Operation Tubetop

Well, Kiddo, we did it! This evening the Husband is back home! The Kid was an absolute joy this past week. Besides his short freak out last Friday morning, and having to keep him home on Wednesday (behaviour wise, he was perfect), he was happy and calm and buddy, it was a real pleasure working with you. I can honestly say it went a million times better than I thought it would go. I am not usually a fatalist but with June being a rough month for him, I was worried I would end up hitting the scotch every night. Yes, I hit the wine every night... but like a lady. I think I very much also enjoyed my quiet evenings at home. I sat on the sofa, watched mindless TV and/or read a book. I lit candles, I checked my face for wrinkles, and I ate a lot of crap. But I am glad that the Husband will be coming back because otherwise I would end up gaining a ton more weight and rarely leave the house. As I wrote up above, the Kid was amazing. i know a lot of it had to do with his digestion improving....

Well, 2 more sleeps and then the Husband will be home. It has gone, for the most part, pretty well. Friday morning sucked and this morning I had to keep the Kid home from kindergarten again. This high fiber diet took hold a little too much this morning and so I wrote the Nanny asking if she could come at 12. For the most part the Kid is just fine so that is good, but I did not want to take him to kindergarten, only to be called to head back and pick him up. I have to work later tonight and then when I get home, I will make myself some dinner and keep reading my book... By the way, absolutely besotted with The Beguiled . I am not usually a fan of Civil War books or films (save for Gone With The Wind (which I will get to in a bit)) but this book is incredibly written and I am not sure why I never had heard about it before. Well, maybe because I get most of my intellectual stimulation from celebrity gossip websites. But I can't put this book down. And after looking at the cast fo...

Hello Monday! Today is a work holiday which is absolute bliss. O.K., maybe I have spent most of the morning writing e-mails, freaking out when looking out the window when I couldn't see the Kid in the kindergarten garden (helicopter mom, extraordinaire!), and trying to plan the next couple of weeks. Since June has been kind of a crappy month, it is hard for me to relax when the Kid is in kindergarten. I keep having to check my phone. I do not like this feeling, Sam I am, I do not like it at all. The good news is that Magnum P.I. was on and that was a funny coincidence because just the other day, a friend who lives in Hawaii posted a picture of the beach and I wrote "One day I am totally visiting you!" and she wrote back "Of course!" and then, because I have problems, I wrote "But I have to be able to call you Higgins." and she totally got the reference. Cough. After my morning at home, I will head to Mariahilferstrasse to stop by Thalia. I am going...

Now, first of all, this is an obnoxious post. Second of all, hats off to all the single parents out there. I have said it before in this blog and I will keep saying it until my dying day, single parents are incredible! Third of all, I am not a single parent, nor do I play one on TV, so this upcoming week of being on my own with the Kid is no way close to what single parents go through. But if you haven't figured it out by now... I am nothing if not dramatic. Let me just state that I am a decent mom. Not the best, but definitely not Kris Jenner. Or Tan Mom. But I am not a great adult. I would eat pizza everyday were I not scared of getting scurvy or having to give myself a sponge bath. I consider wine a fruit and I have set things on fire accidentally, often. So, me on my own? No bueno. But I can do it. Sure, I might bitch about it, but I will be fine. 2 nights down, 6 to go! Huzzah!! Hold me. So let's see how the first 30 plus hours went on my own, without an adult. Here we...

It has been a shiteous few weeks. The Kid had a freak out last Wednesday, and then on Friday again. The kindergarten called and asked for him to be picked up again and that led to me having an absolute panic. As I mentioned before, we aren't sure what are causing these freak outs but I decided to say "fuck it, you are going gluten free." Well, not completely because the Kindergarten aren't able to accommodate his diet. It's not really all about being gluten free but adding more whole and clean foods to his diet. On Saturday I purged the kitchen of junk food and on Saturday afternoon the Kid spent most of his time opening the fridge and cupboards in confusion. He kept looking at me like "Bitch, where's the food? Are we poor now?" But save for an early morning short freak out on Saturday, he was great the rest of the weekend and even did something incredible on Sunday morning. I was putzing around and suddenly noticed he wasn't making much nois...

I bring you peace and love today.. with a pinch of snark. I have decided to not complain or kvetch today. Yesterday was a shiteous day. I mean absolutely kick me in the chest, drag me down a well and make me listen to Melanie Griffith recite Shakespeare on repeat kind of day. That bad. The morning started off just fine. I was a little sore from the Beyonce dance off I had with myself the night before (wine made me do it). Don't ask, but otherwise things were good. I was looking forward to a short day because in the afternoon was the Kid's annual summer fest. It is the annual kindergarten event and it is a place to be seen. I jest. But it is a fun event. The Husband dropped the Kid off at kindergarten and headed to work. I was already at work. And then around 11, my phone rang and I saw that it was the kindergarten calling and my heart dropped. I picked it up and it was his main provider. She didn't have to say anything because I heard the Kid screaming in the background. Sh...

Hello everybody! As you might have noticed, the blog has a new look! I am still tweaking it and hope that in the next week or two, it will be a lot better! Or not. Depends on how motivated I am. In just over a week, the Husband is heading for a one week cruise with his parental units. It will be a bit of a struggle to balance everything but the Kid and I will be fine... I see a lot of walks to the ice cream shop on Margareten in our future. I also am planning on revamping a couple of rooms in the apartment and I can't wait to get started on that. Nothing major, just zuzzing it up a little bit. Tuesday is here and besides a quick drink with a friend after work, I imagine it will be a pretty low-key day (I say that all the time and then I get some cray cray e-mail and the day turns into a battle scene from Starship Troopers). Tomorrow is the Kid's Sommerfest at the kindergarten. It starts at 2 so I will have to get into work super early so that I can make it to the fest. We will ...

What a week! It has been a great week on a few levels but it has also been a bit of a difficult week with the Kid. Last Sunday he had an epic freak out that lasted 45 minutes. It was horrific. After it, I cried and the Kid saw my face, and looked incredibly sad and then crawled into my lap and hugged me. That was an amazing moment and a screw you to anyone who says that people with autism don't have empathy. He had another freak out on Wednesday night but it only lasted a few minutes and at therapy on Thursday, he had another one. Ugh. He keeps grabbing at his feet and touching his mouth so I think that he is growing and his adult teeth are coming in. Let's hope this phase passes quickly because my heart can't take it. And also the Husband is heading on holiday in about 2 weeks and it will nightmarrific to deal with it on my own. The Nanny is also off for the next week or so. She had knee surgery and is recovering and so the Husband and I need to figure out a schedule. ...

And this is the final part of my trip to Canada. And then we will return to our regular programming... well, as regular as my life can be. Monday:  Monday morning I woke up early again and was relieved that my ear was no longer hurting. I was worried. I got dressed and had a coffee and then my mom and I drove to a local restaurant to meet my Godmother for breakfast. I always miss a big Canadian style breakfast even though when I lived in Canada I rarely ever had it. I ordered eggs over easy, extra crispy bacon, hashbrowns and wholewheat toast. Just the way I like it. It was great to see my Godmother again and we caught up a little. Afterwards, my mom drove me home and I spent most of the early afternoon, preparing for my BIG IMPORTANT MEETING. BIG. HUGE. Back in January 2016, I received a private message from a woman on the Autism in Vienna Beacon Beach House page. She told me that she used to be the assistant to Member of Parliament Mike Lake and that she was looking for th...

And the story continues... Friday: I woke up early and disoriented and with NetFlix asking if I was still watching Friends to which I responded "But, yes, of course." I decided that I had had enough decadence for the last couple of days and I decided to try out the condo gym. The gym overlooks the CN Tower and the Sky Dome (always the Sky Dome, never the Rogers Center) and it is spectacular. I decided to to take a spin on the cross trainer and for 30 minutes I sweated out pizza and beer and bad life choices. When I got back to the apartment, I took a shower and was so pleased to see a message from my friend AS. The day before, I had happened to see his Facebook page saying that he was heading to Toronto from Sydney for a wedding. We haven't seen each other since Moscow graduation in 1999 so I knew we had to meet up. He suggested we meet near Queen and Broadview and my first thought was "Wait, what?!" Back when I lived in Toronto, that area was not a plac...