My Bro the Olympic Torch Bearer

My little brother, ok, he's not so little..29 to be exact, was chosen to carry the Olympic Torch in his current hometown of Terrace, British Columbia.

Terrace is far, far north...about a 3 hour drive from Alaska. My bro and his bride moved there around the same time hubby and I moved to Montenegro. We are ridiculously far away from each other. Luckily, bro has made countless efforts over the years to surprise me while I'm home in Nova Scotia visiting the folks.

My bro is great. He is almost the polar opposite of me. Me: Chaotic, loud, ADHD, hotel guest. Him: Calm, reserved, anal about organization, winter camper. But man I love him. He has two jobs. One with the federal government as a probation office and the other as a volunteer firefighter. I don't know how he does it, dealing with the scum of the earth on a daily basis and saving lives on his down time. He's my hero.

So it was no surprise that he was nominated by both workplaces to be an Olympic torch bearer. See, different communities have different rules concerning how one receives the honour of carrying the flame. In his, you have to be nominated. And he was.

Tomorrow, February 1st at 1:50pm PST, my little brother will run a few miles all aglow. And his big sister, 9 hours ahead, will be glowing too.

Murphy's Law

or whatever that law is that says shit happens when there's already a shitload of other shit waiting to be flushed. Sorry, that was an early morning, 1/4 cup coffee attempt at a witty analogy.

Before I begin today's rant, check out my very first guest post over at Hyacynth's. Feeling all humbled and honoured and such.

Rushed home from Swedish lessons, started wolfing down some lunch meat, shared a few half sentences with the hubby, phone rang and got invited out to lunch by my only Swedish friend's sister (this was kind of a big deal but I couldn't go because I had a bellyful of lunch meat so we decided on tomorrow). Did I mention I work from home and that I was all pumped up to hit my to-do list hard. I hung up the phone. Ran over to the ringing house phone while giggling at how popular I had suddenly become. It was the call I had expected.

"Hi. It's Carin from the school. Joseph is not feeling very well. He seems to have a pretty bad cold. His nose is running and his eyes are very watery. I think it's best if you come pick him up before we go outside...blah, blah, blah".

Yes, I had wiped his nose a few times that morning on our rush out the door. But I reasoned, we're only supposed to keep them home if they have a fever. No fever. All clear.

Dang it. Funny how I feel perfectly comfortable using the word "shit" in a blog post but am extremely uncomfortable using the word "damn". Anyhoo, picked up my little booger and spent the afternoon wiping on command. "Mummy, my nose. Mummy my eyes." Repeat.

So my to-do list is expanding and I have a sick boy at home. But here's the rainbow: He's such a happy flem-filled booger. With the exception of leaking body fluids, nothing seems to stop my little man from smiling and carrying on with his day. God love him. I know I sure do. Now excuse me while I pop some Vitamin C and immerse my hands in sanitizer. I see a very miserable and sick Mommy in my future.

So.Much.To.Do

But instead, here I am venting about how much I have to do instead of well, actually doing something about it, like DOING.IT. Oh and I'm also waiting for the latest episode of Jersey Shore to download. Don't even bother. Guilty pleasure. Nuf divulged.

- We're moving in less than a month. I have nothing packed.
- Our son needs his Visa renewed. I've gotten as far as filling out the application.
- My passport expires in March. Guess.
- I have a website to write.
- I have Swedish lessons tomorrow morning. I should be studying.
- There's this check type thing that came in the mail. I need to get to the bank to figure out how to deposit it. Gotta get on that.
- I need a Swedish driver's license. You would NOT believe the hoops you have to go through to get one: written test, classes, some crazy ass obstacle course in the snow type thing, driving test, eye test, and a shitload of money. All because you can only use the one from your own country for a year. I think I'll drive illegally.
- Car needs servicing. Damn service light has been on since November.
- Some other appt. with the car that needs rescheduling.
- Gotta call to find out if boy has swimming lessons tomorrow of if they start up again next week.
- General cleaning of the house.
- Gotta call the current tenant of the new house to find out when we can move in.
- Boxes. Need boxes.
I am the worst procrastinator like ever. Ok, I'm sure there are worse and I have gotten better with age but still. When it all piles up like this, I can't see the forest through the trees. Will someone, preferably with like 5 kids, a husband and two dogs, take pity on me and provide me with some ingenious system that will ensure I get this stuff checked off? Or at least hold the virtual paper bag while I breathe deeply and hold my head between my legs? Oh and try NOT to suggest getting my husband to help, m k?
Oh, Jersey Shore is 94.5% complete. Gotta run and get THAT done. I'm laughing but not really...

And the award goes to....

ME! Yup, got my first blog award today. And you're thinking..."uh, yeah, so?" And I'm thinking, I won something! I can't even remember what it's called I'm so delirious with excitement. And now with all the publicity sure to come out of this (interviews, calls from Perez Hilton for blogging tips, the Ellen Show) , I'm freaking out because, well, my blog sucks. I mean, I don't have a cool design, I write about no one subject in particular and I'm so unpredictable with the type and frequency of my posts.

Dang...I'm certainly no MckMama (Queen of the Mommy Bloggers) or Hairy Swede (my personal favourite expat in Sweden blog).

The song "Under Pressure" by Queen is playing as background music in my head now. Or maybe it's the version with Vanilla Ice and those twins, Jedward?, from Britain's Got Talent or X-Factor or some show with Simon Cowell.

While I try to figure out where to go from here, here's a copy of my acceptance speech, which can be found in its original form on September Mom's blog, My Voice My View (the bestower of the honour):

This is my very first ever blog award. I'm so humbled and so unprepared. "You like me. You REALLY like me!" Ok, here goes..off the cuff:
I would like to thank:
- God and Jesus, because well, those are the first guys you thank when you win awards.
- My darling husband, who cleaned the garbage out of the car this morning when I asked him to.
- My deliciously beautiful 3-year old son, who has so much joie de vivre in his compact littleness and gives me so many reasons to smile everyday.
- The blogosphere: I discovered you not that long ago and I thank you for sharing your lives and inspiring mine.
- My extremely small group of blog followers, or perhaps I should term you, "Tight Knit". Thanks for putting up with the ADHD that is my "blog".
- September Mom for graciously bestowing this award upon undeserving me, for commenting on my blog and for her the posts that keep me coming back for more.
Cue music...

The Sorel Boot Saga Continued...

You might recall my last post on the horribly blistered feet I got as a direct result of buying a cool-looking pair of winter boots back in Canada.

Well, dear blog readers, all 5 of you: Within 24 hours of my rant in the blogosphere, a PR rep from Sorel commented on my post. In addition to asking me not to burn the boots, she offered to help me find a solution to my boot problem.

Now I'm in PR, have been for all of my adult life. And I'll tell you: This here is some good PR. She then proceeded to send me an email apologizing on behalf of her team for me sore feet and asked me to take a photo of the boot culprits. Before I had a chance to figure out how to hook my camera up to my computer and all that jazz, I received another email from a rep at Columbia, whom I assume owns the Sorel brand.

She asked me to jot down all the info on my boots and offered to send me a new pair! Stop. I do NOT want a new pair. I have tried, in vain, to befriend these boots but we just can't seem to get along. So instead, I have asked for a gift certificate of some form so that I may continue to patronage their fine brand but with a set of boots that adore me and my big ole feet.

I even figured out my new scanner (whose software is all in Swedish thank you very much) and sent her a receipt. This may seem like "whatever" to you all, but I am not one of these award-winning Mommy bloggers with thousands of followers so the fact that all this fuss is being made over little ole' me and my big ole' feet, well this is monumental and deserves a worthy enough post. We bitch and moan about bad customer service all the time (human nature) so when we get treated like royalty, we need to shout it from the rooftops. It's only fair.

I will keep you posted on the resolution. In the meantime, I gotta stop wearing my rain boots and get my tired feet into a store. Thank you Sorel and thank you Columbia for listening to a lonely customer in Sweden.

Dear Makers of the Sorel Boots I bought

UPDATE!!!: Can you believe that in far less than 24 hours, the PR Rep for Sorel found this and offered to help my sore tootsies? See comments section. And she is REAL. Way go to! So...I emailed her, she emailed me back and I will be taking a photo of said boots so she can identify them and we'll go from there. Score 1 for Customer Service. Oh and I failed to disclose that I bought a pair of Sorel boots for the little guy while in Canada also. His are NOTHING like mine and are awesome. I'll be sure to let you all know what comes out of this.

I wanted to take some precious time between the business plan I need to write for Monday, the website copy that needs revamping asap, the demanding job of mothering a 3-year old, a husband and my upteenth load of laundry this week to bitch about the $150+ boots I purchased from one of your retailers in Canada.

I've learned that if you're going to criticize, you should instead start with the positive and work your way smoothly into the negative. It's called constructive feedback, I believe.

Your boots LOOKED awesome when I first laid my boot-starved eyes on them. I've been proudly sporting the same pair of fur boots for the past seven years or so. Almost knee high, white mukaluk types. They cost me a fortune at the time. But I needed a change. My feet needed the feel of newness. Something more 2010 if you will. And forget UGGS. I am not buying into that craze. Purely because everyone else has.

Back to the shoe store.

They are white, with red trim and to top it all off, had a Canadian flag emblazoned on them. They're a serious outdoorsy winter persony type of boot. I am not that person but the boot exuded coolness or warmness or both. Rubber soled, red laced, mid calf high. No question about it: A real winter boot. I was sold. Noone in Sweden would own these puppies, reason # whatever to buy them.

To the airport.

I wore them with pride. By Heathrow, I was limping. By the time I arrived at Arlanda Airport, I was walking on my tiptoes with a gorgeous blister on my right ankle.

I chalked up the hobbling and blood to "needing to work them in". Right? I mean they are Sorels, suppose to be one of the best manufactured winter boots in Canada.

Back home in winter

It takes me 25 minutes to walk to my son's school. It took me 45 minutes the first day I ventured out in your boots. The blistering started about 1/4 of the way in. Then I realized I wasn't actually wearing boots, I was dragging them like two blocks of concrete on each foot. Oh, and, because the backs are so rigid, but not rigid enough and your toes don't actually touch the ground when you walk, it felt like I was wearing downhill ski boots. You know how those boots actually pitch you forward slightly and your calves are like two big charlie horses the day after your first run down the slopes? That's what it's like walking in your boots. Or ski/walking.

Let me explain the design flaw of your boots. The shell is made of some thick kinda stuff but then you decided to cover them in suede? Well this combination, though adding a pretty flair to an otherwise work boot, sucks. The backs buckle. And WHERE do they buckle? Right at the blister point of the ankle. Thank you very much.

The backs of each of my feet are once again, smeared with polysporin. My calves have turned to cankles and I want nothing more than to smell burnt rubber as I douse your boots with gasoline and toss in the match.

A rumble in the jungle part 2

For Part 1

But first he needed to pee. He never said the word piss. "I gotta take a piss." That kind of language was reserved for his buddies. He ought to thank his mother for that. He'd never forget the first time he told her he needed to take a piss. He might have been ten. She had her hands in the sink, scrubbing feverishly at some caked on food bit when she asked him to take out the recycling. He answered by forcefully proclaiming his desire to urinate. There were only a few times in his life that he could remember his mother making that face. She didn't have to say a word for him to banish that word from his vocabulary forever.

While looking around for a suitable tree, he realized it was his weak bladder that had saved him those days ago. He could never hold it in. When he had to go, he had to go now. He was like a pregnant woman, or at least the way Aunt Amy was on the family trip to Albuquerque. His Dad had to stop the car every half hour so she could pee. Daniel was the only one not rolling his eyes in annoyance because half the time, his bladder was in step with hers.

They had to stop the jeep. He had to go. Rufus politely obliged while the others tried to mask their eye rolling under sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats.

"Go ovah deer, behind that tree. And you keep yo’ eyes open man. Rufus be watchin' afta you." Rufus was the driver slash bush guide, employed by the Mapungubwe Game Reserve for over 20 years. He was what Daniel's mother would have termed, "salt of the earth". He entertained the group with the kinds of stories one would expect a bush guide to tell: Disappearing tourists, close encounters with jungle cats, a host of near-death experiences. They always culminated with his unwavering devotion to his employer, the man who had saved him and his family from a life of poverty in Botswana.

Rufus was possibly the darkest man Daniel had ever seen up close. With the exception of the blob of loose tobacco hanging down from beneath his upper lip, his teeth actually glowed in the dark. He was a tongue acrobat, somehow managing to keep that packet of dung-colored goo from dribbling down his chin as he spoke, laughed, smoked cigarettes and even ate.

The human Google Map, he had every inch of the Madagascar jungle and the expanse of the reserve memorized. They felt safe with Rufus. Lovable, devoted, reliable, forty-something Rufus with four kids, a wife and a grandbaby on the way. Daniel winced. Rufus would never get to see that look of amazement on his first grandchild's face. It would have been the same awe-struck expression Daniel wore when Rufus told the story about facing down that lion on the plain.