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July 21, 2004
I'm in the middle of a knockout lunch. Pardon me when I get distracted.
So I did my amazing race and like I truly believed I would win the Volvo. I mean really, what kind of a person would take a luxury sports car for free.
I swear, without an ounce of poor sport in me, the two cahoots who won (they had already done the chase in Toronto, were not from Montreal and still managed to make it back an hour before anyone else), HAD to have cheated their unblistered feet off. The twenty-nothing creeps.
The race started off early Saturday morning with the scavenger hunt we had to complete in 40 minutes to stay in the game and get our list of check point clues. When they hollered GO!!!!! I took off in a flash. On the news that night you saw me running in the front pack with the guys, econds later came Danielle with the big straw hat. What she lacked in speed she made up in cute. Our first mistake (and I take the most blame for this), was our bags. We were prepared for physical challenges with knee, wrist and elbow pads, gloves, I had a first aid container, rope, scizzors and information on every church, monument, building, museum, and spectacle in Montreal. My bag weighed forty thousand pounds.
The list said we needed ten of the fifteen items. A slice of lime, a hotel business card, a vinegar packet, a 1993 coin, a brick, a worm, ten cigarette butts (which was gross now that I consider how we clenched them in our hands)... We did very well, one of two teams out of 120 who were able to bring a brick back. They gave us our clue sheet and we took off in a flash. Well, sort of.
Way back when we considered partnering up, I knew we had a lot in common and I was sure our differences would be a fantastic balance. I'm a go-getter, I need to do, now. Danielle has to meticulously plan. We're a couple of strong natured women, we needed a lot of elbow room for our wills. It took maybe a minute before we realized how polar our approaches were. Actually the conversation went something like bleep you, you bleeping bleep...BLEEP!!! It's amazing what we bring out in each other. At that very moment, we were stressed out of our minds, taking the race very seriously, but what I respect most is how totally, completely honest we were with each other. Totally, impressively REAL. We were very lucky not to have the camera hanging around us that very moment...
We could only use public transportation. We didn't know half the clues but enough to start. Partly because I've watched every Amazing Race episode and mostly because it's my nature, I knew we had absolutely no time to waste. You have to plan on the run. I wanted to pick one of the checkpoints we were sure of, and on the way there plot the rest of our route with the map. My plan exasperated Danielle. Before she could get on a metro, she needed to lay the map out, mark the check points we were sure of and call Eric with the clues for the rest of them. Everyone else was leaping past us onto the metro and that was making me crazy. I totally understood her logic. With my plan on the run routine, we might end up on a wild goose chase and waste time. But wait a minute, it WAS a wild goose chase! We could've scratched each other's eyeballs out, but we sucked it in and stopped and plotted and planned and it took about an hour. We completed our first challenge (she was locked to a bike rack while I ran down the street, got the instructions from the phone booth and ran to the lady with the green hair with the password for the possible combinations for the lock) in good time. On our way to challenge number two, the guys beside us said they were on number four. We never gave up.
At one challenge we had to find these practically invisible tabs in tanks of snakes, scorpions, a tarantula, a thousand disgusting, fat, hollow sounding, moving worm things and mice. I chanted a mild obscenity the entire time. The tarantula was easiest because he stayed up on the wall, no way was I sticking my hands in the scorpions and I felt sorry for the mice. They were so tiny, I carefully scooped them around. When I went to go back in the snakes, the lady told me to wipe my hands first because they would smell the mice. She gave me a little scrap of dried wet wipe. Nice. It poured rain. I knew we would have to run, but I had no idea it would be that physically exhausting.
At the university football camp we had to tie our legs together and skip rope, somersault, and run. I think one of the things that had me laughing so hard I could barely stand, was that we ran holding hands like a couple of preschoolers and we beat the boys big time. Take that!
Obviously there was going to be a delectable challenge. It came down to a roll of the dice, get a one and you were eating a big, fat grasshopper, a two was a can of cat food, three was a pack of gum, four was a can of sardines, five was a cup of hot peppers and six was everything. Danielle swore if she got a one, she wasn't doing it. I rolled and the die really did land on the three but the freaking tablecloth was bubbled, so in slllllloooooooooowwwwwww motion it slipped onto the six. The guy, with an impossibly stupid grin, handed me my cup. I started to stir it, saw the cat food killed the grasshopper and knew I would try my best. Danielle rolled a one. Those seconds were long and painful. We had wasted time so much time getting there but it really was disgusting. She said she couldn't do it. The guy told me not to bother. We ran around the corner and considered me taking my hair down and putting on my sunglasses, her putting her hair up and putting on her hat and we'd go to a different guy and then thought screw it, cheating is cheating. Our next checkpoint was a two pointer, the caves.
When I imagine caves, I think big, black, hollow, with bats maybe. We had to put on a helmet with a light and climb through very narrow rock tunnels and slide down or up the walls to get these balls. It was cold and dirty and dark. Not bad though. We took off for the Olympic Stadium where we had to put together a puzzle. Ahem, would you look at that, we were the last team in and first team out. Because of the kids, or maybe our brilliant minds, we nailed that challenge. I should mention again the aching running we were doing in between all these challenges and it was hot and muggy. For me, the fire station challenge was tough because it was at the end of a long day and we ran/walked there, took off our shoes, put a fire suit on and ran across the park with thirty pound hoses. Then raced from there back to the metro. Time was ticking away like crazy.
At the last challenge, tattoo or piercing, we had to henna our face with the race symbol (they said it would last three weeks) or pierce something. We could not show up at our respectable jobs with henna on our face, and I had a wedding coming up too, so we opted to pierce. Danielle had an old earing hole, I would do my belly button and pull it out later. When the girl told me the belly button actually hurts the most, I started to cave. We knew at that point someone had long since won, and we wouldn't make our last challenge and get back to headquarters in time, so we skipped it.
I know I'm strong. I'm not in the best physical shape I could be, but one highlight that day was when I told one of the teams we worked in tandem with, that I have three kids and Danielle has two, they were shocked. The girl thought a) I was younger than I am and b) I'm an athlete, she was sure I must train every day. Did you catch that? She thought I look like an athlete and must train every day. Now I've given this some serious thought and I'm going to get myself in better shape. My battle is not the will for this, because I'd LOVE to be more physically active, it's squeezing it in during what time?
Every once in a while people here and the real lifers tell me some pretty fancy things about myself. You know, how much fun I am, how I'm supermom and so enviably cool. Let me bring all of us back to earth for three seconds here. Today is Emmie's first birthday and I'm working. In fairness, I tried to swing the day off but we're leaving on vacation Friday and it couldn't happen. BUT, what's worse is I don't have a plan for after work, don't have people coming to see her or a cake or even a present for the little buttercup. Can you IMAGINE? I swore when I had my third I would never fall into the trap of not doing things because she's the third but look, I've turned into a monster. I solemnly pledge to make it up to her while we're on vacation and for every birthday from here on in, but she really, really doesn't know, and won't until she reads this when she's all grown up. Emmie? You will be my baby forever and always and I love you with all my heart.
Now, Grandma Jackie's garage sale.
It deserves an entry all by itself, a novel actually, but let me shelve that pressure right now and chop it down to a couple paragraphs. I never worked so hard in my entire life. I got sunburned to a crisp and mosquito bitten alive. I was haggled to exasperation and ripped two people off and desperately, desperately wished they would come back so I could fix it. I thought her Pinwheel crystal was her Waterford and the Waterford was glass. The antique dealers showed up before the sun even and robbed us blind, pressuring me into letting things go I had hoped to treasure forever. I had friends and family and acquaintances asking me for things, you can't imagine how MANY of them and that was awkward because we were selling things for the estate, not ourselves. Deep down, it bothered me sometimes because hey, where were you when she needed you Chicken Little? I found the whole thing emotionally draining. It was too soon and I felt this crazy attachment to all this stuff. Like a mother bear protecting her cub. I can't tell you how many times I considered where you end up one day. I mean, you collect all these things your whole life, and it's just stuff someone has to sort out and get rid of. Who ends up doing it? Will my things mean more to my children than they even did to me? What made things so much easier for us in this task was that my grandmother had pages of instructions for who was to get what. Down to the paintings on the walls. One day soon, I'm going to carefully prepare a codicil because situations like this can easily harvest resentment and bitterness and I couldn't bear it.
A couple of garage sale stories....first off, Remo drove me NUTS. We fought about the signs, how to organize ourselves and giving everything away. Had it not been for Claudia, who was, as usual, awesome, I'd have strangled him. Brandan and Sabrina were supposed to have an iced tea stand and sell chocolate chip cookies with all proceeds going to Unicef, but with the dealers showing up in the middle of the night, I didn't have time to make the iced tea. So they did. I ran into the house for three seconds, you can't imagine the boxes and piles of crap everywhere and slid like Thumper into the kitchen. Two of the three litres they made, never got out the front door. The kids had a box of Timbits (donut holes). A well known radio commentator who lives around the corner stopped by. He wanted to buy a Timbit for his daughter, Brandan insisted it was three dollars and would not budge! A couple of boys (7 & 9) came by with money, hoping to spend it on something really cool but since we didn't have anything cool they decided to pick out some jewelry for their Mom. Bless their hearts. I helped them pick some things a little more classy and wearable than what they naturally gravitated to, boxed them and ran in the house to wrap their presents in tissue paper and gift bags and ribbon and charged 25 cents. They picked something else for 25 cents and next thing I knew an hour was gone and these boys had $23 of 25 cent things that were worth a lot more. When I heard their plans to go home and get more money, I suggested they come back at the end of the day and would I make them some 10 for 1 deals.
I love, love, love my next door neighbor Mary Jane. She's a girlie-girl, very American, soon to be a grandmother woman who came to us live from Pennsylvania by way of Ohio. I could listen to her talk all day long, she's a gusher and an absolute riot and I don't know if she means to be so funny, but she makes me laugh out loud. Anyway, we tossed Kaillan on her that morning, perfect because they connect. Kaillan went in with curls run wild and came out a beauty queen with nail polish, hair sprayed ponytails and a cloud of perfume around her. Now in that two hours, we had at least a hundred people show up, I was everywhere with everyone all at once. Sabrina saw the red nail polish on Kaillan and was shocked because she's not allowed polish in any colour. For me personally, I didn't care. Kaillan's never had it on before because I can barely stay on top of my own, never mind looking after hers. So when Sabi raced over to insist I look at the scandalous colour on Kaillan's nails, and I was in the middle of wheeling dealing, in my distraction, I must have feigned shock. So Sabi, a mother bear in her own right, went marching over to Mary Jane to say Kaillan's mother was very upset at her for what she did to Kaillan. Mary Jane really thought I was mad and I probably only made the situation worse a couple days later when she approached me and I scrambled to do damage control. Kids!!!
So Kaillan turned three and we more or less kept her celebration to a family do. We had a barbeque for Remo's parents, brothers and their families, her God parents Gina and Peter, their girls and Claudia and Karim and the kids. That afternoon our pool was having a Survivor family challenge so we took them all over and called ourselves the Rascals. Once there, we picked up Brandan's friend Sean and his dad for our team. Up for grabs? Bragging rights. We were unshakable. In one challenge I had to stand on a paint can on one leg, with an arm up in the air and my leg, my whole body for that matter, was shaking like crazy, but I won. I remember hearing Peter back behind me somewhere telling the wife of the runner up guy, if they had to take me to the hospital in that position, I would take it. Kaillan didn't care much about having a party. She wanted a Barbie cake and her cousin Emanuelle.
Brandan was a whole other story. He wanted a spiderman/soccer party and a hundred kids. We cut it down to the boys from his kindergarten class and the kids on his soccer team he's closest to. We bought a few big pools, two cool sprinkler toys and a slip n'slide. My first mistake was in making it three hours. The half hour I'd allocated to eating took maybe three minutes. They were supposed to play a soccer game but Remo forgot to bring home pinnies, so I had to wing it. First off, all of Brandan's soccer team boys wanted to be together and that was impossible. This team has never lost a game in two years, they had to be split up. Our friend Stephane, who had driven all the way from Ottawa to help out, was in charge of one team, Remo had the other one. Playing shirts and skins was the perfect solution but trying to convince one of the teams to take off their shirts was futile. No WAY was Alexander taking off his shirt. And if he wasn't taking it off, well neither was Nathan. It so happened on Stephane's team all but two boys had hats. On Remo's, two boys had them, the rest didn't. The boys had to stay where they were to keep things fair, so I asked Renzo and Eric if we could lend their caps to two boys on the other team and I said a silent prayer they didn't have lice. They were ok with it but their faces were void of all expression. The two boys getting the hats were over their dead bodies going to wear them. Remo and Stephane kicked me out, saying I was making it complicated so I went to put the hats back on their owner's heads. But I mixed them up. You HAD to see the looks on Eric and Renzo's faces. They just stared at me and then, with absolutely no expression on his face whatsoever and a very flat voice, Eric told me,
"This isn't my hat".
I lost it. In the days since, if I even PICTURE Eric's face, I can laugh myself into a sob.
On Brandan's actual birthday we took him and the friend he adores maybe half as much as I do, Mitchell, out for dinner and then to see Spiderman. I wasn't sure if they were too young but Mitchell's mom, who is the God of perfect mothers and called Molly to boot, said it was ok. When the kissie kissie parts came on, they peaked out the sides of their eyes and giggled like crazy. When the bad guy popped up all of a sudden, they leaned back into the seats and their eyes got really, really wide. Me? I leaped past Remo into the lap of some unsuspecting soul, and my yelp scared three rows of people worse than the movie. Anyway, Mitchell was hours away from his vacation to Martha's Vineyard, so when I told him we would miss him while he was gone, he told me he would just have them come back a week earlier. If only life was so simple...
Every now and then I'm driving with the kids and I find myself out to lunch on the conversation I'm involved in. Hhhhhmmmm would be the response of choice when what I'm really trying to figure out is if we'll make it on time. Kaillan is easier in that she'll give me a play by play of every move or breath someone took that day. She generally wants me to sing five thousand variations of Mary had a little lamb and Baa Black Sheep with every adjective, noun and name she has in her vocabulary. Brandan comes out with these questions from way out on left field, like why do they call a tractor trailer a tractor trailer and not a truck trailer, if it's a truck that pulls it? Or Mom, how come they say we're the only planet that has people if Edmonton is a planet and they have people? If the earth is round, why are our roads flat? What country does the blue sky stop at? You think you know everything till the children come along.
A month ago I organized a no kid's night out for the parents on our soccer team. I asked each of them to e-mail me a secret talent or interest or hobby that would interest all of us and I wanted to know if they could go back in time and pick a whole new career, what would it be. I bought a prize for the best demonstration of a talent based on a majority vote. Glen could talk like Kermit the Frog and Marvin Martian (whoever that was), Remo can make a dripping water sound, Suzanne's talent is shopping and then returning (she demonstrated by pulling out a stack of receipts), I could moo like a real cow. They made me do it over again and not ONE of them thought I was close. My own husband turned on me, obviously I was the only one with any real cow experience. There was a mime, a marksman, a chef, a rock star, a grande prix driver, a woodworker, a singer and a reader who frantically scrambled to find a talent more entertaining. Thirty nine year old Nancy could do the splits and Graeme could do a magic trick. I voted for him, the least he could've done was voted for me. Nancy won and I'll give her full credit, because I never walked for a week after I tried it. If I could go back in time I would be a pediatrician, Remo wanted to be Simon Cowell.
I'm going to try to hit the board tomorrow. Probably there's only two posts to be answered, it's the pressure of the unknown that kills me and the part where I'm leaving on vacation in the middle of the night and I'm soooooooo not ready. Not even close. We're going to New Brunswick and I'm going to do everything I can to meet Jeanette and famed poster ShelleyandFreddie. Maybe stop at the Maine Outlets on the way home. I'll be back online at the beginning of August. Can you believe summer is half cooked already?
Oh - Emmie takes three, once four or five steps at a time. She's very wobbly and a little nervous but getting there...
Cheers to all!
Hey, has anyone heard from Russian Lisa?
Allisun
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