Where do I start?
Yesterday was Family Day in Ontario! So, of course, Ted was working, Elisheva had school, and my father asked if I wanted to earn a few $$$ doing some data-entry at his work, which was closed that day. He gave me the key to the office and said the door was fiddly, but if I played around with the thumb-thingy, it would eventually open. Fine.
Naomi had a playdate (yay!) in the a.m. and then we rushed home for lunch, nummies, nap. YM was home and EC had an early day at school because of the holiday, so I ran around getting all 4 kids organized for 1 pm when my mother was coming to babysit. She came early, I got out the door just a few minutes past and got downtown really fast - no traffic! Quick stop at 7-11 for a productivity-boosting snack and I was on my way across the street to the old U-Lock-It.
Then I couldn't get the door open. There were two keys: one to the padlocked outer gate (because it's right downtown at College & Spadina; I guess to discourage people from sleeping on the stoop), and one to the locked (fiddly) wooden door to the building. So the padlock was no problem; I locked it again behind me because I didn't want to have to lock the inner door again while I was working. But then the wooden door was IMPOSSIBLE! I jiggled it and turned it this way & that and it would not open.
After about five minutes, that seemed longer although thankfully it wasn't too cold, I decided it was never going to open. I opened the padlock, let myself out, locked it again and went to find a payphone to call my father. Fifty (!) cents later, he was on his way and I went back to wait on the steps.
Figuring I'd be productive while I waited, I decided to fiddle with the door lock some more. Open padlock, open gate, close gate, lock padlock, fiddle, jiggle, twist the wooden door key... and guess what? Yeah, it opened. I ran inside to call my dad and tell him not to come, but by then there was no answer. Aargh.
SO - again, wanting to be productive. I quickly booted the computer, ran around collecting all the information cards I'd be entering, loaded up the spreadsheet I'd prepared the night before... busy time! I was looking out the window for my father as I laid out the keys carefully on the desk so I'd take them when I left, arranged my snack, started entering the records, and actually started getting into my data-entry groove when I spotted him out on College Street, peering up and down the street, looking for me.
I knocked on the window but he didn't hear... so out I ran! Through the inner office, outer office, and opened the wooden door to call him. He didn't hear me calling, so I went right to the gate and called him again. He turned around and saw me, looking slightly dismayed that he'd just headed all the way downtown for NOTHING. Looking around sheepishly, because I was all set and ready now (even had a snack!) for an hour or more of steady work, I said, "well, do you want to come in?" He said, "sure."
Then I looked behind me at - you saw this coming, I'm sure, but I had no clue - the LOCKED WOODEN DOOR. With the KEYS INSIDE.
There was just this awful, sad moment of "there is no turning back," just like when you total a car, and you realize immediately that you'll never drive it again (ask me how I know this!). They were my father's keys... they were inside. The office was closed until the next day. May as well go home.
So I looked at him, about to voice this sentiment, when I saw - the PADLOCKED OUTER GATE. With the KEYS INSIDE.
I was locked, not just OUT OF THE OFFICE, but IN the stoop of the building.
Well, well. At that point, there is no awful, sad moment. There is just - wow, this is just about the worst-case scenario. "I'll have to climb out," I said.
I haven't climbed anything since I was about seven, if ever... I don't remember ever being bold about climbing, maybe because I always figured I was a frail child, going back to my broken arm in grade one. Anyway, four kids and a hundred pounds later, climbing is even LESS my strong suit.
But climb I did, using the padlock bolt to steady one foot, then wiggling and wrangling the other foot up and over the gate. Which was TALL. And, probably to discourage climbing over, there were about six inches of exposed square rod at the top of each bar. Certainly, it discouraged me... especially while it was poking my tushie and leaving my skirt extremely compromised.
STILL. There wasn't much choice, although my mother later said we could have called the cops to break the padlock. This was better, right? Better to have an Adventure!
With all my weight on my father's shoulder, not looking down the nine feet or so to the concrete sidewalk, we eventually got me DOWN from the top of the gate, and my father drove me, car-less, home (car keys were inside, remember?).
Later on, my mother drove me downtown to retrieve the car (with Ted's keys)... we needed it first thing this morning.
And that was my day yesterday. Any questions???
Supper:
Oooh! The yummiest supper! Ted said "there are hamburgers in the freezer" but I didn't really feel like hamburgers. When my mother came to babysit, she asked for pizza sauce and we gave her our last tin, which, of course, made me realize what I really really wanted was PIZZA. So I made a yummy herb dough - dried herbs, but yummy-smelling. Even though I'd just given away (to my mother) our last tin of sauce - I was so frazzled from the Locking-Out Incident; I just wasn't thinking. Then I looked in the fridge: no cheese. ("You know I always have cheese." - Mommy)
Brainwave! I'd make individual mini-pizza-wrapped hamburgers, with tomato sauce, mushrooms and onions inside. And believe it or not... that's exactly what I did. Elisheva helped me flatten the dough into eight little pizzas and the wrapping was surprisingly easy. Wow! These were SOooo tasty, too. I pre-fried the hamburgers because they were frozen and wouldn't cook through in the time the outer bread "shell" was baking. They were incredibly moist and the bread had just the right amount of grease and flavour from the burgers. Lots of potchkying, but definitely worth the effort - I was very proud to produce any supper at all after such an awful day.
With French-style beans on the side. Blah.
(the interior picture looks kind of bloody & gross, but believe me: the tomato sauce, mushrooms & onions in there went a long way, moisture- and flavour-wise :-))))
Oh. More Oy...
I wish I could say that after the locking-out incident, nothing else went wrong yesterday, but Gavriel Zev also refused to sleep all afternoon... he cried and cried and cried before I eventually got him up. :-(((
After a couple of weeks of being not too bad, his sleep is all messed up again from the weekend, I'm afraid...
Yesterday was Family Day in Ontario! So, of course, Ted was working, Elisheva had school, and my father asked if I wanted to earn a few $$$ doing some data-entry at his work, which was closed that day. He gave me the key to the office and said the door was fiddly, but if I played around with the thumb-thingy, it would eventually open. Fine.
Naomi had a playdate (yay!) in the a.m. and then we rushed home for lunch, nummies, nap. YM was home and EC had an early day at school because of the holiday, so I ran around getting all 4 kids organized for 1 pm when my mother was coming to babysit. She came early, I got out the door just a few minutes past and got downtown really fast - no traffic! Quick stop at 7-11 for a productivity-boosting snack and I was on my way across the street to the old U-Lock-It.
Then I couldn't get the door open. There were two keys: one to the padlocked outer gate (because it's right downtown at College & Spadina; I guess to discourage people from sleeping on the stoop), and one to the locked (fiddly) wooden door to the building. So the padlock was no problem; I locked it again behind me because I didn't want to have to lock the inner door again while I was working. But then the wooden door was IMPOSSIBLE! I jiggled it and turned it this way & that and it would not open.
After about five minutes, that seemed longer although thankfully it wasn't too cold, I decided it was never going to open. I opened the padlock, let myself out, locked it again and went to find a payphone to call my father. Fifty (!) cents later, he was on his way and I went back to wait on the steps.
Figuring I'd be productive while I waited, I decided to fiddle with the door lock some more. Open padlock, open gate, close gate, lock padlock, fiddle, jiggle, twist the wooden door key... and guess what? Yeah, it opened. I ran inside to call my dad and tell him not to come, but by then there was no answer. Aargh.
SO - again, wanting to be productive. I quickly booted the computer, ran around collecting all the information cards I'd be entering, loaded up the spreadsheet I'd prepared the night before... busy time! I was looking out the window for my father as I laid out the keys carefully on the desk so I'd take them when I left, arranged my snack, started entering the records, and actually started getting into my data-entry groove when I spotted him out on College Street, peering up and down the street, looking for me.
I knocked on the window but he didn't hear... so out I ran! Through the inner office, outer office, and opened the wooden door to call him. He didn't hear me calling, so I went right to the gate and called him again. He turned around and saw me, looking slightly dismayed that he'd just headed all the way downtown for NOTHING. Looking around sheepishly, because I was all set and ready now (even had a snack!) for an hour or more of steady work, I said, "well, do you want to come in?" He said, "sure."
Then I looked behind me at - you saw this coming, I'm sure, but I had no clue - the LOCKED WOODEN DOOR. With the KEYS INSIDE.
There was just this awful, sad moment of "there is no turning back," just like when you total a car, and you realize immediately that you'll never drive it again (ask me how I know this!). They were my father's keys... they were inside. The office was closed until the next day. May as well go home.
So I looked at him, about to voice this sentiment, when I saw - the PADLOCKED OUTER GATE. With the KEYS INSIDE.
I was locked, not just OUT OF THE OFFICE, but IN the stoop of the building.
Well, well. At that point, there is no awful, sad moment. There is just - wow, this is just about the worst-case scenario. "I'll have to climb out," I said.
I haven't climbed anything since I was about seven, if ever... I don't remember ever being bold about climbing, maybe because I always figured I was a frail child, going back to my broken arm in grade one. Anyway, four kids and a hundred pounds later, climbing is even LESS my strong suit.
But climb I did, using the padlock bolt to steady one foot, then wiggling and wrangling the other foot up and over the gate. Which was TALL. And, probably to discourage climbing over, there were about six inches of exposed square rod at the top of each bar. Certainly, it discouraged me... especially while it was poking my tushie and leaving my skirt extremely compromised.
STILL. There wasn't much choice, although my mother later said we could have called the cops to break the padlock. This was better, right? Better to have an Adventure!
With all my weight on my father's shoulder, not looking down the nine feet or so to the concrete sidewalk, we eventually got me DOWN from the top of the gate, and my father drove me, car-less, home (car keys were inside, remember?).
Later on, my mother drove me downtown to retrieve the car (with Ted's keys)... we needed it first thing this morning.
And that was my day yesterday. Any questions???
Supper:
Oooh! The yummiest supper! Ted said "there are hamburgers in the freezer" but I didn't really feel like hamburgers. When my mother came to babysit, she asked for pizza sauce and we gave her our last tin, which, of course, made me realize what I really really wanted was PIZZA. So I made a yummy herb dough - dried herbs, but yummy-smelling. Even though I'd just given away (to my mother) our last tin of sauce - I was so frazzled from the Locking-Out Incident; I just wasn't thinking. Then I looked in the fridge: no cheese. ("You know I always have cheese." - Mommy)
Brainwave! I'd make individual mini-pizza-wrapped hamburgers, with tomato sauce, mushrooms and onions inside. And believe it or not... that's exactly what I did. Elisheva helped me flatten the dough into eight little pizzas and the wrapping was surprisingly easy. Wow! These were SOooo tasty, too. I pre-fried the hamburgers because they were frozen and wouldn't cook through in the time the outer bread "shell" was baking. They were incredibly moist and the bread had just the right amount of grease and flavour from the burgers. Lots of potchkying, but definitely worth the effort - I was very proud to produce any supper at all after such an awful day.
With French-style beans on the side. Blah.
(the interior picture looks kind of bloody & gross, but believe me: the tomato sauce, mushrooms & onions in there went a long way, moisture- and flavour-wise :-))))
Oh. More Oy...
I wish I could say that after the locking-out incident, nothing else went wrong yesterday, but Gavriel Zev also refused to sleep all afternoon... he cried and cried and cried before I eventually got him up. :-(((
After a couple of weeks of being not too bad, his sleep is all messed up again from the weekend, I'm afraid...
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