The Atlantic Canada Whirlwind Trip - Part 1

Grand Falls Gorge, Grand Falls, New Brunswick

We are in the midst of a 11-day whirlwind tour of Atlantic Canada.  Beautiful! Amazing! Exhausting!

Little Miss had received acceptance to the AVC's (Atlantic Veterinary College) summer camp for the middle of July, which is on Prince Edward Island, so we jumped at the chance to go as a family.  Unfortunately, Mr. Man could only get a few days off, so much of the trip has been zipping down the TransCanada Highway, racing the clock (time change and all) to get to a new province each day. We keep saying the two of us will come back another time after the kids are grown.

So far what we have learned:

1. Mr. Man wants to move to New Brunswick.
2. Many Ontarians move out East from the Toronto area and open bed and breakfasts.
3. Nova Scotians drive slowly.  And have fabulous accents.
4. UNESCO has taken over.
5. Islander Canadians apologize much, much more than Ontarians...
6. You can get around Atlantic Restaurants without eating shellfish (Mr. is allergic).
7. Speaking of driving: Nova Scotian drivers need signs on the highway stating "WRONG WAY" as they tend to merge in the wrong direction.
8. Cows Ice Cream IS indeed the best.
9. The ocean is a fascinating place.
10. Little Miss will develop a bruise for each province travelled: falling down stairs, tripping on rocks....why STEP into the ocean upon your first look when you can FALL in it while completely dressed??

More to come!

Erin

My Fear of Water (Part 1)

On my second date with Mr. Man, he took me to the beach with friends to go sea-doing. While he was apparently doing turns and tricks in the lake to show off and impress me, I was on another one, trying to stay on and not throw up. When I finally got back to shore, I had a hard time peeling my fingers off of the handles, I was hanging on so tight.

Of course I didn't tell him until much later, years later.  I am afraid of deep water.  He never knew I missed his impressive "moves" on the "doo".

In June I found a great deal on a trip to Niagara Falls and Mr. and I drove over for our anniversary.  I was so excited to be there and to get away on such a special day, I think the hotel concierge picked up on it and offered us other things.

"Have you ever done the Maid of the Mist?" she asked with a big, friendly smile.

"No, we've never had the opportunity," I said excitedly.

Mr. was looking hesitant, and not wanting to damper my enthusiasm, was trying gently to turn me off the idea.  But I was excited and signed us up.

When we got to room, he finally spoke up. "Do you know what the Maid of the Mist is?"

"Yes, we get to walk close to the falls and get all wet!" I said.

"It's in a BOAT!" he cried, "And they go INTO THE FALLS!"

Suddenly, my heart was in my mouth and I couldn't speak.  OMG, I thought. I wanted to get out of it.  Fast. In five minutes I had stupidly caused our deaths.  Panic, panic, panic, panic.

"$217.84!," he exclaimed, "@%^@%!" (Okay, maybe that was me.)

Shaking, I called down to the front desk and whatever I said, they ripped up our tickets and that was that.

Later, we walked down to the falls and snapped a few pictures. I glanced down to see the Maid of Mist, filled with people, on it's way into the falls.  They were all going to die, I thought. Ugh.  I looked at Mr. with my peripheral vision to see a crooked grin on his face.

Yes, this is what keeps our marriage alive. I make messes and he cleans them up.

Oh, and here's a final photo of me standing far away from the falls.  Notice the too-small t-shirt with I love California on it? Mr. had to buy it in the front lobby for $10 because I forgot to pack any shirts.  You've got to be kidding me, I had said. Sigh.

Rescued again.

Little Miss, Prayer and Medieval Times

Last weekend we were heading into the big city of Toronto. "This is urban," my eight-year-old son said (obviously a subject he'd learned in school).  We were excited to take them so close to the CN Tower and the Roger Centre, and there was no cow in sight.

"Ooooh," they said, and we pulled into the parking lot of Medieval Times. Great fun was about to happen.

Earlier that day I was hit with a huge dose of anxiety. My hands were shaking, and my back was getting tight.  I went up to my room where I could be quiet and relax.  My "what if's" were rambling around in my head and needed to silence them in order to enjoy myself on this first of many summer family trips.

I sat down on the floor to pray, and nosy Little Miss poked her head in.

"What'cha doing, mom?"

"I'm praying."

"What for?"

"For safety so mommy won't worry."

"Oh," she stepped back out of the room and after a few seconds came back in.

"Can I pray with you?" she asked.

"Of course."

She sat on the floor beside me and we prayed together, she repeating after me, and working so hard to do it right.  There have been a few times where I am struck with how innocent and trusting my children's prayers are. They have no doubts.  They don't question how God will answer their prayers, they just pray.  No analyzing, just pure hearts seeking God.  I know without a doubt that a child's pray is powerful, and cherished by God. If you want something done, ask a child to pray for it.

So she prayed, and I felt better.

Hours later we pulled into the Medieval Times parking lot in Toronto (about a 2 1/2 hour drive from home). We hopped out, found the sunscreen and water, and suddenly our son is putting his sunglasses on upside down. Seconds later, he faints.

I scoop him up, throw him in the back of the van and immediately fly into action. In a few minutes he was sitting up and talking. Little Miss holds a cold ice pack on his back and says, "Well, we never prayed for this, did we mom!"

No, I suppose we didn't. But I was calm and collected as I dealt with the drama, which I may not have been had we not prayed for our day.

Mr. Man arrived, panting, with large pieces of pizza to fill our son's empty tummy as Little Miss shouts out, "It's your turn to faint now, daddy!"

We laugh, and when her big brother says, "at least I didn't pee my pants," we knew he was all right.

By the way, Medieval Times is awesome!

A Little Taste of the Irish

While on our holiday in NYC, our hotel was actually in New Brunswick, New Jersey. So one night after a long day of walking, we decided to find some "night life" near our hotel.

I write "night life" because real night life and I do not mix well. I have never felt comfortable in the bar/night club scene, and would walk around like a deer in headlights the whole night despite the caped Mr. Man (an experienced night-lifer) on my arm.

Nevertheless, we were on an adventure! Out doing something different! I am out of character! Bold! Crazy! Spontaneous! We are in a different country for pete's sake!

We head down the main street and can hear the music coming out of a nearby bar. There is a huge, shaven guy standing out in front holding the typical bouncer stance.

We keep walking.

We head down main street and can hear music coming out of a nearby bar. There are stairs going down into the dark basement of a dilapidated building leading to the entrance.

We keep walking.

We head down main street and don't hear anything. At this point my spontaneity is fizzling. As a last ditch effort, Mr. asks the giant bouncer from the first bar if there is any quieter pubs around. He tells us, not in the grunt I was expecting, but in a normal, I'm-really-a-college-student voice, to head further down main street to find what we're looking for.

We keep walking.

But we seriously can't find it. So we turn around again, and head back. But in order to avoid the helpful bouncer (I don't want to hurt his feelings) we cross the street and take the long way back. Lo and behold, we come across this dark wooden door with a sign hanging overhead. It says, "Tumulty's". It was very quiet, but you couldn't see inside from the street (and it was above ground) so I sent Mr. in to see what it was like.

He goes inside, and then comes out, saying, "I think you're going to like this." We go in and are greeted by a friendly barman. There are people at the bar, laughing it up, but no loud music or scary dancing. There were old wooden beams throughout the ceilings and walls, and even the booths themselves had the worn, wooden, rustic look. They had little candles on the tables, and I felt like I was in The Carrag, from the movie, Leap Year. (FaVouRiTe!!) The TV had the sports channel on, and the smell of the fryer and pitchers of beer were in the air. I was just waiting for someone with a thick Irish accent to come around the corner.

We chose a booth, and a young guy (minus the accent) waited on us. I had my light beer and Mr. had his ale. I was cosy in my dream movie world, and Mr. smiled at me, imagining himself patting me on the head. "That's my girl," he is saying, "Live it up."

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I should tell you that Tumulty's is a real place, and they do have live music and dancing on Friday and Saturday nights. So there are lots of opportunities for everyone to live it up :)

Planes, Trains, and...Peanuts

I was talking with another mom, (we'll call her Betty), recently about riding in airplanes with her six-year-old son who has a nut allergy.

There are such things called "buffer-zones" now, in which the airline stewardesses ask people not to eat or buy nuts during a flight in which there is an allergic child. Betty said they went on three flights this summer. On the first flight the stewardess asked the first few rows around them to stay nut-free. On a second flight the attendant asked only the left side of the plane to refrain from eating nuts. And on the third flight Betty's family was refused any such treatment. Confused? So was she. "And," she said, "they obviously don't clean very well in between flights as there was a peanut right under his chair." Yikes.

So here I am, on a bus to the states with 51 other people, in seat 13. A few people in front of me; a lot behind. Mr. Man was seat 14, the aisle seat, stretching out his legs. We are excited, a little tired from the early start, and quite comfortable. The tour guide is going over her list of the beginning of the itinerary, and nobody is really listening. But just then, she mentions the duty-free shop. "It's great for snacks like chocolate, liquor, and bags of nuts."

Most people would go for the liquor, I figured, but the bus suddenly seemed smaller with the idea of nuts floating around. Sure enough, when the bus stopped, all of the above were bought and brought onto the bus.

Mr. and I, we bought hand antiseptic.

As the elderly and naive shovelled handfuls of mixed nuts into their mouths, waved at their friends, and touched all the seats as they moved up the aisle, I leaned closer and closer to my precious window seat, soaked myself in antiseptic until I stunk, and waited to get off. I figured, "let them get it out of their system, eat them all and I'll wash my hands with this stuff every time I move." Honestly, I don't think that "stuff" even works, but I held onto it like life raft.

I was asked later why I didn't tell them I was allergic, but actually we had. It was on our application for the trip, but there is nothing that could be done. For children, there are "buffer zones" and peanut-free snack rules, but adults are adults. We are old enough to take care of ourselves. People don't think an adult would have an allergy, it's just in the kids. Besides, the bags were opened; the harm had been done. I would just sit still and wait. There would no shaking of hands on this trip.

Eventually, they closed up the bags, and I subtly walked off the bus with both my arms straight up in the air.

We had a fabulous trip; safe; eventful; lots of fun! Three days later we get back on the bus with the same 50 people, and cross the border into Canada.

Two hours from home I hear the rustling of bags, smell the nutty aroma and start to cry.

As an aside: One fellow passenger who we got to know pointed out that eventually all of these allergic children will grow up and enter the work force. It will be interesting to see if their adult life will be safer than mine or just the same. Once you're an adult, are you on your own, like me, or will there be "buffer zones" then, too?

Seafood Linguini

Many of you have asked when I am going to blog about my NYC trip, and really, I barely got back and was swamped with work. But even while the mixer is on, and there is icing on my glasses, I smile as I reflect on some of the the things that happened while in New York. I will tell you one story now:

Mr. Man and I stuck to some pretty tame restaurants, as I knew we would, initially because of my allergies, but later on we realized how much money we would save by sticking to simpler, faster foods. SUBWAY became our friend. Hot grilled chicken sub with lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, red onion and green peppers, and a dollop of honey garlic sauce fed me for two days. Mr. was strictly ham, cheese, and pickles. Seriously, no imagination.

One time, we found ourselves on 5th avenue, surrounded by fancy, expensive shops and where do we go in for food?

Good ol' Wendy's. Yep, their fries in NYC are just as good as in Belleville, Ontario.

Living. It. Up.

So, on our last day in the city, our tour bus took us to South St. Seaport and pointed us to this Italian Restaurant by the marina. Grilled chicken just didn't cut it anymore, so we raced over to get an outdoor table. The ambience was nice, you could smell the waterfront, and the restaurant itself was so comforting, I decided this would be where we have a real meal. Mr. ordered a ravioli, and I ordered the seafood linguini.

So there I was, smiling away, dipping my bread into the oil, and the waiter brings out our plates. My mouth dropped open. There was this towering plate of pasta complete with a lobster tail, and a circle of oysters, placed in front of me. And as I looked closer, among the expected shrimp and sliced calamari were tiny octopus tentacles. Or squid tentacles. It really didn't matter. This numb feeling appeared in the pit of my stomach, and as I looked around at the other customers "oohing" and "aahing" at my plate, I thought, "What have I done? Now I have to eat this!"

Our tour guide had warned us that some restaurants may have servings that are too large to finish, so I decided to use that get free card right away. I tackled the lobster tail, thankful for good friends who'd taken us out to a seafood buffet previously, so I didn't look like an amateur. The shrimp and calamari were no problem, but I seriously had to turn my senses off in order to eat the pasta around those tentacles. I no longer smelled the lovely waterfront, or saw the ambience around me. I smelled fish, saw octopus legs and thought about all of the people who caught food poisoning from eating oysters.

In the end, I scooped some of the oysters in with the pasta, stirred it around, and placed the empty shells on the discard plate, along with my lobster shell, as though I had tasted them all along.

So, I ate, I survived, I paid three times the price I thought I was, and I came away with a good story. Go big, or go home, right?

My Magic Bag

As many of you are aware, I am nervous about heading out because of my peanut allergy. I don’t dare say anything to Mr. Man as he in his own world of worry: leg room, muggings, directions… so he has enough on his plate. I cannot tell my mother – she’ll just get it all mixed up and think I DID have a reaction, and upset everyone. So instead, I will tell you!

At times I get really excited. I booked us broadway tickets, and mapped out all of things I (and Mr. Man) want to see. It’s true, he did say I could take him anywhere…but I’ll include a few things I think he will like!

But I have this shadow that follows me. It sits on the edge of my thoughts, waiting. We have no control over what is planned for us, do we? It could all be taken away at any moment. A car ride, a fall at the park, a dark stranger. I need to stay safe for the kids. The kids need to stay safe. Mr. needs to stay safe. So I have this constant fight with myself to have a relaxing time, to put the shadow to rest and trust that everything will be all right. Mr. says that's why we believe in a loving God. I do not have to be prepared for the worst all the time.

Funnily enough, I got my results from my sleep deprived EEG last week. I am (or my brain is) “essentially normal.” Whatever that means. Aren’t we all “essentially normal”? Is anyone normal?

Based on today's and last day's blogposts, I guess the EEG doesn’t measure the levels of being a nutter. I am, with all of my worrying and stressing, "essentially," a nutter.

So here I am packing for my trip to NYC. In my magic bag I have three epi-pens, one new pair of pants, new groovy running shoes and insoles for walking, one camera, batteries and SD cards, US cash for taxis, various maps, updated VISA card, passports, other ID, sunglasses and hair elastics.

Also inside my magic bag is a small pocket filled with neurosis that I will pull out, shake, and replace whenever needed. Drama tends to follow me, but I think my magic bag can handle it.

So here I go, clutching my bag full of adventure on one hand, and leading my big, handsome Mr. Man on the other. What fun!

Bubble Girl

One of the scariest things about having a food allergy is travelling. When I woke up with amnesia a few years ago, one of the things my mom would do was put on a movie to ease the tension. I had short term and long term memory loss, so watching a movie that had nothing to do with my real life took our minds off everything for an hour or two. One of them was called, "Bubble Boy". It was the stupidest movie ever, but I loved it. And it is how I feel a lot.

In the movie, a teenage boy is allergic to everything and so his parents keep him in a plastic bubble to protect him from having a reaction. Eventually you find out his mother kept him in there longer than necessary, BUT it was so amazing to me that a writer could understand that people like me are actually out here, living in an invisible bubble.

The bubble, for those of you who do not understand, surrounds us and stretches out to only those places where we feel safe from harm. For example: my bubble extends its curve to MacDonald's and Denny's and, presently, Montana's (not in the past), but does not even brush against Asian food places, church potlucks, or Dairy Queen. If I go into any of these places, the bubble will break and I may have an allergic reaction. So I feel I miss out on a lot, and it makes me nervous to try new things and new places.

So this returns me to my opening sentence. Travelling is hard. How much food can I pack in my backpack that will sustain me if I am in a place that only sells Asian food (i.e. I am never going to China)? If I have three epi-pens, we can speak the language, and have enough fare for a taxi, how much time does that give us to hail a taxi, and get through traffic to the hospital? And what if the hospital is full? What if they won't treat me because I'm Canadian? And what if they tell my mother? She'll NEVER let me go out again. Back in the bubble.

And what if they won't let me bring my home-baked, peanut-free, soy-free food with me over the border? What if? What if?

Then, three times in one month I have a freak allergic reaction to something right here, within my safe places. The first, sitting in a family member's chair: I broke out in itchy hives. The second, using the wrong chocolate coating: again I broke out in hives, and had swollen eyes. And the third, at a friend's house my eye started itching and swelling. Only one of those times did we know what had caused the reaction.

So, if I am reacting to unknown things within my small world anyway, why not risk it in the big world? I know the Big Guy's got my back. And those three epi-pens I ordered will come in handy. AND I'm married to the best insurance broker in the world so he's got my back, too.

And, maybe I'll just have to bake the border patrol one of my delish red velvet cakes so they let me take all of other baked goods across with me :)