A time once travelled

I feel whole again.

Hey blog, after a week in silence, the walls are filled with laughter again. The mess, the toys scattered everywhere, little accidents, sudden gasps of pain as I would walked limping after stepping on some tiny soldiers, dinosaurs and plastic cars. Oh, I did miss all that.

Saturday Night.
Before I inserted the key in the keyhole, I paused for a moment pressing my left ear on the door. Listening. Expecting little giggles, the ones that engulf my heart with so much warm and ecstasy. Nothing. Silence. I stooped down, hesitating, checking the gap of the door at the bottom. The light is on. I smiled excitedly and opened the door.
I saw him sitting on the sofa, having dinner at our coffee table. “Hellooooo, my little David! Wow, look who is here! Welcome back!”
He threw his head backward, arching his tiny back, spraying some pasta off his mouth, and laughing. The happy laugh. The kind of laugh that betrays oh-I’m-so-happy-to-see-you. It was more than I expected. I turned around to close the door, and I heard papa came, “hello mamou!”
I threw my arms around his neck and gave him a huge smack on the lips. It helped with two-inch hills to hold him like that. At least I reached up to his eyes. He was hesitant, kind of surprise. He held my shoulders in place, few inches from his face, “wow did you miss me?”
 ”Kiss me again” I answered. He smiled a wicked smile and we kissed, long, hard and wet. The kind of kiss known only to lovers.
After a forever, he pulled my face back gently but purposely, I heard a suppressed giggle coming from his chest, his naughty smiles reaching up deep into his eyes now filled with fire. “You behave girl, your son is just a few feet away!” I untangled my fingers off his hair, gave him one quick kiss and said “I missed you papa!”

After I put on my happy clothes (jogging pants and loose t-shirt), I sat next to David eating while watching Tom and Jerry. “Oh I see, you found the gift I bought for you”. He laughed again. I notice that he runs out of words when he is happy and excited. I gave him a big hug and kissed the top of his head. “You eat and we’ll talk later. I got so many questions for you!”
He perked his head on papa’s direction who was standing few feet away from us. He leaned to me, and whispered “You know mama, I ski better than papa. He fell many times, but I fell only once!” Then threw out a big laugh. He was making fun of his own father! Papa stormed in, “whaaa,I heard that, you are lying!” “What a crook this one!”
I felt my heart did a somersault! Ah, it’s good to hear their catfight again!

“So sweetheart, did you miss me? Because boy, how I missed you two!”
“C’est quoi miss me mama?” (What is miss me mama?)
I smiled. Now back to familiar questioning….
“Hmm, miss me means, hmmm, let’s see… (I was drumming my brain for the right answer, how can I explain it to a five-years old)
“Well, see baby filou here (his favourite toy, the one he never sleeps without). It’s like you went to
Chamonix
and you left baby filou here in Paris. You go to bed and you found out he is not there. That’s when you missed baby filou….  Or missed me.
He shrugged his shoulders off casually and said “but I didn’t forget baby filou, he was with me in Chamonix. I didn’t miss him.”
“Yes you are right, but I was not there. You must missed me…”
He looked at me intently, like I was some kind of lunatic and said “Bah, not really, I was skiing all day!”
I laughed out loud in my head. “Why are you smiling mama?”
“Well, I’m happy to know that you didn’t really miss me. That means you really had a great time skiing!”
Then he went into his litany of what happened during the one-week break.

After a while, he grabbed my hand and planted there a million kisses. I laughed a happy laugh. Warmth engulfing my soul.
“Mama, will you hold me tight tonight when I go to bed. And don’t leave me until I’m sleeping!”
I looked at him adoringly and said, “of course I will hold you tight, just like always!”
(In my head, I heard: yeah, like you didn’t miss me at all little coquin!)

 

Dear Blog.
I meant to sleep early the other night, around 10 pm, to give justice to the dark-hallow shadows beneath my eyes. I watched Dracula, after watching Wuthering Heights. Didn’t realize it was Wuthering Heights really, I bought the DVD on amazon France, it was called Les Hauts de Hurlevent. Ralph Fiennes. The English Patient guy. More beautiful than Brad Pitt when he plays Vampire.

So after that I watched Dracula, Anthony Hopkins, one of my faves!…turned the TV off half-way. I got scared. My imaginations have the tendency to scare the shit out of my own self. I’m alone. You see. Father and son gone skiing on some snowy mountains called Chamonix. They’ll be back next weekend. I’m alone. The silence in the apartment is so freaking loud, it’s almost deafening! And watching Draku is not such a good idea. But the women. Gosh, they are HOT!

Anyway, I checked amazon.fr again, see what is interesting. According to my budget….
I have to see the Notebook… slept at quarter to 2. Got carried putting on some stuff on amazon’s wish list. For future expenditures!

Woke up today, squinting my eyes to check the red numbers on our digital clock, 5 meters away. 7 A.M. Closed my eyes back, dragging the quilt up to my ears, listening to the footsteps of our neighbours upstairs and running down in my head the-to-do-list-today. Can it be so boring? Forced my eyelids back to sleep.
When I woke up again, the sunlight told me it was way already late. Got up quickly, googled my eyes to the digiclock. 8:45 am. Hmmmm. That’s something. I never woke up so late… unless when I’m sick. And today. I.am.not.

Spent a good 10 minutes looking for my eyeglasses. I keep on losing them these days! Grrr!
While hunting for the bloody glasses, my brain cells were already doing the marathons. Got to pick up the package in the post office, do sewing on few new pairs of jeans, run the rest of the laundry, God why can I never see the bottom of the basket-for-clothes-to-be-ironed! Have to do the groceries, or I’ll starve this week! Should I go to Tang Freres for my asian cuisine? Not important. This week is a microwave week! Need to get an rdv for my eye check! Need to cut my nails! Blah blah!

I on my pc. As soon as the power is on, the humming started, signs of aging, all the antivirus crap pop up, making the machine slower than phil post. I went to the kitchen to make myself coffee and grab a pain au lait. I went back, the pc is still straggling to open a window. God, I need a new pc!

Checked my emails, finally. Shit! Bad news from unknown people in the Phils. One email after another. Bad news after another. Requesting some files. Okay. This is going to be a promising day!
I on hubby’s pc. I needed to scan some files. His pc is privileged to be attached to a printer/scanner. This is discrimination!
Well, he’s got his pc password protected. I would like to think he’s got some kind of secret.
But I know better.
Little hands do wonder from pc to pc these days. Everything has to be proofed. I tried all that came to mind, nothing works. My hubby doesn’t love me anymore; he doesn’t use my name to protect his screen! Howaboutthat!

I emailed his blackberry to get his magic word. Waited for my phone to ring. Tick-tack-tick-tack. Nothing. Email. Nothing. I let out a big sigh and went rummaging my bag to find my celly. Can’t find it. I picked up the fixed line. Dial my own phone. Busy tone! Land line doesn’t work! Bloody orange! When can they ever fix their stupid livebox to make everything works! I rebooted the shittybox, cut off the internet line. Everything went dead!

Dear Blog, from now on, I shall rebaptize the livebox, DEADbox!

No choice, I went for mobile hunt. Why do women’s bags have so many pockets? And inside THE bag, there are more smaller bags!
Found it. Off. Hmmm, no wonder. I called hubby. Can I have the password please? “Well, I’ve been trying to reach you, your mobile is off, and you know, the land line doesn’t work, you need to reboot it!”

Aha, really!?

His pc is worst than mine. I could have reached London by plane, and his pc would still be trying to open a pop up messenger! We both need new bloody pcs!

Scan. Convert jpeg file to pdf. Scan. Convert jpeg to pdf. Scan. Convert jpeg to pdf.

While waiting, I did some productive stuff on the net. Such as accepting an invitation (note dated one month and two days) from T to join Shelfari. (I thought it was a girl’s name!).

Then I filled some dire documents. Must-return-date already overdue.

Then did a quick grocery list.

By the time I’ve done all that it was already past noon! I rushed to the post office, came back, and took the shopping cart. Spent a good 70 euros. The only food bought were two frozen pizzas, and four microwaveable food for my lunch. Then realized I got nothing to eat for dinner this coming five nights! I rechecked my grocery list. Where the fuck the 70 euros went! Why do they have so many kinds of cleaning-wipes and liquid soaps! Liquid soap for the hands, liquid soap for clothes, liquid soap for the toilet, liquid soap for the dishes, liquid soap for tiled floors! You know, from where I grew up, we used only one. You buy a tide bar. It cleans everything! And like we didn’t die from it!

Anyway, I had a pizza for lunch. Catching up with hubby and David while munching.
By three pm I attacked the bloody basket! Trying to forget the misery of ironing clothes, I put back on Dracula. Watching it on broad daylight is different from watching it at night. It was less scary. Or maybe because I was just so miserable trying to reach the bottom of the basket, I didn’t really notice the whole vampirish thing!

Then I put on Hannibal Lecter, the Red Dragon to finish off my ironing.
Okay. I’m not really into gory stuff these days, blog. It’s still a combo of Ralph Fiennes and Anthony Hopkins, after all. Plus, there’s Edward Norton. It’s like having a good lamb chops and red wine!

So now, it’s like 10:00 pm. Tummy has been asking dinner. I just don’t know what new “single” people eat! Maybe.pizza.again! Well, at least there’s wine to wash it down!

I’m going to pretend that time didn’t pass by this fast! That Christmas didn’t come and that it’s not really a new year I’m in! It’s not difficult to think about, considering that I was rather totally unconscious in bed for two fucking days on the 23^rd and 24^th of Christmas. I could have died on the 24^th and had the taste of what hell is like, what with the sharp knives dug every inch of my skin down to the tips of nails. I must have died and hell must not only be about eternal burning fires. There must be long-sharp knives out there too!

The only thing I was subconsciously aware of that my heart had not stop beating, and brain still functioning, was the fact that in the span of 24 hours, I could hear from the very distant the door of the bedroom carefully opened and closed, the quiet tiptoes, the gentle touch of tiny hands on the thick blanket wrapped around me and the silent whisper “mama, are you still awake?  “Are you going to wake up for our noche Buena?”

He is an angel! Angels are not scared to go to hell and whisked back to good earth lost sick soul! Like mine!

The physical and mental recovery dragged on until the end of January. I.take.that.back. until the end of last week, when gastro bid farewell from our butts! Literally.

I have amnesia of the 24^th. And wondered how I managed to have photo with happy faces around the Christmas table. I think I ate a prawn or two, but no memories of what happened thereafter.

And yet obviously I can’t avoid the fact that Christmas came without me and that I’m really now in 2009. I’m bitter about it and feel like I’m a total jerk!

I tried to keep self-preservation. Survival of oneself. What energy left were used to pull a happy face at work, and the rest used to keep the clothes washed and ironed, house liveable.

It had been a rollercoaster ride. I hate the real rides, how much more this one. The weather does not help either! Hubby has stopped complaining of how I successfully killed-joy the festive season. David seemed oblivious about it. Maybe because I managed to pull an excited happy face on boxing day. Or maybe because Santa did not forget a thing on his list!

…. Up until now, I have had maddening days. Happy days. Exciting Days. Low days. Boring days. Shitty days. Promising days…

…. At the moment I’m preoccupied of finding satisfying answers to these questions….
- mama, where do nightmares come from?
- mama, do nightmares come when I close my eyes?
- Maybe I should not close my eyes so that they won’t come?
- Mama, you know you are having a nightmare when you open your eyes and you see yourself sleeping on the floor, the bed disappear, the computer, the table, the drawers, the books, the clothes, everything disappears… and you see nothing but walls on your back, walls on your right, walls on your front and walls  on your left. When you see that you know you are in a nightmare! (That totally creeps me out! What no hideous monsters? Why freaking walls?)
- mama what should I do when I have a nightmare?