The Knight bus. Hang on tight, kids...its gonna be a bumpy ride -or- Double Decker Bus London 'Experience'

We are in London.
We are going to take a double decker to see St.Pauls cathedral.

We get on DD bus which Jen has verified with map that it is correct route.
And it is.
We settle in and relax... until we realize we've chosen the crazy seats.
Top level, very front. Window from ceiling of bus almost to floor. Its like were standing on a seven foot balcony, with glass instead of rail. These buses have no hood/bonnet (a solid vertical surface from ground, up in front) and as a result, they can economise on space when following other vehicles. Every time we stop, I feel we've crashing into whatever vehicle that is in front of us. I'd open my eyes afterwards afterwards to verify. The sensation lessens, until we get to a part of the route that has trees.
Lots of trees, with overhanging branches.
Bus just drives through branches and they swlop into the window. We stopped ducking the first couple of times and resort to a restrained flinch. The bus we were on was being driven, in my opinion, insanely. The driver, whom I will call Bottle Bottom Leadfoot, accelerated around corners, braked sharply and without warning. We would be travelling a good clip and we could see ahead where it was we were supposed to stop, and he wouldn't actually stop until it seemed physically impossible to do so.
It was nerve-wracking, and yet we didn't move places.... this was 'an experience'. When it comes to being a tourist, an 'experience' is the reason we end up with sunburn, hotel rooms with bars on the windows, chewed on by bears or bedbugs, and lastly/worstly, floating at the bottom of the waterfall getting that perfect photo to complete the 'experience'. It was an 'experience' and we were having it.
With all of this going on, Jen caught the fact that our place to get off had come and gone. She, being practical and an experienced traveller, recommended to get off at the next stop. She started to get up and gather things up.
'Jen' I say (with the tone I employed as a kid to get her to hold the nail while I wielded the hammer) 'wouldn't it be fun to just stay on the bus and go around the whole route until we get back here?'
Jen looks dubious.
The only thing I can figure in retrospect is that I must possess a vulnerability that manifests in my eyes in these situations which prevents people that love me to say no to my dumb-ass ideas. In that moment, despite her very accurate misgivings of the idea, she makes a call and we remain on the bus.
For almost two hours.
Which may have been a pleasant experience, was it not for the fact that the landscape began to look less and less... how do you say... welcoming. There were boarded up shop-fronts. Graffiti everywhere; in fact it kind of blurred into a gang-colour rainbow kaleidoscope as we sped past.
At the end of the route, I was a little nervous. The bus stopped and we sat there. We were in the ghetto of London. Who knew London had a ghetto?
Then it got worse.
We hear BBL tromp up the stairs. We sit huddled at front, the remaining passengers.
BBL: You need to get off the bus.
Jen: We are going back on same route though.
BBL: You need to get off the bus.
Jen: Okay

We get off bus and clear ourselves a place to sit among the discarded needles and used condoms and wait. The hookers and drug dealers started to circle and the man with the stolen watches lining the inside of his trench coat began his pitch. Oh wait, that was a movie I saw once. Heh. In reality, we stood there and watched BBL and the driver of the other bus have a cigarette, as they pretended that they weren't watching us.

I'm sure they were itching to ask whose dumb ass idea it was to sit on a bus for two hours.

Perhaps they were placing bets:
BBL: 'My money's on the one with the map in her hand'
other driver: 'Nah. You mate, are wrong. My money is on the shorter one: she's got a funny look in her eye'

Bruneaus at Barbican

Meeting up with your travelling buddy abroad can be tricky business.

When going to an entirely different country you are up against a whole lot of variables that you cannot forecast.

Take the trip to the UK where my sis and I met up for example, it provided common obstacles in this matter:

1. You won't know what the space will look like. You can buy maps, you can call ahead and ask a local, but the only way to know how the rendezvous place will appear is to physically see it. The particular place sis and met up had winding passages and it would have been easy to miss each other without even knowing.
2. You don't know how busy it will be. Rush hour tends to rotate around the locals' work hours, but you never know when a sports game or student rally will fill a subway terminal, creating an zoo of bodies to get lost in (and again perhaps miss the person you are meeting). Barbican was quite bustling on the day we met up.
3. Time. Flights are scheduled for certain hours, but once you land and get your luggage and figure out where to take the taxi/train, you can easily run behind. Then there is time zones and figuring out 'local time'. (not sure why those are in quote)
4. Your sister may slice her leg while cutting up guidebooks (to save packing space) with a dull pocketknife and spend hours in emergency getting stitches in the middle of the night. Which will result in her getting a total of three hours of sleep, arriving the next day in the UK like a walking zombie with a passport. Which in turn results in her arriving at the station where I waited for her, and studying a map over my shoulder... so close I can hear her breathing. Not recognising her only sister and sibling. I stare at her, thinking shes just playing with me, and she says 'just trying to figure out where I am, don't mind me'. I stare at her some more... and only after saying her name does it register that we have successfully met up. Yes, slicing your leg open can definitely prove an obstacle.

So many variable that cannot be controlled, indeed!

Then we went on to travel the UK as best we could in a few short days.

I will continue our UK adventure story in the next blog entry (complete with an overview with Jen's packing fetish/obsession, 'the big fight', the knight bus, Crierland -Ireland-, driving on the wrong side of the road -to us', and more)

Dancing Queen

Oldie but goody.
Some time ago, and I will not acknowledge how long as it may date me :o, I went out with the girls to do some dancing. I was wearing pleather pants (I'm afraid that dates it right there) and was looking forward to listening to music and having some laughs with the girls.
I remember the pants started to get hot right away. Sweat was starting to trickle down my legs. No matter. A little bit o' sweaty leg will not stop me.... I was there for a good time.
I was there to donce.
And donce I did. I shimmied and shake with the best of them.
As we danced, a group of guys join us on the dance floor, and I decide it is time to bump it up a notch. I'm going to pull out all the stops and come up with a move that will blow them all away. I decide a high-kick is the way to impress them all.
A masterfully executed, right to the rhythm of the music, a super fantastic high kick.
Yes, that will do it.
I unleash the kick.
It is phenomenal.
Then something gives... the closest I can describe it would be my butt muscle. I double over, I cannot move. The butt muscle has frozen.
One of my friends and a couple of the dancing guys next to us literally carry me off the dance floor.
I breathe like a woman in labor. The pain starts to lessen. My people get me in a sitting position.
I spend the rest of the night on a stool in a corner.

Out of commission with a broken butt muscle and pleather-induced sweaty-covered legs. Such is the fate of over-ambitious high-kickers.

Disturbing Dayhome Drama or Jagged Little Dayhome

After deciding to change dayhomes, I set about finding a new one.
Prospective dayhome provider sounds nice on phone. She has older children, seems nice enough. I set up a meeting. Scoop my older sons from school and off we all head to address I was given.
Turns out to be a maze of a trailer park.
We pull up to trailer. Kids look up.
One says 'This is the dayhome?'
The other one says 'We can't bring him to a trailer!'
At this point I give them a lecture: "Did I ever tell you to not judge a book by its cover?". Followed by a list of people we know and respect that once lived in/currently live in trailers. (In retrospect, the idea that a day'home' being set up in a trailer has an odd dichotomy to it. Should it not be a day'trailer'? Hmmm)
So they clam up and stay outside to play soccer with an bunch of kids that seem to have collectively suffered a shoelace shortage. Read: all wearing shoes (good) but not a single pair of shoes seem to have shoelaces and said shoes flop about as they run about(bad)
I ascend the stairs, ring the doorbell.
Prepare yourself for this image. I only wish I had photographic evidence.
A man answers. A very short man with longish hair on head. No hair on chest. As in, yes, he was without a shirt. Or shoes, for that matter. I fairly certain he had on pants, but at this point I was averting my eyes.
In the background I see the body behind the voice on the phone. It is occupying a sofa: most of the sofa.
I sit, we talk about her fees. She does not show me the playroom, she does not go over routines. Her two cats and one very loud dog emerge. The baby starts exploring, which is nerve-racking as sitter has an entire corner of the coffee table dedicated to prescription medication. He grabs the bottles and shakes them. What fun! Rattles! Wheeeee! Shake! Shake! I would re-locate him and put him away from the pills, but he would return. I tactfully avoided reading the labels of the bottles as I pried them repeatedly from the baby's hands. Now I wish I had.
Meanwhile, the boyfriend was sitting in room with us. Lurking, rather. And still no shirt.

Can't honestly remember what else transpired as far as conversation. Something about her not having a vehicle, something about her boyfriend being out of work.

Just wanted to get the heck out of there. As fast as possible.

I made a break for the door and the dayhome lady arose with considerable effort: the couch was squished completely flat where she had been sitting, had long ago given up the fight to spring back. We leave, I extract my children from the children of shoelacelessness and assemble in the car.

As I drove away in a state of bewilderment, I find my voice: "Boys, you remember when we got there? Did I ever tell you about something called intuition.....?"



Sunrise

As we age, our appreciation of nature seems to intensify.
According to this theory, I'm either a sentimental fool, or getting old.
I have my issues with where we live, but you can't beat a sunrise in my neck of the woods.

This is today's.
Have to leave soon, so can't wait for its full glory. Still makes me smile.

Floor Sander Rodeo: Part 2

Sander arrives at top of stairs. My back is twinging.

I thought the worst is over.

I am so very wrong...

If you ever rent one of these mother truckers, here are some things to be aware of (trust me, I learned the hard way):

• the sand paper is a wide belt that you slide on from the side, reminiscent of changing a tire. Getting the sandpaper on or off, however, is much more difficult than changing a tire. Kinda have to wiggle it.You'll get the hang of it... on the last one.
• listen to the experts. if they tell you 60grit will shred your floor, they are probably right... I have a wavy master bedroom floor to prove it
• the floor sander will take on a life of its own once plugged in. READ: you will be pulled behind the moose of a machine like a kid on a sled behind a snowmobile.
• KEEP MOVING! Or you will make a pothole *inside* your home. Nobody wants that.

I'm not sure if this particular model is standard, but there was a large strip of rubber that had come loose and periodically would get caught under the belt and would snap back which was a little disturbing. Eventually I pulled it off, only to realize its purpose was to protect the walls. I now believe I will require witness protection from the painters as there are rubs and lines in every room. All curiously at the same height. 

Then there is the dust. The sander comes with a cloth 'dust catcher'. The bag was purely decoration. There was dust in my hair, clothes, up my nose (despite face mask), IN MY SOCKS (how, I ask you?), and all over the walls (yet again, witness protection program).

And the rodeo continued.

At one point, I sanded over the extension cord.

Then the switch on the machine crapped out completely and the only way to turn the thing off was to unplug it.

Photo is prior to sanding, there was too much dust afterwards to get a clear shot. :o

Once the rodeo is over the cowboy rises from the dust, broken but triumphant.

He lived to tell the tale.

Floor Sander Rodeo part 1

We are building a new house out on an acreage near the city we now live in.
We have opted to only put flooring in only parts of the the house for now until we've saved enough for hardwood for the remainder of house. Leaving us in the quandry where something must be done to the exposed sub floor.
As I've done an entire faux marble mosaic, as well as fake hardwood for the stage at our local theatre productions, I was initially eager to do something spectacular. Our time crunch, however, is hard to ignore. So its looking like we'll be staining the exposed OSB which will entail sanding floors and applying stain, followed by a sealer.
The first step is getting both levels of the two storey sanded.
Oh what fun prep work can be (she said sarcastically).
Picked up sander at local tool rental place and loaded into pick up by rental place young fella. Said young fella was doubtful that I could lift sander myself, but I smile patronizingly and rolled eyes at his naivety. Thinking smugly to myself: I can lift all three of my sons at once, what does he know, that silly boy?
Fast forward to later at acreage and attempting to lift the thing down from the back of the truck.
Holy mackeral.
The thing is a beast.
I pulled it to the edge of the tailgate and came very close to flattening a toe as the beast decended. The thing is 90lbs, easy.
I sweat, I curse, I cry. I get the thing to the bottom of the stairs in the house.
Then I sit.
Floor sander and I stare it out.

I skip the sweating and cursing and cry some more. This is when I come to the realization: either I suck it up and carry the sander up myself, or its going to remain at the bottom of the stairs and I'll get charged $150 for the rental (meanwhile I'm paying a sitter, so two meters are running).
I take a deep breath (is this how people can walk over hot coals or lift cars in emergencies I ask you?) and I wrapped my arms around that monster, and somehow got it up there. I think it took about eight seconds.
My back will likely never be the same.

Convo with middle kid

Dang I love my little middle man. He is game for anything. 'Anything' in this case being staining the floor in our new place at an ungodly hour.
-will post something about *the floor* soon-
So we use up what stain we have, clean up and lock the house,and head out.

On the drive home we start discussing:

• the milky way
• potential methods of removing the cheap bubble gum stuck on face after an exploding bubble that currently makes him appear to have dirt smears around his mouth
• left-turning lanes and finally... 
• the artistic potential of clumping cat litter

Perhaps the stain fumes got to our heads a little.

Pumpkin Belly

This was my first painted belly. Painted 2 years ago when I was expecting my Maty. It took an hour+. I used water soluble face paints (they come in a crayon shape).