I was awakened at about 5:00 a.m. by the sound of one of my pugs, Maximus, in the throes of a major upchuck. GAK-GAK-GAK! In a flash, I was up and scrambling, motivated by concern, compassion, and the fact that he was on the bed. I scanned my surroundings for the nearest handy barf-catcher – a copy of Scientific American, my Easy Japanese instructional, Fondy’s latest issue of Flare. I didn’t even hesitate, grabbing Flare and moving to position it under Max before – GWAARK! Too late. Damn! By the time I returned to from the bathroom, toilet paper in hand, he had already repositioned himself well away from the mess and nodded off to sleep. Fortunately, he’d been lying at the foot of the bed. I cleaned up before he inevitably returned to eat his meal for a second time, then crawled back under the sheets. Two and a half hours later, I was awakened again by Maximus gnawing on my elbow (as is his early morning custom). Evidently, he was hungry. And why wouldn’t he be? He’d been robbed of half his dinner!
Well, there was no going back to sleep. I let the dogs out, fed them, and then, motivated by the results of my inner scan (q.v. last issue, ed.), hit the weights for an hour. I followed up with a protein shake, a shower, a look at the comments posted by you, dear readers, and then it was off to our couples massage.
Yes, in celebration of our ten year wedding anniversary (for those who don’t know, each wedding anniversary is associated with a traditional gift. For instance, 6 years is iron, 7 is copper, 8 is electrical appliances, 9 is pottery, and 10, apparently, is massage oil and not, as I erroneously assumed, shrapnel). Anyway, we headed over to the spa where we were shown to our massage room. Within minutes, we were lying down on some uncomfortable straw mattresses, faces resting in what I suspect were plush toilet seats fastened to the ends of the massage table. I must admit, this experience wasn’t quite as horrific as the last one (read all of the terrifying details here: http://josephmallozzi.com/2006/11/29/lets-call-it-november-29th/) although my masseuse did seem to take a sadistic pleasure in really working my right shoulder. Despite this, I nodded off three times before waking up the third and final time with the massage ended and my right shoulder incredibly sore and stiff.
We had lunch at Fortune Garden where we enjoyed some truly awesome prawn in house sauce, gai-lan with oyster sauce, and pan-fried turnip cake (Sorry, no pics. I forgot my camera. But we’ll be back).
We returned home for exactly 2:00 p.m., perfectly timed to coincide with the hour at which the plumber said he’d stop by. When the plumber did finally arrive at approximately 3:45 p.m., we brought him downstairs to check out the tiny room that houses our water heater. Like parsley and those art galleries found in certain hotels, it’s a room that is mostly ignored unless something is amiss – like, say, water damage caused by a leaky pipe. Apparently, there are two outlets for the system in the event of an overflow and, normally, they should plumb directly into the drain at the heart of the room. In our case, however, both outlets simply deposited the water directly onto the floor. “Ohhhh,”our plumber shook his head as he inspected the water damage. “Your house inspector should have caught this.” Pulling out his handy PFD, he scanned the walls. Beep-beep-beep. “Ohhh. Looks like the moisture made it into the walls.” And later, once the trim was removed. “Ohhh. That’s mold.” When all is said and done, it’ll cost about $2000 to dig out the mold, dry the walls, and replace the trim. I can’t help but think that if we lived in igloos like most of our Canadian neighbors (a_frayn who admonished me for yesterday’s entry and suggested I “show some Canadian respect”, please take note), this wouldn’t have been an issue.
The rest of the day was spent reading and watching the dogs sunbathe. It was 29 degrees Celsius today which is (correctly me if I’m wrong) approximately 5000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot!
Tomorrow = more of the same. Except without the massage, the visit by our tardy plumber, and the dog vomit.
Today’s entry is dedicated to the real life Dr. Beckett and to birthday boy Nathaniel. Also, my right shoulder.
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