Cursed
Edited to change the user-pic - looks like I need some new ones
Although I am still spending a lot of time at Berchshill, I don't live there anymore. The day of the move, I went around with a cold lump of dread in my chest at this thought. A justified dread, it would seem, but I'm not sure the move can be entirely blamed for what I have been though over the past two weeks.
Things were going fairly smoothly until about 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 1st. My Mental Dog was strapped in a dog-seatbelt-harness in my car. I had just told Mikael to keep an eye on him because he needed to get out and I needed to go with my FIL to pick up the girls' new (used, 300 SEK on Blocket, thank you very much) bunk bed. An hour later we return and Mental is still in the car. I go to get him out, only to find that he has eaten through not one but two seatbelts in frustration. Do you know what it costs to replace a seatbelt? Pray you never find out.
The following Thursday I am at Berchshill, still trying to clear the house and tidy up the yard while the girls are in school. I use the hedge-trimmer to cut back saplings that are hanging out into the road. I keep an eye out for cars, as Mental is with me, tossing me his frisbee so that I might throw it for him every so often. He doesn't get that close to me, but he is intensely focused on the frisbee, so we are both surprised to notice blood dripping steadily from his tail after about ten minutes. Luckily for me, my favorite vet is 5 minutes from Berchshill, but boy did Mental do a number on their entire clinic with his tail-wagging (never mind my two-seatbelt car). An inch and a half of Mental's tail was only hanging on by a flap of skin, so after I held it clamped for a half hour, calling around to daycare and family so the girls would be looked after, the tip had to go.
I think it was two days later when my phone fell in the toilet. Yes, it's dead. As was the new tip of Mental's tail yesterday morning. He had managed to pull the bandage tighter sometime during the night. Although bandage-less during the day, the evening brought nothing but gangrene and pain to my poor klutz (said the kettle of the pot), so he spent the night at the animal hospital and lost even more of his tail today.
Hey, did I mention the boxes impeding my every move here at the apartment, the pile of them left at Berchshill and the new deadline to have the house ready for our buyers on Thursday and my debilitating, angst-ridden exhaustion? I actually cried on the way to the animal hospital last night, not for my dog, but because I was so tired and had hoped to get to bed early.
I had the same hopes today, only I had forgotten that Mikael was attending a party at work. So instead of passing out after driving to the car repair shop to clean the house, from the house to Michelle's school, from school to the repair shop, thence to Ikea (for the girls' dinner), from Ikea to the animal hospital, finally arriving home and enjoying a frozen dinner for myself, the girls still needed to be read to and tucked in. Then, while I was doing a song and dance, pretending to cast a spell to rid their room of nightmares, I banged my nose on a chair. Yes a chair. Nightmares hide under chairs and beds, donchaknow? First bloody nose of my life. Was tempted for a tenth of second to just let myself fall to the floor and perhaps even enjoy a moment or two of unconsciousness, but June is terrified of blood or the mere idea of anyone being injured.
So, firmly pinching the bridge of my nose and pressing an ice-pack to it with one hand and waving my “magic wand” with the other, I went after the nightmares more fiercely and banished them from the room. Lights out, good-night. She was tired enough to buy it, after running all those errands with me today. Now I just need to stay awake another hour to give Mental the lovely painkillers they sent him home with before I can call it quits.
Yet, as much as I feel I should just hide out from the world and my bad fortune for awhile, I have to get the last stuff out of our garage tomorrow (and before idahoswede starts feeling guilty, let me just say that we have more stuff left there than you do. And at least you packed your stuff. (Apparently, I am the project manager and accountant and packer in this family.))
However, I don't want to leave this post on such a negative note, because there truly is nothing like some unexpected obstacles to make you grateful for the little things in life that do work properly, such as all the supermarket and fast food restaurant cashiers that sum up your bill or get your order right - with a smile - so quickly that you double-check your receipt; or the customer service people who immediately understand the problem and get it fixed as you speak with at no extra cost; or the teacher at the new daycare that gets your kid right away and makes her enjoy herself despite stubbornly insisting every morning that she will do no such thing; or hot water faucets and garbage pick-up and public transportation. They deserve a post all their own, but I just can't right now, not tonight.
Be safe, y'all!