Margaret Hastings-James

Yesterday was another one of those days. I planned on spending the morning and most of the afternoon with a great bunch of people on a canal in France (latest book – Three’s A Crowd). But this is what happened…

Juliette looks too closely at her rats before school and notices that all is not well in their little rat world.  Rascal has a red nose.  (I later found out that it is red pigmentation and not blood but impressive none the less). She’s been sneezing for a couple of days but she is eating well and I’m hoping it’s going to go away. I’ve been keeping them clean and dry but obviously this isn’t enough.

Juliette leaves to get the school bus and I settle down with my tea and leave for France. About a half an hour later Juliette comes rushing through the door in tears. She’d got off the school bus and got a friend’s parent to drive her home. So there are major dramatics and we are at the vets within the hour. Another two hundred dollars later, Rascal has a sprained knee (no idea how it happened – surfing?) and both Rascal and Poppy have upper respiratory infections.

So we bring the rats home and drop them off. Juliette has been complaining of a sore hip (I have never seen a kid have so many things wrong with her – I can’t imagine what she’ll be like at 70!). So I take advantage of her being out of school to drop into the walk-in clinic. Juliette explains in detail the excruciating pain she is in. I give the doctor my expert diagnosis: I believe that my daughter has what I like to refer to as “computer hip”,  a close cousin to “tennis elbow”.  She spends hours on end on her bed on the same side with her laptop next to her watching tv, messaging, face booking, and generally surfing (all at the same time). What does she expect? That her body is just going to let her get away with it?

The doctor examines her  and sends us for an x-ray just to make sure everything is okay.  (I’m going to feel really bad about my rant if it turns out to be anything dire).  We spend the next three hours in a medical centre waiting to get her hip x-rayed. Fortunately they had a t.v. in the waiting room and I got to see The View and Dr. Oz (and learned all you ever wanted to know, or not, as the case may be, about the vagina.)

We’re late leaving the clinic and it is pouring rain. I call Alexander’s school and ask if one of the mothers can take him to our place as he has a key (I had a huge Garfield one made for him at the beginning of the year and it is on a big chain but I’m sure he will eventually lose it.). So we get home and within minutes Juliette is telling me that the son of the parent who drove her home that morning is locked out in the rain and is messaging her from his Ipod.  What did we do before all this technology? So I get back into the car to go pick him up and as I get there his parents are on the door step calling me to tell me not to bother to drive over. So I take the kid back home with me anyway so he can kill zombies with Alexander on the PS3. What ever happened to the cute little Pacmen who ate squares? No wonder my son has to sleep with the light on!

The phone rings in the early evening and it is my sister-in-law calling from France to find out why Juliette was at the hospital and what had happened to her hip. Damn Facebook and Juliette’s limited vocabulary. It is a medical clinic, Juliette, not a hospital. So I calm my sister-in-law  down and thank God she hasn’t called my parents-in-law with the news. After getting off the phone I take the zombie-killing  boy back home, make supper, make Alexander take a shower (WITH soap), crawl into bed with my laptop to watch an episode of Medium (I want her husband and her family life). I was so tired that even Allison’s dreams can’t keep me awake (maybe because my day has been such a nightmare). I give  in and turn off the light.

Despite the exhaustion, I keep waking up all night because every muscle in my body, including my fingers, is aching because of the power yoga class I’d done the day before. What was I thinking? What were they thinking? I always thought yoga was supposed to be zen. I can see why Jennifer Anniston loses weight if she does it like these insane people do. I actually did one move that flipped me from my front to my back while balancing on one leg and one arm.  Even now as I type I feel as if I’ve been in a car accident. I swear I will stick to old lady zen yoga from now on!

Until the next time…

Thanks for visiting me.

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