2007-12-27 - 5:04 p.m.

...another day in the life...

good evening. another day, another doctor's appointment. We can confirm that the little girl is still doing well. Mom, on the other hand, is mighty uncomfortable with this cold, among other things. Last night was the first night when a contraction actually woke me out of sleep. Nice.

The weather was pretty ugly this morning and so I asked K to walk with me up the block to the appointment. I've come too far to slip on ice. We then went straight to the pharmacy to get me some cold relief and some splints for my wrists, which are not reacting well to all the swelling. I probably should stop typing very soon.

In spite of the wrists, three more types of food are in the freezer: lentil soup, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese. I'm all for winter comfort foods that provide a complex layering of lipidy goodness...Tomorrow's task will be a meatloaf to join the quiche and seven varieties of soup.

I just got another email from Concerned Carol - the woman from yoga class who is way-worried about making her house toxin-free before her baby comes. She's the same woman who sponsored the diaper party that (damn) I was surprisingly unable to attend... Her latest email is about finding toxin-free plastics in which to store foods for her freezer. There is apparently a huge Tupp3rw4re exhibition happening next week in Funcouver - she's invited all of us to attend with her. Too bad I had already arranged to floss my cats that evening...

In other house news, K and I have easily eliminated one of the action items from our list, thanks to a nice little note from our landlady this afternoon. About two months ago we spoke to the landlord (the husband) about installing a cat door in the bathroom - so that we could allow our cats access to the litter box (which we store in the closet) while still keeping the closet doors closed. He said it was no problem.

Today (two months after our initial request) we received a (timely?) email from the landlady, explaining the protocol for dealing with the change in the door, and confirming that we are responsible for leaving the flat as we got it: (a) the door will need to be replaced when we leave. (b) it will need to be identical to the other door, or we will be requested to purchase two doors when we leave. (c) since the doors only came with a primer, the new door will need to be sanded, and three layers of paint will need to be applied (you may recall that I mentioned her minor obsession with paint..). (d) she then specified which type of paint needed to be used. (e) both doors would need to be re-painted to ensure that they were identical.

!!!

Needless to say, we've decided to leave the doors alone...and I spent the day real estate shopping.

Our assessment: people who have little control over their lives feel driven to fixate on minutia - in their lives and in the lives of others.

p.s. the carpet on the stairs is still wet. amazing.