Busta Arm

Monica: Jeff, can you watch Mason for a second while I get dressed?
Jeff: OK. (walks out of room)

Sigh. Mason was sitting in the middle of our humungous king sized bed totally engrossed in a puzzle. It would take him forever to crawl all that way to the edge, and besides, he has a fascinating puzzle! I could turn around for a minute to rifle through a dresser drawer, right?

Kabam! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

He was so clingy that night and didn't want to be put down, so we didn't realize til the next mronign that he wasn't using it when he wouldn't crawl.
We carted him off to a walkin clinic where a scowling eastern european doctor grunted and handed us a referral for xrays.


I show up at the xray clinic address, only to find a Catholic Children's Aid Society sign on the door. WTF? Did she actually hear me telling Jeff to keep his still-reeking-like-a-brewery from the night before mouth shut or they'd call Children's Aid?? I was kidding! Kind of!

Half annoyed, half scared, I walk in and ask the receptionist if there is an xray clinic in the building - she laughs HAHAHAHAHAyouthoughtweweregonnatakeyourkidawayHAHAHAHA and points me to the other side of the building above the Shoppers Drug Mart. Hahahaha! Thanks.

Xray clinc says they'll send them back to Dr. Pissypantsovich for analysis. The hell! I snatch them back and take them to my own doctor 5 hours later. They can't tell. Send us to emergency. Mason has a broken arm, requiring a cast over the elbow! He screamed all night when he realized it wasn't coming off, and by morning he was over it. He doesn't seem to remember a time when he didn't have it. But he's losing it this Thursday! 2 and a hlaf weeks. The little buggers heal fast!

You know Dad, just cuz I elbow you in the face with my cast doesn't mean I don't like ya. You're ok.

March, you bastard.

File under February Sucks

February 1: My birthday
Wake up 34. Drop Mason at daycare, head downtown for lunch. See Children of Men, pick up Mason, play, then have a family nap. Schnemps and Cat come over with presents and we drink champagne. Cat & Helen take me out for dinner and drinks. Later on watch The Office while holding sleeping baby. This is February, folks. And it is typical of February to start out with a day this sweet just to prime you for the 27 day all you can eat buffet of crap that this month is gonna serve you up.

February 2: Groundhog Day
Wiarton Willie does not see his shadow which means early spring. But some people think this is bullshit.

February 5: Return to work
The pinnacle of suck month. Every time I turn around my job finds a new way to suck. My office has moved to Front and Spadina, adding 15 minutes to my already sucky commute. Crappy wasteland location - might as well be in the flipping tundra. New ludicrously process obsessed boss. Learn that a new team has taken over large chunk (and the best chunk) of my job. Powers that be look for petty things for me to do and idiotic time wasting meetings to book me into. Getting pregnant is priority number one.

February 14: Valentines Day
I have the flu. Jeff has the flu. This is Jeff's 2nd Vday in a row having the flu, which works out great for Jeff since Vday is just a Hallmark holiday that he does not need to celebrate his love for me because he celebrates his love for me every day. So I should really consider Vday a welcome break from the onslaught of cards and flowers he gives me the other 364 days of the year. Mason comes through for me with a splendiferously hideous valentine that he made out of doilies and stickers. Sweet baby guy!

February 19: Catriona's Live Liver Donation
Why does this suck? It doesn't. This is awe-inspiring superhero shit, but Catriona was sliced from front to back and ribs were pulled apart and clamped open for this surgery and she is in heaps of pain right now. Which sucks. But she successfully donated 70% of her liver to her dad, and that's gonna save his life. So I guess we just file this under Miscellaneous February.

February 25: The Oscars
The Oscars are long, dumb and suck.

February 27
The stock market crashes. Or something. In China? Because of China? I dunno. Bank of Sealy Posturpedic, people.


This concludes my chronology of February highlights. I know, it sucked! That's my whole point!! Bring on the March.

Finding myself

Today I managed to sneak in my monthly self-google to make sure no one is talking about me on the internet. I found another Monica C***** who commented on the Tyra Banks show website about the miracle cream who cured her overweightness and her asthmatic son, and another Monica C***** who ranted about the evil fur trade on Peta. Currently, googling my name returns mostly sites mentioning very esteemed Monica C*****es with roles like marketing director, public affairs director, author, translator, limerick writer, nurse, and most frequently appearing, headmistress of prestigious school for aspiring girl astronauts. And then there's the doosh who was interviewed for some Microsoft magazine about Pets on the Net:

There it is. My brilliant internet debut . The three sentence fragments this writer used from the leghumpingly overeager 2 pages of info I sent her portray me as a vacuous a-hole with redundant grammatical tendencies who buys puppy mill dogs on eBay.

"The Internet is always my first source and almost always my primary source." (That's first source AND primary source, people). God.

Despite my lengthy sanctimonious ramblings about the evils of buying animals over the internet and the importance of face to face meetings with the animal you decide to adopt from the humane society, to my horror, the writer excerpted passages of my manifesto to cue up the expert who scorns the "window shoppers" and warns against buying dogs from litters listed in the classified ads like that douchebag Torontonian Monica C*****.

A few months later that writer asked me about my experiences for her new article on vacationing with pets. I told her we tie the dogs to the hitch and let them run behind the truck on road trips, but if we're going real far, we just leave them tied up in the backyard for the week. I did tell her however, that it is of first AND primary importance to leave them a bowl of water before you go.

El CAMINO

I start work again tomorrow. So since I woke up this morning I have been trying to figure out the best use of my time on this last day of the good life. And since I've been unable to convince myself that trying to stop time is not a good use of my time, I've really been wasting time since I woke up this morning.

I thought that taking Mason out in his new sled would be a nice family memory making thing to do but there's actually an extreme wind chill warning today. With that in effect, I can't go return my broken new hair straightener either, which was obviously returned by someone else for not working since it had someone else's hair stuck in it when I opened it. Stupid Bay. I know I need to actually decide what to wear tomorrow and determine whether such an outfit requires thong underwear and make sure the clothes are actually clean and ironed and figure out where the hell the thong underwear and the trouser socks are cuz I have not been needing any of that crap in a whole glorious year. But doing that would take precious time from my last day doing things for tomorrow which is like letting a bit of stankass tomorrow leak into my today.

Instead I prefer to spend my time freaking out about the passing of time. Also discovering what anagrams can be made from my name! Surprisingly fitting, many of them...

I'M A CON (often felt that way at work. Work! FUCK!!!)
MAC I NO (they're groovy and everything but and they're so dang expensive and I don't like to learn new things )
IN COMA (interesting idea, since we're trying to stop time...)
AM ICON (icon of time wasting and general neurosis)

T minus 12 hours.... I feel sick.


Sunday Feb. 4th

365 days ago

I was in the most serious agony of my life. But even as I listen to him wail away through the monitor while Jeff fumbles through trying to get him back to sleep after the 3rd time waking up since we put him down only 1 hour ago, I'd still do it all over again. Every minute of it.

Happy birthday sweet baby guy! Life without you would be inconceivable.

Why yes, I would love some wine with my cheese!

Oh yes I did!
Norman Rockwell, eat your heart out.