Bloody Fuck (long long post)

I shouldn’t be complaining when so many people are without houses, power, water and food down in Kumamoto, but it’s my pity party so I guess It’s my bloody prerogative!

Today has been one of the days  where you don’t think it will end up anything like it did, but it does, and it throws you sideways and completely fucks you over. I’m damn near exhausted and it is all I can do to bring the sweet nectar of wine to my lips.

But if anyone ‘deserves’ a vino this evening well… (pointing madly at self)

Where to start? At the beginning with bullet points perhaps? Mainly because I’m too tired to write properly and I firmly believe that bullet points will keep me, and you, on track.

• Ryu was meant to be back at school today but his teacher told me last night at the PTA meeting (which I was 40 minutes late for because I completely forgot and my friend texted me ‘where the fuck are you?’ or similar but in nice Japanese) that she thought he should have another day off. So he was home for the day while I finished a translation deadline.

 

• I have two English classes on a Wednesday with 20 minutes in between, during which I speed drive to the school to pick up Shou and Marina, come home, bring the washing in, boil some pasta, run the bath and confiscate the iPad.

 

• During the second class (seven eight year olds with two new kids who only started the week before I got the flu) I get a phone call from Granny K – who is 20 meters away inside in her room while the boys are watching TV. I answer it, can’t hear her, put my hand up in front of the class (as in ‘talk to the hand’ kind of hand’) and put my stern teacher face on. They all fall silent and watch my face as I hear Granny K tell me she has fallen over and can’t see.  I calmly leave the class doing a word search and sprint inside.

 

• Granny K is lying on her bed gasping like a fish out of water. She said she felt faint so came to her bed. She can’t open her eyes cause the ceiling is spinning. I ring hub, who is now back at the office 3km away. Meanwhile Shou and Ryu are still watching TV none-the-wiser. Granny K wants me to get out her blood pressure machine, give her some water, and get a bowl cause she feels she might vomit. I do all of this and am genuinely worried that my live-in-babysitter and general vestling that I actually like now might be in some kind of serious predicament!

 

• Hub gets home and immediately calls an ambulance and tells me that it is no time to continue teaching English – as if I’ve just casually whipped this class together and am doing it for a bit of a laugh. I realize it isn’t a time to say what I’m thinking out loud so I just say ‘I’ll keep these 7 kids out of the way of the paramedics then’. Seriously, he wanted me to stop teaching and either a) have 7 kids playing outside while stretchers and shit are going past, or b) have 7 cars rock up to pick up kids as ambulance is trying to turn round and rush to hospital down skinny road. I realize the situation is serious but I have just spoken coherently to Granny K and while I know these things can turn worse very quickly I didn’t think it warranted another adult plus 7 extra kids. Well, actually the situation did probably warrant me doing this had it been plausible. I reassured hub that had he not been able to come home straight away I would have called the ambulance myself and not left her their gasping while I helped 8 years olds search for the words broccoli and cucumber.

 

• We hear a siren and look out the English classroom window to see a fuckin fire engine racing up the road – sirens blaring. Apparently it is ambulance busy busy season and our town’s ONE ambulance is away on duty. So they send the next best thing. Of course it stops outside out house, thus prompting every neighbor in a ten-rice-paddy radius to come out and investigate.

 

• Approximately 3 minutes and 7 seconds later an ambulance comes too – sirens blaring. By this time  I would say every vestling from a 20-paddy radius is standing somewhere along the road wondering what the fuck is going on. I find out later that most people think it is for the 93 year old deaf woman at the temple next door. The paramedics unload the stretcher but apparently can’t get it though Granny K’s door case she has so much shit in the way. They have to carry her out to it on a blanket (I find this out later because am in middle of drawing big red flowers on word searchers and mind numbingly getting the kids to choose English bingo cards)

 

• As the ambulance blares off a neighbor brings Ryu up to me and shows me a puncture wound in his forearm. It would appear that MAX, the dog, has been completely freaked out by all the fuckin sirens and flashing lights, people and noise, that he has bitten the first small person that tried to calm him down. I have ‘just’ let my English class kids go five minutes early so I take Ryu inside, wash and antiseptic spray the shit out of the ‘hole’ and wonder what to do – to which a neighbor from 200m away who is good friends with Granny K and who happens to be on hand due to aforementioned chaos TELLS ME (thank god cause I just needed instruction) to take him to the local doctors. It is nearly 6pm by this stage and I fumble over looking up phone numbers so her husband gets out his phone and rings them (I think they were on speed dial).

 

• I take Ryu to the hospital where the doctor looks at the wound and kind of sucks his breath in – so I say ‘ I know, I think it needs  a stitch or two too’. I’m no doctor but it is obvious the 1cm hole isn’t going to just fuse together on its own. Ryu gets two local anesthetics in his arm and a stitch, all the while he is crying and we have to hold him down a bit and I have a towel over his eyes so he can’t actually see the needles and fish hook…. fuck, it was so bloody traumatic but the boy was awesome and in reality it took about 3 minutes – but in my mind I might have mummy guilt nightmares for a long time, and need a lot of therapeutic wine.

 

• I ask the golden child what he wants for being so brave….

 

• he wants me to buy an ice-cream for him, Shou and Marina.

 

• This shit makes parenting worthwhile.

 

• We get home with ice creams and I relieve aforementioned neighbor of babysitting duties and set about feeding my children and perhaps starting to get Granny K’s overnight hospital items ready – this involves intensive searching of aforementioned vestling’s cupboards and drawers. I can now confirm that the woman has 63 bags – which include pouches, purses, patchwork shoulder bags, black funeral bags and general bagness. I was extremely fortunate to find her vestling insurance card in a nice purple and leather number – which was not her usual ‘hospital’ bag, neither was it the ‘lovely posh black bag’ she told hub to tell me to look in. I have obviously started channeling the real Granny K, and it scares the fuck out of me.

 

• It is at this moment that the plumber decides to turn up – to fix the upstairs tap that broke a fuckin week ago – and which in turn sent water down the wall and into our fuse box – fortunately it only wrecked our hot water tank fuse and we just didn’t have a hot shower for two days. All is well on that front now though and the upstairs sink is now fixed. The timing was dismal.

 

• It is also sometime during this ordeal that a wannabe fire brigade man brings something for hub. Marina tells me it was  so and so’s father but when I relay this to hub later he says said person isn’t even a wannabe fireman so  hmmmmmm….. guess he’ll figure out who tomorrow!!

 

• It is also sometime during this ordeal that I get a phone call from the secretary of the organization renting the office space I am taking over from May. I got the key yesterday but was waiting on details of the bank account to deposit rent into. The phone call just happened to come in the midst of armageddon.

 

• And then hub rings and tells me to come pick him up cause he went in the ambulance with Granny K. I finish getting Granny K’s list of things together (she is well enough to shout out a list), and ring the aforementioned baby sitter again to come look after the kids for an hour and a half while I go pick up hub (she did offer after all – something she may or may not now be regretting).

 

• So I pick up hub and get to see Granny K – who is looking fragile and putting on a brave face and being very apologetic for everything.  I leave her with about twelve pairs of pants and vestling underwear as wasn’t sure what she would want so just packed everything I could find… We got home to find all kids asleep on futons on the floor in the living room – which means the ‘baby sitter’ had to go into the messiest room in the house -not usually the messiest as is the alter room but hub has been sleeping in there since we all got the bloody flu. She probably thinks this is our general arrangement!

 

• And I’m tired, and have probably made not much sense.

 

Off  to bed.

 

Hug your resident vestling if you have one, and especially if an event like this would make your realize how much you rely on them!

 

SDGH&QL