Last week wasn’t conducive to keeping up with the news. It took me most of the week to recover from the weekend which had been so stressful. We had gone to an Association meeting where I was involved with three presentations, one of which was to debate why I feel the two Associations of which I sit on each Board should remain aligned with one another. The President of the Meeting which we were attending (who was the catalyst behind the idea of severing the Alliance due to a personal grudge - he was not asked to renew his term as Director and feels that had I withdrawn my name from the Nomination, they would have come grovelling to him to reinstate him. Not true!) has been taking out his frustrations on me and ended up personally attacking me at the beginning of the Director’s meeting on Friday night. I had fully intended to maintain my composure, but ended up getting into a heated argument with him. Luckily, some of my colleagues backed me up, and very-long-story-short, my presentation on Saturday to the membership went very well and the two Associations will remain in an alliance. In fact, in the end, only ONE property voted to sever the relationship! I found it interesting that one of the Directors who is leaving the Board came up to me at the end of the AGM and gave me the “It wasn’t personal…” speech. Funny, the President didn’t do the same thing. There is no love lost there.
It took a few days to get my blood pressure back to normal and by Thursday, I realized just how much the stress had been spilling over into our lives. Evan had been spoken to a few weeks back at Cubs by the “Akela”. Evan is a sixer and after they had been fooling around at their Hallowe’en party, Evan didn’t tuck his uniform back in before the start of the Closing Ceremony. The Akela spoke to Evan about this, something along the lines of “you need to set an example for your six… responsibility…” Evan, normally being very responsible and conscientious, was crushed and shut down. Cubs was no longer fun and he tried to say he hadn’t wanted to go this year in the first place. (So why did you spend the summer working on badges, Evan?!)
He went to Cubs on Thursday and didn’t respond whenever Akela tried to speak with him. After he finally shut himself in the bathroom, D’Arcy said enough is enough. When the meeting was over, D’Arcy mediated while Evan & Akela talked. Evan suggested some games they could play and since he already has his knot specialty badge, perhaps he could help the other Cubs with their knots on the night they learn the knot-of-the-month.
When I was tucking the boys into bed that night, I asked Evan if he felt better after talking to Akela and getting his feelings out. He said that he did. I tried to compare it to my meeting last week and we had the following conversation:
Mom: I’m glad that you talked to Akela about what you thought wasn’t fair and what was bothering you. It’s hard to do, but you feel better in the end. It’s just like my meeting last weekend. I didn’t want to go because there was a person there who I knew wasn’t going to be fair to me and would be mean to me, but I went and stood up for myself and what I believe and everything worked out. It wasn’t fun to go through, but I’m glad I did.
Alex: Are you talking about the bully?
Evan: You mean Mr. M?
Mom: Yes, he’s like the Akela of my association.
Evan: But I thought that under the current By-laws, his term as President was up at this AGM?!
Oh my!! They do listen to everything, don’t they?!
In other news, Olivia had a shrimp challenge scheduled for Wednesday, but the allergist’s office called on Monday and cancelled it. I was disappointed there wasn’t another appointment available before Christmas, but she’s rescheduled for January. I was hoping to know if she’s anaphylactic to shrimp before Christmas since there will be so many people around and events to take her to, however, we’ll just keep her away from it as best we can and always make sure her epi-pen is close by.
Speaking of her allergies, my sister-in-law was telling me that at the major grocery store in town, there is a huge peanut man made out of REAL peanuts as soon as you walk in the door. Ugh. It’s already hard enough to take her to the store, but come on - a PEANUT MAN??!! I’m going to have to write to the store. With Christmas approaching, there are more nuts out in the produce department, so I’m back to feeding her mostly frozen or canned vegetables due to the risk of cross-contamination.
The Volunteer Tea went well; so well in fact, that I felt badly for complaining about the work involved in setting it up. The organizers were most appreciative and the comments were all very positive. They had confirmed for 30, but in the end, 36 showed up. The organizers said it was the best one they’d had so far and a HUGE pointsettia arrived at the door this morning as a thank you.
Alex’s eye appointment on Friday went well - he’s still stalled with one letter to go to reach legal driving vision, so will still get the Atropine drop at least four more weeks. I was starting to worry because of how late it was when they got back from the city, but Ginna had given Alex Tim Horton’s as a treat so they stopped at her house to get him all cleaned up before coming home and being around Olivia. I was so tired that we skipped the Christmas Tree Lighting, but Alex went along with my mother, just the two of them. We went to the Santa Claus Parade on Saturday night (in the warm rain) which was fun. The boys decided not to go on the Scout Float (much to D’Arcy’s relief) but Alex really wanted to be in the parade, so sat with Ginna & the choir on the United Church float. We walked home when it was over and put the girls to bed. D’Arcy & the boys & I lit a fire and watched “Hairspray”. We hadn’t watched a movie together in months!
I also found out this week that my dear friend has been laid off from her job, and another friend and her husband have separated. I see her every week and had no idea that he has been in jail for drinking & driving and for beating her five times in the past two years. She finally had the strength to tell him to leave.
D’Arcy was supposed to defend the first part of his Thesis tomorrow, but we haven’t heard from his advisor, so assume it is not happening as planned. We are praying that this does not affect his graduation date.
Phew. What a lot of news for one post. This week looks like it will be busy again - I’m beginning to sound like a broken record…
