Cocaine Princess here.
September and October can often seem like the lull before the storm. Everyone is back to their post-summer routines and what does my sister do? She breaks her ankle during the second week of back to school.
'A' wanted to know why I wanted to take a picture of her cast. 'It's for the memory book,' I replied. 'This is one memory I'd like to forget.' 'I kept copies of my traffic tickets. I plan to post the picture of your broken ankle right on the same page.' After several minutes of groveling she agreed. So I lied. If I had told her I was going to post it on my blog she would have never said yes. I guess it's not really lying. It's more like with-holding the truth.
I'm doing everything I can to make 'A' feel comfortable. She's been sleeping in the guest room on the main floor. It's a lot easier for her instead of going up and down the stairs on her crutches. Our cleaning lady is here everyday and I hired someone else to do the cooking because as you know my loyal readers I don't cook. My definition of cooking is ordering take out or zapping Lean Cuisine meals in the microwave. At first she didn't want me fussing over her. 'You fussed over me when I was sick,' I said. 'That's different, I'm older,' she replied. 'What does that have to do with it?' 'It doesn't seem natural. You're younger than me so you shouldn't have to be looking after me.' I disagree.
Valentina called me Friday morning. 'Daddy wanted you to know if you need anything at all to call him.' 'He called me last night Valentina,' I said back. 'And you didn't ask to speak to me?' 'I would have but he wasn't calling from home. In fact he called 10 minutes after I finished talking to you.' 'I guess there's no chance of you coming down to visit me now is there?' she asked. 'Not until she's better,' I answered.
Friday after 4pm I lost count how many times the doorbell rang. Several of A's students past and present along with their parents or nannies dropped by with Get Well cards (many of them handmade out of construction paper) and desserts from Tim Hortons. One of them brought along their dog, a German Sheppard. I don't allow people in the house wearing shoes so a dog is a definite no-no. It just stayed in the foyer, it was quite well behaved. Some of the kids were disappointed. They were hoping to sign A's cast. She wasn't fit with a molded cast instead as you can see in the picture she has an air cast. Two of her students were fascinated by Nemo and kept tapping his bowl and asked if they could feed him. I explained Nemo already ate but they kept on insisting he needed to be fed because he looked hungry. 'How can you tell he's hungry?' I curiously asked. 'I speak fish,' one of them replied. 'And he's saying feed me, feed me.' ' 'Well this is truly an honor for me. I've never met anyone who spoke fish before,' I said. 'How long have you been speaking fish?' 'All my life,' he replied. A few others complained they didn't like their substitute teacher. When 'A' asked why they didn't like her they replied, 'cause she's mean and 'cause she's old.'
Two little cute girls grabbed a hold of the TV remote and kept changing the channels while saying, 'where is she? Where is she?' 'What show are you little girlies looking for?' I asked. 'The best show in the world, Hannah Montana!' one exclaimed and then proceeded to inform me Hannah Montana was her favorite singer and was even planning on dressing up like her for Halloween. The other girl was interested in knowing who my favorite singer is. I told her who else? Madonna. 'Who?' she replied. 'You've never heard of Madonna?' I asked. She thought about it for a minute, scratched her head and replied, 'does she come on the Disney Channel?' I told them what channel their favorite show was on and when the theme song started the two girls began to sing along.
One little boy I recognized. He attended A's Easter Party and told me he was Vegas bound to gamble. When I asked whether or not he knew what gambling is, he didn't know. I decided to ask him again. 'So playboy talk to me, did you do any gambling in Sin City? (whoops!) I mean Vegas?' I asked. 'Only my daddy did. 'You know what gambling is?' 'I asked mommy and she said it means daddy wasting money. Our hotel was so cool. I had so much fun there.' 'Really, wow. Aren't you a lucky boy to have gone to Vegas. Do you remember the name of your hotel?' 'Yeah, the big triangle,' he replied. I believe he was referring to The Luxor.
By the time everyone had left all the yummy desserts had vanished and there were sticky, little fingerprints all over the walls, the remote and around Nemo's bowl.
More than often my Saturdays are spent in the city for a little of me time. Shopping and at times meeting up with some of my friends in the entertainment district. This past Saturday I was in the city but not doing what I usually do. Instead I practically spent the entire morning at the hospital in the Fracture Clinic Ward with 'A.' She had an appointment with one of the specialists. Because it was the weekend we didn't have to leave early to avoid the rush hour. The hospital was located right in the core of the city, to be more specific two blocks from China Town. Yeah that China Town.
The registration line up was long but moving quickly with four administration people working very efficiently checking patients in. One of the workers was a woman who had an incredibly loud voice. The loud kind of voice that's annoying and shrilly. She would repeat everything back to the patient, their name, address age etc. while typing the information in the computer. One patient said, 'could you turn it down a notch please?' I don't think she heard because she continued talking as if she was talking into a megaphone. Everywhere I looked someone had a cast on some part of their body, even a few kids. (My heart sank looking at them, so little, helpless and fragile.) No one was in a good mood. You could practically see the pain and agony on their faces. Who could blame them?
A's appointment was scheduled for 10am. We didn't get called in until 10:45. A nurse took us into the examination room and said, 'the doctor will be with you in a minute.' While waiting I received a text from Valentina. 'You're not allowed to use cell phones in here,' stated A. 'The door is closed and besides I don't see any signs in here that say I can't,' I said back. 'What's she saying?' 'You're actually taking an interest?' I asked. 'I'm bored, tired and sore,' she replied. I gave her the phone and she read the message:
4got 2 ask. Did u move daddy's orchids and toss away BL's?
'What does that mean? Who's BL?' she asked. Bug Lady,' I replied with a giggle. 'A' had a very confused look on her face and said, 'what?' I was in the process of explaining Bug Lady when she said, 'you know what? I don't want to know. Your choice of friends baffle me.' 'You know what baffles me? Those two little girls who came over yesterday, the Hannah Montana fanatics. One of them asked who my favorite singer is. When I said Madonna she had no idea who that was,' I said back. 'She's only 6 years old.' 'So that's not an excuse. When I was around their age I was well aware of Madonna.' 'Because you had me as an older sister,' she replied. 'Don't any of them have older brothers or sisters?' 'A lot of them are still an only child and the ones that do there's isn't a significant age gap, only 1 or two years maybe.'
Remember how the nurse said, 'the doctor will be with you in a minute?' A minute is 60 seconds. But in doctor time a minute translates into 35minutes because that's how long it took for the doctor to come in. There was a digital clock on the wall and I was keeping time. The first thing I noticed were his shoes. He wore navy blue colored Crocs with green argyle socks and light blue colored scrubs. His white lab coat had some sort of stain near the top.
Doc-Croc removed A's cast, examined her ankle and said it would be fully healed in 6-8 weeks. You know how sometimes you think out loud? Well that's what I did and said, 'that means you'll be on crutches at the concert.' 'What concert?' asked the doctor. 'We're going to see Madonna next month,' replied A. 'You have tickets for her show?' My sister nodded yes. 'I don't see any problem with you going. You just won't be doing much dancing,' he commented.
After my event filled day at the hospital I wanted to do some shopping but I knew A wasn't going to be in the mood to be hobbling around the mall on crutches so we decided to do lunch. To avoid any type of disagreement I let her choose the place. And by now I don't have to tell you what type of establishment we dined in.
I almost forgot to tell you what the best part of the day was. I made it to and from the city without being pulled over by the police! I was being a good, little driver by paying attention to the speed limit and all the traffic signs. Hurray for me!
XOXOXOXO,
Cocaine Princess
