Just love those INFRACTIONS!

What a week! It seems like I packed a month into this one. Tuesday night at work, we had our national awards celebration, so there is a lot of preparation that goes into the evening. I am the host/emcee, so I have to rev up to be at my best. I was so proud of the evening! Toward the end, my feet were numb (damn those 'Oh Heavenly Sole' shoes) and could barely stand, but I was happy to head home glowing in the after bliss. That is - until I rounded the corner in my neighborhood and I noticed the whirling flash of police lights behind me. It seems that I had made a 'rolling stop'. It was about 12:30 AM and I was exhausted - and was only one block from my house.

After a polite interrogation (they thought I had been drinking and were curious why I was dressed so glam on a Tuesday night), I received TWO infractions. Don't you just love the word INFRACTION? One for the rolling stop and one for driving with a suspended license. YES, that's right, it seems that I had forgotten to pay a previous ticket in May for not having a sticker on my ownership paper and my license had been suspended. So - on the spot, I got a court date, January 6th, and began to tally up the $$$ in my tired little head.

I truly believe that the police have some sort of tracker on my truck! Until last year, I had not gotten a ticket in 20 years. Then all of a sudden, 4 tickets (as least) this past year! Curses, curses, curses. So, I am at risk for losing my license. Do you realize that if this happens, I might as well curl up and die? Why? Because the GERMS on public transportation will kill me within a week. I call it the Grubway, instead of the Subway. Personally, I love taking public transporation because the traffic in Toronto raises my blood pressure to stroke level, but I have an ailing immune system and consider it to be riskier than carrying a raw steak into a pack of Dobermans.

What else happened this week? Oh, to make a long story short - it contained the following:
forgotten school photos, anniversary of my Mom's death, mountains of dirty laundry, dead mouse in back yard, lots of back talk from the boys, coughing, hacking chest congestion and the warm happy thought that Christmas is just around the corner.

Ivory Soap and the Croup

Last night, Umberto sat straight up and was gasping for air. Since the swine flu fear has everyone is a panic, of course, adrenaline pulsed from my toes to my scalp - until I heard the cough. Croup. Croup. Croup - and a burning hot fever. I suppose this is the first time that I have been thankful that Ummy has the croup. He has had it every single fall season. For those non-parents, the tell-tale sign of croup is the cough that sounds like a barking seal. For Ummy, the cough and fever are always accompanied by a heavy dose of misery. Which means that we are all pretty much miserable. I'll take my whine with some WINE. Red, please.

Sunday nights usually mean a rush to put away all of the clean clothes. I hate putting away clothes. I think I would much rather lay on a steaming hot sidewalk in the summer sunshine sucking on a gas pipe. I know why movies that are set in the future feature people wearing white spandex jump suits. They have wised up and decided that white spandex is bleachable (or contains self cleaning nano particles) and five of them are easy to wash and hang in the closet. It also makes it easy to get dressed in the morning.

Today I bought a multi-pack of Ivory soap. Francisco had been insisting on Ivory soap for over a month. It wasn't that he wanted super clean baby smelling skin, he took a bar and put it on a paper plate and microwaved it for one minute. The result was a giant puff of fluff that looked like a meringue on a home made pie. Purpose? I don't know. It was fun to watch, though.

TTFN - the 9pm whining has begun.

Mom is BACK!

After a month of craziness at work and a slump in my health, I am feeling pretty good again! For a while I felt like I was climbing back up a muddy cliff. Actually, I have felt that way for a few years - perhaps more than I care to remember.

This week I started drinking Mona Vie. I honestly think it is a magic elixir. Okay - maybe I don't really believe in magic elixirs, but this is the closest thing to it that I've ever had. In just 6 days, I feel soooooo much more energetic and more like my old self - the old self that never stopped moving, going, working, playing! While I am not there yet, perhaps I will be soon. Fingers crossed.

Also - I suppose it helps that I finally bit the bullet and got a housekeeping service! After years of struggling with the housework and spending my weekends in cleaning madness, I was absolutely DELIGHTED to come home to a clean, sparkling, dusted house on Tuesday. It didn't even matter that they broke my one-of-a-kind hand painted leopard spotted milk pitcher---a small price to pay for clean toliets.

Today the weather was great - and I was counting myself blessed. I loved seeing the maple leaves swirl in the wind and the sun was brilliant and Toronto was a clear, jubilant 13 degrees C. The squirrels were dancing by the fence and the geese were utterly confused. It felt like Indian summer. Even when the kids yelled 'Mom' with 6 syllables and a high pitched whine - I didn't mind. Well, maybe just a little. Mom at rest. It's a good thing.