clothes to my interview. I was so embarrassed. After the interview, I was sitting in the train station still feeling awkward that my trousers and top didn't match when I looked over at the girl sitting next to me. She was wearing jeggings. I felt a tiny bit better. At least I realized my clothes looked bad.

I Just Need to Visualize Myself Taking the Waters in Bath

I know change is a bad thing,
Breaks me down into a sorry, sad thing . . .
-Dar Williams, from "It's Alright"

I've been having just the tiniest nervous breakdown the last few days, as I've been transferring files to other librarians at work and scheduling my exit interview and thinking in my head, "I'll be flying to Milan that day," each time Tuey invites me to his birthday party in September (which he does whenever he sees me--he's having a unicorn cake and he's very excited about it).

I know all the reasons I decided to quit my job and go adventuring and I think they're sound. Among other things (including the fact that I l-l-love to travel!), I wanted to resist a certain inertia in my life and I didn't want to be the kind of person who had it within her power to do the things she dreamed about and then didn't do them. For the past six months, every time someone has asked me why I wanted to go to Europe for so long, I've been surprised that it's not completely self-evident. It's been a long time (relatively) since I've so completely uprooted myself and found myself in a situation with so many potential pathways that I feel overwhelmed, though, and I suddenly understand why they've been asking. It's a little bit frightening to throw myself into the unknown when I'm comfortable here.

I really hope that opening myself up to new opportunities is not the same as being reckless with my life. It's hard to tell today.

When Ignorance is NOT Bliss

I took my car in to have my oil changed on Friday. As is the way at this particular car place, one of the mechanics went over everything they were doing to my car and all the services I might want to have completed while I was there. I gave the okay for everything, they fixed up my car, they gave me my receipt, and I drove away. And then, at my next destination, I looked at the receipt with the notes about my service. After all the details about tire pressure and fluid levels, there was a little box with additional notes.

The notes read
Engine oil leak
Transmission oil leak

What!? Why were we talking about windshield wipers when I have ENGINE problems? No one said anything about this to me, but it seems like a big problem! Do any of you know about cars? Or know people who know about cars? Is my car going to die on the way to my out-of-town workshop on Tuesday?

Help!

Driving Difficulties

Right near the top of my Try To Avoid list is driving. Here are the conditions under which I ENJOY driving:

1. No one else is on the road.

2. Um, well, that's about it.

3. Oh, wait, actually, I like it to be light outside and for the weather to be good.

4. And I like to know where I'm going.

5. And I like to be in a state where people use their blinkers and don't pass on the right.

6. And I like for there to be pumpkins growing on the side of the highway and I like to have some John Denver (yes, John Denver--he's only allowed in the car) in the CD player.

7. And I like the car to be going South. Driving North makes me nervous. Round trips are so trying.

Saturday I did not have ideal driving conditions. I was meeting someone from my London trip to have dinner and to see a play in Salt Lake. It was beautiful when I left my house. And then it started raining. And snowing. And blizzarding. As soon as I arrived at my meeting place in Salt Lake, I called my sister to say there was no way I was getting back in that car and that I'd see her in April when it was really and truly spring and not this mean, pretend spring that makes you regain your will to live only to dash all your warm weather hopes by snowing on you while you're trying to drive, which is not a preferred activity to begin with. It's a good thing I read all those wilderness survival books as I child and knew to lay in supplies before hypothermia could overpower me. I walked to the nearest grocery store and bought some contact solution in preparation for my unexpected stay in the city.

I didn't stay in the city, though, because it stopped snowing while I was in the play and I eventually made it home on dark, wet, unfamiliar roads via a secret slow way.

I think I need a chauffeur.

My Morning: A Tale of Woe

The true events of my morning

• Wake up and think about how much I dislike winter.
• Hurry like a banshee (they're fast) with all the morning routines to get out the door early.
• Drive to my polling place.
• Vote.
• Hop in car to zip to work.
• Turn key.
• Watch car not start.
• Turn key again.
• Watch car not start.
• Turn key (hope is a virtue).
• Watch car not start.
  
• Stare at cell phone and consider who one calls at 7:50 in the morning when one's car won't start and one needs to get to work and one shouldn't be having bad luck on a morning when one is just trying to do one's civic duty. Possibly one's mom. Even if she's in another state.

I called AAA. Fortunately, when my car started falling apart in September, I updated my membership. So a very nice man named Perry drove out and towed my car to the shop. Perry thinks my starter's dead.

When I finally got to work, a co-worker very kindly told me that it's actually pretty good that my car got to as many miles as it did before needing this much work and that a starter is an easy thing to fix. Very nice of her. The actual correct thing to say to me, though, would have been, Here's a brownie. You're nice.

The Bad Morning

I’ve been reading The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-to-Basics Guide, published by DK, makers of the most beautiful nonfiction books. It has instructions on how to make cheese and raise goats and all kinds of things that I’m interested in even though I live in a rental house in an incorporated city and live the dependent-on-corporate-America life (although I do plan to make my own cheese this year as soon as I get my hands on some rennet).

Today I had the Bad Morning, though, and my plans have changed. Now I’m going to move to Norway and marry Jaran Knive, one of the sheepdog handlers from the championships, and be his wife and he will be a vet (fortunately, that’s what he already does) and I will make cheese and leave my stress-filled, modern existence behind. (Now I just hope that Jaran doesn’t have a wife or an aversion to strangers who want to marry him just because they like his dog, want to go to Norway, and dislike car repairs.)

So, the Bad Morning started because I had to run my car in for an oil change, and the coolant light was on, so I needed a little antifreeze, too. What I thought would cost me an hour of free time and $25.00 turned into THREE AND A HALF hours in two different car repair waiting rooms and over $400.00. In fact, my car’s still across town. I’m going to have to spend my lunch hour walking back to pick it up, at which point the mechanics will probably tell me that I also need a flux capacitator that costs another $50.00, and I won’t even be able to complain, because I know nothing about cars.

So clearly the only option is to sell the car and move to Norway. And don’t start telling me about how they have cars in Norway, too! I’ve had a bad day.