Margaret Hastings-James

We are in mourning for our dear friends: Freckles, Rascal and Poppy who have all passed on to a better place (although I don’t know where that would be as they had it pretty good on earth…).

Freckles remains reside in a beautiful black urn, Rascal in Blue, and Poppy in Pink. They all sit next to my champagne glasses on display  in the buffet.

By the way, did you know that it costs the same to cremate a rodent as a cat? That would be $180 a shot … dear in every sense of the word until the very end.

I’ve put my food down. NO MORE rodents. I’ve given away the cages.

Juliette has fallen in love with a German Sheppard stray who she says Molly has become best friends with.

I don’t care if they are soul mates : no, no, and  NO, I say…

The day starts off with Juliette announcing (much more calmly this time) that Rascal’s innards are hanging out again. The good news is it  isn’t  Saturday night and peak emergency fee time. I put the sandwich making on hold and call the local rat specialist who just happens to be in for his surgery day.  Late for school as usual I throw the kids in the car and as I pull out of the driveway wave to my neighbour who is just returning from walking her kids to school.  We are obviously not morning people. I console myself with the fact that she’s a high ranking officer in the Forces and she’s been trained to organize troops, which is why she has  no problem getting her two kids to school on time and walking.

I get back from the school and bundle Rascal in a travel cage. Chauna arrives (Riley does not pee on Molly this time)

Molly and Riley

and we take the rat to the vets. We get to the office and there is a sign on the door saying they’ve moved ( I of course receive the moving notice in the mail that afternoon). We find the new offices and I kiss Rascal goodbye (as well as 46 times her worth in fees).

I feel  better when I score a pristine pair of lime green Converse sneakers for four dollars at Frenchy’s. (I get them for Juliette, being the first to admit that I can no longer carry off lime green sneakers). I leave Chauna staggering around with a basket full of clothes and  go to the hearing clinic to pick up my hearing aids (so yes, I am hard of hearing and no, I’m not ignoring you…).  To adjust the volume the audiologist stands facing away from me and asks me to repeat a sentence. I repeat,  “Six lasses makes the small prince sleazier.” She adjusts the volume and I hear, “Thick glasses makes the small print easier.” Needless to say I rarely wear the hearing aids. The world is so much more interesting when you don’t hear half of what’s going on and when you interpret the rest to suit yourself.

I find Chauna at the Salvation Army. By this time we are starving and go to Mic Mac Bar and Grill. It’s not even officially lunch time (it’s eleven forty-five) and the place is packed. As usual high energy, friendly waiters are running around serving a very large cross-section of humanity. We go as much for the atmosphere as for the great bar food. We get the usual:  loaded potato skins and root beer (me) and poutine and water (Chauna). We waddle out and convince each other we  have enough time for a quick stop at Global Pets for me to pick up eighty dollars worth of pet food before we go to Halifax to get Chauna’s glasses adjusted.

Gaudet Optical has every type of frame you can imagine. Doug (Gaudet) is wearing a funky blue pair today with paper clips imbeded in each corner of the frame. He adjusts Chauna’s frames and then I show him my Chanels that my daughter’s friend sat on – whole other story. I ask if he can save them. He takes them into the back to assess the situation. Chauna and I try on every frame in the place. When he comes back he tells me my Chanels are in critical condition and will definitely need surgery. Their fate hangs in the balance…

We are late picking up the kids from school (this should not come as a surprise at this point in the day). My guys finish at the ungodly hour of two-ten which makes for a short day, mommy-time-wise. I call  my friend Marianne who is working at the school and ask her to keep the  kids until I get there. When I go into the office to get them (only ten minutes late which is not much later than I usually am),  Alexander meets me with the news that his teacher wants to see me and she’ll be right back. I’m thinking, now what new hell …

I tell the kids to go to the car and tell Chauna I’ll be a minute. So I’m waiting in the office and the principal, Kevin, comes in and asks if Mme Shirley found me. Now I’m really freaking out – the principal knows about it. Finally, I can’t take the suspense any longer and get Marianne to call Mme Shriley in her classroom and tell her I’m there. Mme Shirley asks if I can go back to her classroom. I tell Marianne to tell her I have to get Chauna home but can come right back. She tells Mme Shirley. Mme  Shirley tells her to give me the phone. As I take it I’m trying to decide whether to have a heart attack or an aneurysm. She says, “Alexander needs a binder, he can’t handle duo-tangs. I should have thought of it earlier, sorry.”  That’s it? I go out to the car and tell Alexander and he says, “I already know but I wanted it to be a surprise for you.”   Jesus H. Christ…

After school, I take the kids to their swimming lesson (yes, my kids do exercise) and then we go to the library to drop off books. I decide to take them in because I’m sure we are missing a few (in the black hole under Alexander’s bed). Turns out we have eighty-nine dollars in overdue library fees. Who the hell has eighty-nine dollars in overdue library fees? We might have well bought the books and DVDs. We are obviously not library people.

Rush home and throw chicken on George Foreman’s Lean Mean Fat Reducing Machine, throw on my yoga clothes, and then throw some vegetables in the microwave. I have to pick up Rascal, who has come through the operation, at six and be at yoga by seven.  I get to the vets and Rascal has had a hysterectomy and has a body bandage on. She is staggering around the cage high on pain killers.I consider asking technician if I can get some of  what Rascal had.  We discuss the sanity of the rat world: me paying for a rat hysterectomy, rats being used in labs, rats as snake food.  It’s all beyond me.

Rascal

I open the door and Juliette is screaming because Alexander won’t go to bed, I’m asking why all the supper dishes are still all over the place when I asked them to clean up, and Rascal has her feet caught in her body bandage.  My yoga high is a thing of the past. Juliette tells me  she couldn’t clean up because the dishwasher was already on and then she makes a B-line for the shower. (I checked the dishwasher later and it was only half-full. This kid is scarily devious.)  An hour later, after I get Juliette out of the bathroom so I can get the nail scissors, Rascal is free of  bondage. We have to figure out a way to cover up her stitches so she won’t pick them out.  After much swearing Rascal has a smaller bandage around her stomach – I was swearing, not Rascal. My daughter heard me use the F word for the first time (this is how frustrated I am – I can usually keep it to an occasional frig.)

So by ten thirty I finally have Rascal settled, Juliette in bed, and Alexander in my bed, having fallen asleep waiting to read me a story. I hear Molly and Merry (the cat) downstairs in the kitchen fighting over who is going to get the good bed. 

Merry not giving up his bed

I put on headphones and watch an episode from 30 Rock on the portable DVD player. I wake up about one and take off headphones, move Shadow (the other cat) off my head and fall into a troubled, dream-filled sleep. As my mother always said, there is no rest for the wicked…

So that’s the rat update.  I’m meeting my friend Linda for lunch today. There is a winter storm watch going on so I’m pretty sure I’ll just get my meal when the school will call and I’ll have to leave and fight the bitter wind and snow to pick the kids up early…