The Chairman is fine; the chunk of his head removed by the vet was sufficient to include all of the malignant material. He is still getting extra pats.
We hit the airport early Saturday to fly to Canberra, but were to experience a string of cancelled flights and delays that took us through to mid afternoon before we finally took off. We went through the scanners, we came back out. A couple of times. We went on the escalators. Bear took over and we went on the escalators again. And again. I plonked Beloved in a cafe and followed Bear as she stumbled and whirlybirded through the entry lounge, past the pub, 15 minutes at a time on the trains, through the gift shop with an explosive expression of toddler emotion when I stopped her pulling all the fake koalas off the shelf...
(I stood over her, feet on either side to protect her from being stepped on, and waited patiently for the change of heart that meant we could move on)
... to the red ferrari which once again was worthy of being climbed on. And on. It went.
It seems it took Virgin Blue until about 2pm to realise they would be needing another plane. Still, when we were ready to board a stewardess who had fallen in love with Bear (they mostly do) came up with a Wiggles book she'd found and held onto all day. That was a nice touch.
We flew to Canberra and hung out with the rellos. We had some stupid idea that having been through a day of hell we might get some help with Bear in the evening, but after briefly checking her out they went back to their wine and conversation and we snuck around the bathroom and kitchen in a daze doing all the usual chores.
I've learned something about relatives, grandparents in particular, and the difference between the talk and talk about wanting grandkids and the actual walking of the walk when it comes to rolling up sleeves and being useful when it's messy and hard.
(A certain sister-in-law and her partner being a bit of an exception to this rant...)
That being said, Bear was brilliant and positive, even in the airport, and made what could have been a day from hell into a tolerable family bonding exercise. Thanks Bear.
Trump’s dictatorship is a fait accompli
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What can Americans do? What should Australia do? A few weeks ago, I drew up
a flowchart to estimate the probability that Trump would establish a
dictatorsh...
5 days ago
1 comment:
Alas, grandparents are a really strange bunch. Partially its cultural, partially its generational, partially its distance, partially its the existing relationship (or lack of) of whichever partner to their parents that can determine the nature and extent of their involvement in grandchildren's lives.
We've experienced variations of all the above with our kids' three sets of grandparents (my partner's parents divorced many years ago, and her dad remarried).
And from what I've observed and been told, there's also the question of whether they can get their noses out of SKI-ing (Spending the Kids' Inheritance) or their own careers etc long enough to notice the grandkids before they grow up.
Sometimes, they are just waiting til the grandkids get 'interesting'.
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