Before anything else, thank you all for your many emails and comments regarding the medical situation. I appreciated the offers of help and your sympathetic words.  I really think that the appointment at the Diabetes Center this Friday will sort things out for me and get me access to the prescriptions I need. I will keep you updated on how it works out.

I finally made The Cake yesterday. Affectionately named The Taj Mahal, this cake was the result of nearly a year of dreaming by one four year old and an equivalent amount of procrastinating planning by one mother. I am embarrassed to think about how much money was spent on the supplies for this cake. It was costly for two reasons. 1) I am still not in my own home with my own things so I purchased certain items like 4 different kinds of sprinkles and toothpicks and ice cream cones that I might normally have in my cupboards.  Not incredibly expensive items, but still, it adds up. 2) You can’t buy 1 inch of fruit rollups fruit-by-the-foot. You have to purchase a box of 6 fruit rollups. You can’t buy 3 ice cream cones. You have to buy a whole box of them - 2 boxes if you want both sugar cones and regular cones. Etc. So I had to buy more than I used. Which means we have a lot of extra candy lying around.

I have come to grips with the fact that this cake was baked with 100% pure motherguilt. I have felt guilty that my baby! was not going to have a “real” birthday party with friends and presents and such. And she has begged for this cake and been anticipating it since just after her 4th birthday. And here we are, alone in a new place, where she has had a frustrated and angry mother who is drowning in an ocean of bureaucracy and sometimes taking it out on her.

My attempts to assuage my own guilt were not entirely successful. Sugar can’t make up for my poor attitude. But the look in her eyes when she saw the finished product made it worth the hassle. Here’s how the process went:

1) Bake two home-made cakes in a 9×13 pan. Purchase two boxes of cake mix. If you have an almost five-year-old daughter, she will likely want a cake that tastes like strawberries pink. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) Measure healthy organic ingredients eggs, oil and water into bowl (the bowl is pink because I took pictures on the second cake instead of the first).

3) Add healthy dose of guilt-laden mother-love sugar-laden cake mix.

4) Mix with electric mixer on high for two minutes   wire whisk until smooth fork because you don’t have any other job-appropriate tools until you have a charlie-horse in your bicep.

5) Accept the fact that it will never be completely smooth when being mixed with human-generated power. Pour into pan and bake.

6) Remove from oven when a toothpick can be inserted and comes out clean.  Try not to be alarmed by the fact that the cake looks like a dirty, pink kitchen sponge. 

7) After cooling, flip the cake out of the baking dish and onto a foil-wrapped piece of cardboard with bottom side facing up (this gives you a flat surface to decorate). Try to do this gently so as not to break the cake. Fail. Carefully remove chunks of cake still stuck to dish and fit back into holes in cake. No one will know this happened when it’s covered with icing. Mmmm…icing! Mix and bake second cake.

8 ) Assemble tools and candy decorations.

9) Now would be a good time to put those nimble five-year-old fingers to use shelling unwrapping candies.

10) After second cake has been baked and cooled. Lay cakes side by side with bottoms facing up on cardboard.  Spread icing on top and sides to create the appearance of two cakes lying side by side one large sheet cake.

11) Using your guide, decorate cake to resemble the Candyland board game including candy canes and conversation hearts which cost you $17 because they had to be delivered to you via time-travel to the distant past from California. Voila!

12) Let one happy five-year-old make a birthday wish and blow out her candles.

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I don’t know if anyone is truly interested, but just for the record, here are some things I would have changed or done differently, had a number of factors been different.

*I would have piped on the words “Start” on the chocolate arrow and “Happy Birthday” on the starburst candies as was done on the Taste of Home website, however the icing decorator set I bought had a rather fat tip for straight lines and I didn’t think I could neatly write letters in such a small space so I opted to leave them out completely. But I think having Happy Birthday on the cake might have been nice.

*If our belongings weren’t in a storage container in Canada right now I would have used the little gingerbread movers from the real Candyland game on the cake to make it look a little more real.

*I would have been a little more careful with the spacing of the starburst candies, starting closer to the bottom edge of the cake. I didn’t have as much room at the top as I thought I would for the ice cream cone castle.

*That said, I would have had an easier time fitting the castle in if I had bought regular sized cones. I apparently bough the jumbo size without realizing it. The sugar-cone (which is covered in icing) was fine, but the others were way too big.

*Plan ahead so as to avoid having to order candy canes and conversation hearts online.  What a ridiculous thing to do! All in the name of love, but still! I would also have used full sized candy canes, not minis. The mini canes didn’t have long enough stems and they had to be pushed in quite far in order to keep them from falling over. Longer ones would have worked better.

*The icing I bought was Betty Crocker brand and came in a kind of a spray can that also included four decorating tips. I really only used the star shaped one as the writing tip was too large and the others weren’t relevant. Overall I was pleased with how it worked. At first I felt it wasn’t making very clear, sharp lines - the little flower/stars were looking melty and oily as soon as I created them. But after some fiddling and practising on some paper towel I realized it had more to do with my skill and technique and less to do with the product. I’d say, if you aren’t a frequent cake decorator, the product was worth using

*Not buy so much candy. Gasp! I know! But I really only needed one large bag of starburst candies, not two. And only one bag of the round peppermints that were around the edge. I always over-estimate how much I will need, which is why I now have a cupboard full of candy. Which, in hindsight, is not sooo terrible. But I could have saved a few dollars that way.

*I never did find anything shaped like a peanut butter cup but not containing peanut butter although I looked at Walmart and a lot of other candy-selling places. Maybe just bad luck? But I used mini York peppermint patties which are super yummy and worked just fine in the end.

*Let somebody else unwrap the four thousand goll-darn starburst candies! My nails are still sore from picking at the damn things!

If you have a serious medical condition and you move to a new country you may or may not have expectations of what kind of care and/or insurance coverage you can expect to receive. You may or may not also have expectations about what kind of service you can expect to receive from various medical institutions/pharmacies/insurance companies etc. If you are me, you will DEFINITELY have expectations. Because that’s just how I roll. And if your are me then you are especially lucky because you have just won an all expense paid trip to the 18 Ring Circus. Here’s how it works:

Your realize you are starting to get to the end of your medical supplies so you decide a pharmacy trip is in order. You assume all pharmacies carry insulin (who doesn’t?) but not all pharmacies carry insulin pump supplies, which you require, so you conscientiously phone ahead to make sure you can get what you need before showing up at the pharmacy.

After calling no less than 25 pharmacies you discover that NO PHARMACIES IN THE UNITED STATES SELL INSULIN PUMP SUPPLIES and you need A PRESCRIPTION to even buy insulin! This is baffling as you have never NEEDED a prescription for such a thing before.

You call your insurance provider to find out which doctors you are allowed to see because you know that there is something about that in the eighty stacks of paper you received about your new American insurance plan. If you had been in Canada you would have run to a walk-in clinic, waited an hour, and walked out with a prescription for all you needed.  In America, it seems, there are NO WALK-IN CLINICS in the city of FOUR MILLION PEOPLE in which you live. You insurance provider nicely tells you that you will have to find a doctor to see who can give you a prescription and gives you a list.

You go through the list, calling each office and talking to each grumpy receptionist who rudely tells you that they are a) not taking any new patients at this time or b) taking new patients but will not be able to see you for your “new patient visit” for at least six weeks or six months or seventeen years and no prescriptions can be given to you until that time.

You call your insurance provider back. They call many more doctors on your behalf. No dice. They suggest you go to the emergency room. You balk at this blatant abuse of the emergency room, but they insist that you MUST have a prescription for your medical supplies or the insurance will not pay for squat. But they will happily pay for your non-emergency trip to the emergency room. As long as you pay the $50 co-pay first.

You enjoy a lovely hour morning day in the emergency room, waiting to have a doctor talk to you for 30 seconds and then disappear for two hours before handing you a prescription for insulin. The doctor refuses to write a prescription for insulin pump supplies because they are unfamiliar with insulin pumps and don’t know how to write a prescription for pump supplies.

You take your handy prescription to a pharmacy where you pay through the bumhole $25 AS YOUR CO-PAY for ONE BOTTLE OF FREAKING INSULIN. In Saskatchewan you would pay nothing for insulin except the $5 service charge at the pharmacy and the total price of a bottle of insulin was $17. In Ontario you paid the service charge again, and the bottle of insulin (covered by your insurance) cost $34. In America one bottle of insulin costs $114!!!  You shed a single tear after biting your tongue clear off.

You ask the pharmacist to give you a couple of the refills at once. But OH NO that is NOT ALLOWED, you silly little Canadian, you. One bottle is all you get. Come back for refills. No soup for you. Goodbye.

You call your insurance again because the hubby thought there was some way to mail order three months worth of a prescription at once, with only one copay for the whole order which sounds a lot better than getting raped paying $25 every 9 days at the pharmacy for one single bottle of insulin. Your insurance company tells you that this is only possible if you have the original prescription which is now in the hands of the evil pharmacy. It’s your own fault for giving it to them. You speak sternly, then yell and cry and the lovely insurance representative on the phone seems to feel genuinely sorry for you, but cannot help. They do say, however, that you should have been able to get one month’s worth of prescriptions from the pharmacy at once. So you should have been able to get 3 bottles of insulin at once.

You go back to the pharmacy to find out why they would not sell you three bottles of insulin. They tell you that the ER doctor wrote that you only need one bottle of insulin per month. Despite the fact that you looked her in the eyes and all but held her hands and stroked them gently while saying “TEN BOTTLES SHOULD BE ENOUGH FOR THREE MONTHS.” The pharmacist says to come back tomorrow and another pharmacist, who is not here today, will try and contact the ER doctor (who you point out will not know who you are or what your normal dosage is) and straighten things out.

You call the 15 different endocrinologists offices that your insurance provider gave you. They will not see you. Oh no. Because you ONLY have diabetes. And don’t you know that an endocrinologist is for someone with many, MANY problems more severe than diabetes??? You explain your dire circumstances and the fact that you are going to run out of all your supplies in one week. They apologize that you are going to die, but they cannot help. They do give you the number of a Diabetes Center.

You call the Diabetes Center. They tell you that you cannot be seen until October. You weep into the phone for the third time today and explain how serious and urgent the circumstances are. The receptionist takes pity on your teary and obviously desperate self. She books you to see a nurse practitioner in the Diabetes Center for Friday. It is still not 100% clear if you will be given prescriptions at that time. But at least you feel you are getting somewhere. She gives you the name of a lovely new doctor who is taking new patients. You feel jubilant!

You call said lovely new doctor’s office. The snarky receptionist informs you there are no openings until January. You hang up in despair.

You go to your insurance provider’s website to check again which doctors you can call to get a family doctor. Your insurance provider’s website it down. Again. All freaking day. 

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I have NEVER felt so trapped by my diabetes before. Both financially, because without a prescription I will have to pay the $1000/month in expenses out of my own pocket, and physically, because without these supplies and medication I would die. I have NEVER felt so abandoned by the medical system before. I have NEVER seen such high prices for medications. I have NEVER wanted to go home more than I do do today.

I know we will get this figured out and things will likely be fine in the end. But America, I have to tell you. Your system is BROKEN.

[Edit: I realize that it is NOT in fact Monday, but Tuesday afternoon. Shit happens. Not that it happens to ME. Just sayin'.]

I’m going to try out a weekly post similar to some my recent “that would suck” posts. I thought about calling it “That Would Suck” Mondays, as I did last week. But it’s a little negative. And I think it’s more fun to whine first, laugh later approach life from a humorous perspective. Plus, I’m super classy. Onwards, dear readers!

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Know what might suck? Travelling via subway and ferry and boat shuttle to the farthest reaches of civilization before land gives way to endless ocean with two kids, only to get caught in one of the hardest downpours you’ve ever experienced?  And then to discover that sweaters and umbrellas had been forgotten at home and the next ferry back to the mainland doesn’t arrive for a full hour and there’s nowhere sheltered to go. So you have a full hour of hell fun to look forward to, with two cranky and tired and, now, WET children, while standing in the rain. That might suck. 

And I imagine it would also suck if the four of you got your wet behinds onto a ferry which was happily warm and dry on the inside, but kind of a tight space, with more people crammed in than is normal because of inclement weather. And you started remembering the last time you rode in a boat cabin like this and the seasickness that followed and before long you started to feel fairly nauseous. That moment when your adrenaline starts to pump because you suddenly feel the vomit rising up - that moment, I imagine, sucks. So you might spend the next sixty minutes of what was supposed to be that thirty minute ferry ride staring out the window with deep concentration, so as to keep the seasickness at bay, and the people sitting closest to the window you are staring out of might think you are a sociopath, or at least more invested in their conversation than is polite for a complete stranger. Meanwhile your kids might whine without ceasing and your husband might feel frustrated and the ferry might continue to move at a minnow’s pace because the fog and rain have created weather conditions that are simply unsuitable for traversing the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. So the ferry ride might seem to go on FOREVER and if all these things happened, that would suck.

Not that it’s happened to ME. I’m just sayin’. It would suck.

Oh, my girl! How can you be five years old? How have five years flown by in the blink of an eye? I could not have imagined the child you would be today when you first came into our lives. There were many times I tried to imagine what you would be like at five years old. But even my best hopes couldn’t compare to the person you have become.

I carried you carefully. I wanted you so much. Your daddy and I knew the day we expected to meet you because of a planned induction. And, as we have come to expect from you, you didn’t make your appearance until you were good and ready.  It was years after your birth that your daddy fully explained to me how serious it really was when you were delivered. That we weren’t just in a hurry - it was a full blown emergency. My heart still skips a beat when I remember those moments. You finally emerged via c-section, not breathing. But you recovered quickly. We didn’t know at the time how close we came to not knowing you. Nor did we know just exactly who we would have missed.

We had a rough start, you and I. You made me a mother for the first time and though I wanted to be a mother so much, I wasn’t prepared for the all-encompassing responsibility or the maturity that would be required of me. I wasn’t ready for a baby that cried nearly every minute for eight straight months. I wasn’t ready for feeling helpless or for giving up the rights to my body for the nourishment of another human being. Or the  selflessness that would be required in order to not take your constant wailing and seeming discomfort personally. I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice my days and nights to you. I really thought I was. But I wasn’t.

But we made it through those long months. It took me a while to get the hang of this Mommy thing but I finally caught on. And I was blown away by the personality that I have watched blossoming from a squalling, fussy (but adorable) infant to a sweet and spunky toddler to the thoughtful and exuberant big girl you are today.

I didn’t know that those difficult first months of our relationship would bond us in a way that I’m not sure anything else could have. I didn’t know that I would experience a surge of adrenaline every time you cried or that it would prevent me from falling back to sleep at nights because I was worried that you were unhappy or uncomfortable.  I didn’t know that I could trust my instinct to recognize when something was wrong with you, that we had a connection beyond the advice of a friend or the knowledge of a doctor. I didn’t know that I could care so much or be so afraid that something would happen to you because you are part of me. I didn’t know that your happiness would be so consuming to me.

I also had no clue what it would mean to give up my freedom, to go without sleep, to be tied to someone without any relief, because even when I was away from you, I was never completely away from you. I didn’t know that I would lose my cool so easily when I was tired and frustrated. I didn’t know that I had what it takes to become your advocate because I was all you had (and your Daddy, too, of course).  I didn’t know how much you would teach me about myself.  Most of all, I didn’t know how rewarded I would feel as I watched you reach new milestones, conquer obstacles, set your own goals and reach them, and create your own dreams for your life.  I just didn’t know these things? How could I until I met you?

How could I know that you would have such a kind spirit? That you would be so genuinely eager to please the people you love? That you would love and trust people so quickly?  You caught me by surprise with your loving spirit. You really did. I expected parenting you to be harder. Not that we don’t have our moments. But you have been easy to guide, eager to learn and a lot more fun than I expected.

I wish I could describe how it feels to hear you spontaneously tell me you love me multiple times a day. Or to watch you act out made-up stories with your toys. Or to hear you mother your little brother. Or to see you reading like it’s the most natural thing in the world even though one year ago you could barely recognize all your letters. I wish I could explain the way I feel when I hold you in my arms and revel in the knowledge that you came from me, that one moment you didn’t exist and the next moment you did. I wish there was a way to put into words the moments when I see the sparkle in your eyes, or marvel at the dimples in your cheeks and the freckles that are sprinkled across your nose. There just aren’t the right words to describe your determination, your sensitivity, or the way you can make one silly face after another for five minutes in a row.

I often wonder if we’ve been unfair to you, moving you across the country from Saskatchewan to Ontario and then south to America. I wonder if this kind of chaos is ultimately going to be unhealthy. i worry that the instability you’ve missed has affected you. But when I see your flexibility and your ability to take things in stride and I hope that these experiences will prove to be beneficial in the end.

Baby girl, I’m sorry I haven’t always been the mother you deserved. I haven’t always been energetic enough to match your enthusiasm. I haven’t always been patient enough to teach you when you wanted to learn. And I haven’t always been gentle enough when all you wanted was my attention. I regret these things frequently. I hope that you will be able to forgive me for my failings. I imagine a day when you are a mother and you understand these things better than you will now, just as I have been realizing them about my own mother in the past five years.  I imagine us as friends. I imagine you as a grown woman, living your dreams. I imagine reminiscing about you calling a bathing suit a “baby suit” and when you wanted to be a paramedic or the time we got caught in a torrential downpour on your 5th birthday.  Just as I couldn’t imagine who you would be at five, I can’t imagine exactly who you will be at 25. But I get a few more clues every day, just watching you dance through life.

Lately you’ve developed some anxiety, whether due to insecurity or a desire for perfection, that causes you to apologize repeatedly for mistakes, both big and little. I fear that I have contributed to this problem by demanding too much from you. At times I expect you to be more mature than is fair. Sometimes I get too upset over small situations that mean nothing in the grand scheme of life. If I have played any part in causing you so much distress I am ashamed. You, little girl, should never be ashamed of who you are. You need not expect perfection from yourself. As long as you are happy with your life then I will be proud of you. Go out and achieve all that you want. You have it in you!

I am so proud of you, my girl. I am so honoured to be learning from you and, occasionally, teaching you.  I have been so blessed to know you.  I can’t wait to see what each year brings even though I frequently tell you that you’re not allowed to grow anymore. It’s been an amazing ride.

I hope you know that your Mama is your biggest fan. We may your rough patches, but I’ve always got your back.  You are precious girl. You are the one who made me a mother. You baptized me by fire and spit up and your are an integral part of who I am.  We are connected, you and I.

But I can’t take credit for the person you are becoming. That’s all you, baby!

Need a little giggle today? I did. Check out a hilarious article entitled Six Terrifying Things They Don’t Tell You About Childbirth. Also, a really interesting article about the differences between women and men entitled How Women Work linked to on Guy Kawasaki’s blog. You know if Guy liked it, it’s worth reading.  Go read!

We have spent a LOT of time on hold in the last few weeks. Like enough minutes to add up to a week in Mexico. *Sigh* We’ve been waiting to talk to banks and government offices and the DMV and an airline rewards booking system and school boards and doctor’s offices and more.  After compiling many hours of data (read: wasting hours of my life with a phone glued to my ear) I have started to identify certain annoying features common to most electronic holding pens that, if remedied, could dramatically improve the waiting experience of the customer.

Let me ‘esplain:

1. The Menu System - Let’s not kid ourselves…all customers are getting herded into the same queue. Pretending otherwise just irritates your customers. Start off the call with a short message like “Hello customer! We all know you’re going to wait a long time so let’s cut the bullshit and get you straight into line so you can get off the phone as soon as possible! You’re welcome!”.  The customer will thank you. Trust me.

2. Honesty is the Best Policy - If you are going to estimate a wait time for your callers, please, for the love of everything holy, be conservative in your estimate! Don’t tell me it’s going to be five minutes and then proceed to make me wait thirty minutes. I’m just watching the clock so that I can start getting worked up the first second you exceed your projected wait time. Really? Don’t tell me at all. It’s just depressing. I’d rather not know.

3. Musak - Another area where it’s good to be honest about your wait times is when it comes to selecting music for your caller to listen to when on hold. Nobody likes that crappy Musak or the top ten list of three years ago one time, let alone 57 times in a row. Telling yourself that a ten song loop is enough because NO ONE will EVER wait more than 20 minutes in a row in your queue is more than a little naieve, don’t you think?Why not play news clips? Or short stories in audio format? Or TED Talks? Something that will actually pique my interest, rather than make me want to stab myself in the eardrum. Then at least I might have been genuinely entertained or at least feel slightly more informed on current events when I finally reach an operator and therefore slightly less cranky about my long wait. And if you must make Musak loops PLEASE make them 24 hours long so your callers will (hopefully) not have to hear a repeat while they wait.

4. Recorded Voices - Why do the recorded voices always sound so bored and boring? Why can’t you use men and women with exotic foreign accents to tell me to press 5 to speak to a customer representative? I’d much rather hear a sexy Italian man say “Fodr de Engalish, pdress one! To speaka de Italiano with me, Antonio, pdress de two! We weel make da sweet love alla night!”  More people might choose to spend time with Antonio, rather than trying to sort out social security numbers or set up bank accounts, and you may find you have less calls than you originally thought!

5. Messages while you are waiting - Almost every queue recording has a pre-recorded message which replays every minute or so that goes something like this: “We are currently experiencing higher than normal call volume. Please stay on the line and one of our customer service representatives will be happy to help you as soon as they are available.”  This message is unnecessary and it gets increasingly annoying as time drags on.  The first time it sounds like: “We are just so dog-gone glad that you called! We want to assure you that your business is important to us by letting you know that our people are just standing by to help you!” But after a couple more repeats it comes across more like: “We’d be negligent in our duty if we didn’t let you know that you ARE actually still in the queue and we’d like to condescendingly remind you to stay on the line until we are good and ready to talk to you.” After several hours (yes, we’ve had to wait this long a number of times recently) all I hear is “BWAAAHAAHAHA!!! It’s too late for you to hang up now, SUCKER!!! You may want to hang up but we both know you won’t because you don’t want the last twenty minutes ninety minutes 4.5 hours to be a waste! All you can do is sit there and take because you, my friend, are the telephone’s bitch! Enjooo-oooy!” Just scrap the recording altogether. Or replace it with

6. Interruptions to Waiting Process by Real Live People - This is one of the cardinal sins of the queue. Having someone interrupt your wait to ask a small, unimportant question, or to transfer you to another queue is BEYOND FRUSTRATING. After waiting so long you think you’re FINALLY going to get down to business just to be told that no, you will have to wait longer. Please don’t interrupt my wait if you’re not prepared to serve me yet! It just makes me hostile when I finally do get through to the actual customer rep. Just let me wait in peace.

7. Dropped Calls - This is The Big Cardinal Sin. Dropping a call with a customer who has waited for a long time in a queue is just unforgivable. If a call is dropped the company should be the ones coming crawling to the customer, begging for forgiveness. And they should come with gifts in hand to make up for the mistake.  Under no circumstances should the customer have to wait in the queue again. The customer rep should call back IMMEDIATELY so as to catch the desperate and homicidal caller before they dial the number again. Last night my husband waited two hours only to speak briefly with a rep before the rep accidentally dropped the phone and hung up on him. He had to wait over two more hours to finally finish the business he originally called to complete.  After he hung up it took me another three hours to get him to stop weeping.

The truth is, most companies know that we have very little choice but to sit there, listening to their musak and just take it up the hooha. They have no real motivation to change their systems.  Bottom line? I need to start brushing up on my voodoo. Because that’s all that’s going to help me now!

Against my wagging fingers and grunts of disapproval, the hubby grabbed a couple of tear-off phone numbers from some bulletin boards when we were touring the Harvard campus not too long ago. The flyers were recruiting people to take part in Sleep Studies and since sleeping and studying are two of the hubby’s favourite things to do, he just couldn’t resist. Also, the papers advertised a fairly generous payment for full participation in the study, which sparked his curiosity. Most people would take the generous payment as a hint that the study would involve something more demanding and rigorous than simply resting peacefully. But my husband is nothing if not optimistic.

After contacting the people in charge of the study he received an email with the detailed requirements for eligibility in the study.  There were several key items that would have rendered the hubby ineligible (he wouldn’t have been allowed to take his asthma medications or any kind of caffeine and he would have had to be available for several weeks to stay in some kind of fallout shelter sleep lab).  But the clincher was this: ”On 2 occasions, you are asked to remain awake for up to 40 hours each, while lying in bed the entire time.”  

I laughed out loud when I read this, knowing that there is NO WAY my husband could stay awake for 40 hours straight. He has amazing willpower and determination. He is stubborn. He is persistent. But he could be lying in bed while watching a trio of pole dancers perform the hottest stip-tease, or a pack of rabid hyenas threatening his physical safety and he would drift off to dreamland.  When he is sleepy there is NO keeping him awake. The apocalypse itself would not keep this man from his slumber. So the very idea that a comfortable bed, dim lighting and a lab assistant! to play games! or talk! would be enough to keep my husband awake for forty straight hours is laughable.

He was truly disappointed that he wasn’t going to be able to make big bucks while sleeping, and I can’t blame him. But I don’t think there is enough money in the world to make me willingly forego several nights’ sleep!

Dear Goddamn Bank of America and TD Banknorth,

Canada is not some kind of alien planet or even a third world country. It is the country with whom your fair nation is most closely connected physically, politically and financially. There is NO REASON that we should have so much trouble transferring funds from our Canadian bank accounts to our new American accounts. Especially when there is a branch manager in Canada who is more than ready and willing to speak with you on the phone or fax you a GODDAMN GUARANTEE that the funds are legitimate.  What the hell else do you need to verify???  Do you know how long eight weeks are? The whole gestation period of a cat.  Fifty-six rotations of the earth on it’s axis. Also?Enough time to plot the downfall of two American banks.  

Another thing.  Telling a customer that his social security number is invalid DESPITE his clear documentation proving that you are mistaken is great way to ensure NO CUSTOMER LOYALTY WHATSOEVER. If the RMV was able to verify it without any problem,  what the hell is wrong with your system?

With no love and much animosity,
A new and livid customer

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Dear Blue Cross,

Requiring a new member to have a prescription for medical supplies without providing the means for him or her to AQUIRE said prescription is messed up. The fact that you are willing to pay for me to visit the emergency room in order to obtain said prescription is only proof of your extreme messed-upness.  And I have to say that the fact that you are sending me to abuse the emergency room to obtain an unnecessary prescription while toting my two small children along is not winning you any favours in my book.

The fact that you don’t give a damn about winning my favour is making me even more pissed off.

Yours in frustrated and angry tears,
Member #AKA***151*** 

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Dear Loyal Blog Readers,

I apologize for the copious amounts of whining and bitching lately. Please hang in there. I hope the situation will improve soon.  I appreciate you coming by and reading what I write, despite it’s very gloomy and Eeyore-esque negativity.

With love and adoration,
Shannon

You know what would suck? If your two year old locked your bathroom door from the inside and then closed the door.  And if he had locked himself INSIDE the bathroom you might have felt sorry for him, but since he’s outside the bathroom safe and sound, having locked up your shower, your deoderant, toothpaste, hairbrush and makeup, you mostly want to tear his limbs off. 

And then if you went down to the building concierge in your unwashed state, to ask for assistance for said problem, and received a little metal post for just such situations and you went back up to your apartment to try to pick the lock and were completely incapable of picking the lock? That would suck.

And what if you called your husband at work to tell him of the harrowing situation and begged him to come home and help you (because he’s only a two minute walk away) and he was not really THRILLED AND ALL TOO EAGER to hurry home to help you? That would suck.  

And then, if you went in search of the naughty toddler to yell at discipline him when you realized that he had been busy pulling cords off the wall that someone had painstakingly nailed down with special little clips? Then you might feel like going back to bed and pretending that you never had children.

Not that these things have happened to me. I’m just sayin’. It would suck.

Hi folks! Let’s catch up, ok?

Last week I was stressed to the max about getting our Canadian driver’s licenses switched over to Massachusetts licenses.  We managed to get that done without too much trouble. If you don’t count the two hours spent waiting in the RMV with two small kids as trouble, which I do. Eh hem.  

They were initially reluctant to accept the documentation we produced as proof of our residence in this state.  But I must have looked like I was ready to do something desperate because after a few minutes an hour of conferring with her supervisor, the woman instructed me to stand in front of the blue screen for my picture.  At this point she hadn’t officially told me that they were going to accept my documentation and I was completely frazzled from wrangling my kids for so long and trying to keep them close to me while I stood in front of the counter. (The hubby had to go back to work so I was on my own for the majority of the wait. And I cleverly brought along some lollipops to entertain the kids. Entertainment? Check. Sticky children? Double check.) 

So I threw myself in position for my license photo while trying to keep Kieran from running away and annoying people and touching things with his sticky fingers and the (not surprising) result is that I look crazed and harried and my hair is a mess and I wasn’t allowed to wear my glasses so my eyes are all funky, too.  The picture showed up on the screen and the teller raised a single eyebrow at me and asked if that was ok or would I like to take another one? The kids were trying to out-shriek each other and I looked at her with that stressed-out-mom-face that many of us make.  Lady? Bottom line? I don’t have the luxury of posing multiple times to take a glamorous license photo. Aren’t these things supposed to look shitty anyway? If so? Score!

So I am the happy owner of a new driver’s license.  The hubby wondered why they don’t hire more staff when people will certainly have to wait for so long EVERY. TIME. THEY. COME. I believe I have discerned the reason. It is so that they will come to the RMV AS INFREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE. I’m telling you that I will NEVER go back there again, if I can help it.  Their strategy? It’s working!

We enjoyed a weekend of sightseeing including The Children’s Museum of Boston…

  
It’s a kid-trap! Remarkably reliable. I don’t think a single kid who climbed in was able to get out without help.

…as well as a lovely walk along Fan Pier…

 
This is all that’s left of the Boston Tea Party Museum that burned down.

…and our first attempt at eating actual seafood in Boston.  Also?

It was a fun weekend.

And one more thing! I discovered meetup.com which I am really excited about! If you haven’t heard of it before, Meetup is a place to find other people who are interested in the same kinds of things you are and to organize events with these people.  I did some quick searching and found a number of parent/mom groups in my area and within 24 hours I was at my first event! It doesn’t cost anything and there are groups in every kind of hobby and interest you can think of from nudists to religious groups to sports to board games to motherless daughters or singles in their 30’s and much more. I was really impressed with the diversity of groups and I highly recommend this site to people who are looking for ways to connect with people who share the shame interests or just to make new friends.  

The drawback with Meetup is that there are many more groups available in bigger centres. It appears to me much more popular in the United States. My home town of Saskatoon, SK has only two groups for a city of over 200 000 people. So for my Canadian friends, there may not be as much available in smaller cities. But the good news is, you can start up your own group, if you are willing to do the work of organization!  

Wow. That read like a paid advertisement. But I was just so happy to discover a way to meet people where I didn’t feel like a giant loser. We’ll see where it leads. At the very least, I’m getting out and seeing and trying new things and I’m hoping that it will lead to a friend or two, as well!