21 September 2011

Some vacation

The boys had an appointment at BC Children's Hospital on Monday to see someone in Biochemical Diseases - the specialist's specialist, they called her. It was basically uneventful. We decided to make a weekend of it and caught the ferry over on Saturday morning. The ferry fees were waived because of the doctor's appointment and so that was just lovely. Some highlights:

  • Pop started crying "home" in a pitiful little whine before we even got to the ferry terminal. He said it pretty much constantly after that. The pool was the only respite from it. And trains.
  • Our room had a view that included the skytrain. Every 5 minutes, Pop went wild, "TRAIN!|
  • Metrotown is my idea of hell. It is loud, crowded, and easy to get lost in. The rails are low enough for Crackle to scale them. 
  • Our hotel was Hilton Metrotown. Guess where we spent the weekend. Snap was very happy about that.
  • Snap was only happy about that.
  • Pop is afraid of a lot of things. Bugs, the dark, riding in the car at night, riding on trains and ferries, hot food, hot water, doctors...
  • The hotel room was lovely. Except for the coffee pot which used pods and made coffee that tasted like it had been prefiltered through someone's kidneys. Someone sick.
  • When a hotel advertises that it has wireless internet, apparently this can mean, 'but only in the lobby' and you're not allowed to get mad at them.
  • Because of allergies and basic logistics, I prepared all of our food in advance except for stuff we could buy at the grocery store.
  • The grocery store was as busy at 9pm on a Sunday as my regular store is on Dec 23 at closing time.
  • I am always, always shocked by my own racism when I go to Vancouver. Yes, it is something I continue to work on.
  • Crackle is addicted to elevators. He will ride them from sun up to sun down.
  • He loudly protests being made to stay away from elevators. Even if he has gone up and down 18 floors over 50 consecutive times.
  • It is not something in his room that causes him to have insomnia. 
  • When one person in a hotel room has insomnia, no one sleeps. Except teenagers. Who can sleep through the apocalypse.
  • Regardless, teenagers will then whine that they are too tired to help with anything the next day.
  • The dogsitter fed the dog food I specifically told her not to. The dog got the shits at 4am, after he came home. On the carpet. In front of my bedroom door. Guess who stepped in it on the way to the toilet. If you guessed Luna, you'd be wrong. It was Luna's grumpy husband.
  • My garden was wildly overgrown from a whole 5 days of neglect. Quick aside: grand total on the potatoes? 35 lbs. Tomatoes are still coming, but I've already picked 12 lbs of them. Zucchini is basically done, but I picked about 40 of them. Have planted cauliflower and cabbage for overwintering.
  • The only thing to come out of the doctor's appointment was more testing. Metabolic disorder? Chromosomal abnormality? No one knows yet.