My disrecommendation for the day: The Unamzing Persona

The story continues.

Today, I called Telus to find out what the frick was going on. They said that they hooked up our phone from their end and that it should be working. So the fact that I was told to stay at home and wait for them all damn day when, in fact, I didn't have to be there at all really pissed me off. What's worse: I went to the house to check if the phone worked: it doesn't. No dial tone. Nadda.

I then waited for the Amazing Persona (even though they are very un-amazing in their service) cable guy to come around and hook up our cable internet. He called at noon, saying that there may be a problem. He said that if our house was the one he was thinking of, the house construction crew buried the trench in the front yard a couple of months ago before he was able to connect the cable from the house to the main box and down the street.  He then confirmed his suspicions by coming to the house and checking things out. He adds that the cable box and phone box (and lines) run adjacent to each other. He then tells me that he will look into the specifics of fixing this problem and get back to me next week. The front yard will need to be dug up.

My first question, obviously, is that of payment. Seeing how this home was to be cable (and phone) ready upon possession, I really don't think I should be paying for the cable company's retardedness for KNOWING that the cable was not hooked up but not doing anything about it until the humble consumer calls to set up cable internet service. Also, I should not be paying for the retardedness of the construction crew who filled in a trench before the appropriate utility hook ups were made.

Methinks the same issue of digging up the front yard will accompany the phone installation. Again, I am not paying for retardedness.

In conclusion, my disrecommendation for the day is Persona. Boo on Persona. And boo on dumbass construction guys for filling a trench before its time. And boo on not being able to start any landscaping until next year, leaving me with a yard that looks like this:

My disrecommendation for the day

Moving sucks.

I flew out with the boys and my mom, leaving Tony and my step dad behind to drive the car across the country. Air Canada lost Kees's car seat.  That's right, a car seat. What's more, they seemed to care very little about this until I told them that if they didn't find my seat, I would be taking their loaner car seat with me to my destination, 500 km away.  Then, lo and behold, the car seat showed up. Hmmm...

After an exhausting day of flying with the boys and adjusting to the time change, Sacha had a night terror that night.  It involved screaming as though being attacked by an ax murderer for 45 minutes.  Meanwhile, Kees woke up to eat.  I grabbed Kees, ran to my mom's room, told her to change Kees and bring him back to me, then my mom attempted to calm Sacha.  It was not pretty.  The next morning, my mother-in-law offered to lend me her new Honda Fit to drive into town and get a Starbucks, just to give me some time to myself.  I was hesitant, but I did it.  I pull into the parking lot and PSSHHHHHH: the front tire of the car blew out.  That's right, I blew the front tire.  Of my in-laws new car.  Farking heck.

We are now reunited as a family, so the nights are better (for me), but our movers have been delayed by a few days, so we have to wait longer to get into our new house.  In the meantime, we are staying with my parents.  Our cat, who had taken possession of the new vacant house, went into total freak-out mode and cowered in a corner for 24 hours, refusing to eat, poop, pee, or meow.  Did I mention he was also losing hair?  Fortunately, my grandmother offered to babysit him at her house until we are settled.  I don't know if she realizes that may be a few weeks and a few pounds of cat hair.

Of course, we will all be separated again next week when Tony has to go away for training for his new job.  He will be away for 2 weeks (home on the weekend) so setting up the house by myself when the movers arrive should be super-duper.  Especially since I will be so rested from the shitastic blissful sleep I'll be getting.

And now, my disrecommendation for the day: Telus.  Telus sucks.  We called them over 2 months ago to get our phone service set up.  We booked the appointment for today.  I called them last night to confirm and asked that they call me at my mom's before they showed up, seeing how the house is vacant and I would have to go let them in.  They were hunky dory with that.

So today rolls around.  No phone call.  Nothing. I'm waiting around the house ALL DAMN DAY with an almost-two-year-old who desperately wants to go to the park.  I call Telus at 4:30 pm asking what is going on.  She tells me that there is no reason why our service won't be hooked up today, but that it may take until 8:00 pm.  If they don't show up, she tells me to call at 7:30 am tomorrow morning to get it sorted out.  Cheese and rice!  It is now 9:26 pm. I still have no phone.  I guess I will be hanging around the house all damn day tomorrow, too.

I highly disrecommend Telus.  I also highly disrecommend moving with small children across the country.

To cope with these irritants, I highly recommend Starbucks Cream Liqueur.

That is all.  Over and out.

The first goodbye

Today was the first of many goodbyes.

When we were sent out here two years ago, we were sent with my husband's best friend and his wife.  Both guys were in university together and part of a scholarship program that involved a contract of employment anywhere in Canada upon graduation. They were fortunate and got sent to the same small city and the same small store to work.

In that time, we all became parents of boys.  Our weekend visits went from relaxing dinners, games and movies to bibs and diapers; we enjoyed everything about it.

Although neither of us really liked living here, having each other made a world of difference on our outlook.  Now the contracts are up and we are all headed back to our respective origins.  They leave tomorrow, we leave next week.

Today was the first of many goodbyes to friends that placed fond memories in my heart in a place I otherwise would have loathed.

I'm as shocked as you are

I read a book.

An entire book.  With no illustrations or references to a singing backpack, fire trucks, construction equipment or Sir Topham Hat.

The book had over 200 pages and a TON of footnotes.

And I read it in under a week.

As the mother of a 22 month old and 8 week old, I think you should be impressed.

Want to know what I read?  Go here!

Tales from a B-cup Sixth Grader

I have 6 different sizes of bra in my wardrobe.  I have worn all of them in the past year.

Half of me was an early bloomer.  Relatives used to tease me about having "mosquito bites" in the fifth grade, and I innocently thought they were actually referring to real mosquito bites when they were, in fact, referencing my lopsided chest.  My left side decided to start developing breasts at the tender age of 10 while my right side clung to its girlish body.  I was immensely embarrassed of this.  A friend of my mother's, who happened to be a physician, came for a visit and my father thought it would be useful to consult this friend about my breasts, questioning whether they would always be that way or would things correct themselves in time, as though having lopsided breasts would become a pandemic to be feared and its victims shunned into asylums.

I remember my mother taking me bra shopping for the first time and buying me not the cute little training bras that all my friends wore, but very womanly underwire B-cup bras while my mom wore an A cup.  I was 11.  And the chest kept growing.

By the time I was 17, I was very comfortably into a D cup, although I often crammed those puppies into a C.  High school girls aren't supposed to have D cups.  They are supposed have cute perky boobs without their own gravitational pull.  And even though most high school guys have boobs on the brain 24/7, it seemed that a smaller chest was indirectly proportional to how popular a girl was with said boys.  Make sense to you?  I didn't think so.

Over the course of the next two years, I lost over 40 lbs.  I was not a big girl to begin with, but I felt that I needed to be thinner (that's a whole other post) and I got down to an A cup.  The cute bras and tiny tops were all mine!  But this was not meant to last, since I was clearly well below my body's natural weight, and they shot back up to a 34C over the course of 2 summer months and a trip to France where several pounds of cheese and baguettes were consumed.  My then boyfriend (now husband) was ecstatic.  So was his roommate (or so I've been told).

Then I started this whole "mom" thing.  I had to buy bigger bras twice while pregnant with Sacha.  Then I nursed him for 14 months, which left me with saggy "high Cs low Ds", according to the bra lady who sized me up last summer.  Then, my boobs started getting bigger again: enter pregnancy number two.  Seven weeks after delivering and breastfeeding Kees, I went to get properly fitted for a nursing bra, since all of mine made my boobs look like they were trying to eat my navel.  Where do I stand now?

32E.

That's right.  Next to that tiny 32 there is a giant E.  Again, the husband is ecstatic.

And I have come to terms with this.  I am cursed with ginormous boobs that seem to get bigger with every baby.  I tried to wear my bathing suit last week and the girls popped right out the top.  I don't think they even make bikini tops large enough for me.  Or supportive enough.  I cannot wear most of my shirts, meaning that I was reduced to go shopping and buy large and extra large tops just to fit over my rack.  The "XL" on the tag of my T-shirt is a corrosive acid that eats away at my inner-skinny-girl.  I keep trying to tell myself that it is only a temporary glitch and that they will go back to normal once I am done having kids. That, or I will have to go back to work to save up for the plastic surgery required to put them back where they belong.

The silver lining to all this: at least I won't be headed to the asylum anytime soon.