Yeah, I finally went to the Doc

I finally realized that I was going to be even sicker if I didn't go to the doc and do something.

So last night I found a sterile container deep in my drawers and made a little deposit. And then swallowed some amoxicillin, and this morning I took my little sample to the walk-in clinic and got a prescription for antibiotics. God knows what the test will show, every time I take it, something new comes up.

Yeast, mycobacterium, Group B strep, ebola....

I'm still trying to figure out what to do about this house reno, if any of you have any good assvice or contacts re. architects, builders, timelines, etc. I'd love to hear about it. That architect really depressed me. And yes, I finally ordered the couch, and the coffee table, and I have to go get some more stuff. All very flexible, movable furniture so far, like sectionals, and a convertible desk/armoire. So it will fit in the new house post reno and the old one. I hope!

Curled up on the couch

I've been curled up on the couch most of the day feeling blah, kind of a non-specific blah. I got plenty of sleep last night, ate lots of decent food, the house is sort of put together, and I had lots of things to do, but still---I didn't feel like moving much. By late afternoon I had decided that I have developed a UTI, and maybe even a kidney infection, if the pains in my back are any indication. And yes, it was too late to see my family doctor for a last minute appointment, and I am unfortunately all out of those sterile cups, and I can't stand the thought of going to the walk-in clinic tonight and explaining to the doc on call my entire medical history...so I'm lying here feeling crappy trying to pretend nothing is happening. I have loads of antibiotics, I just don't know which one is the right one to take.

Oh, and to the visitors from Daily Kos, via Cecily's blog, welcome, I think you are looking for the category label medical termination, on my sidebar. This is the chain of links involved in case any of my regulars feel curious. Hell of a healthcare system the U.S. has. Can any of you explain to me why you don't use that reputed vast cache of guns to start a revolution in health care? You did in 1776 and that was just about taxes on tea, and it seemed to work out okay. The bastards these days are doing murder by spreadsheet. And yet---not a shot fired. I don't get it?

As I sit here feeling sick, at least I can rest in the knowledge that the sole reason I feel crappy is because I haven't lifted my lazy rear off the couch to see someone. I don't have to worry about paying anyone, or getting permission from my health insurance...so why don't you guys in the U.S. do something? I know a few of you have it pretty good, but lots don't. So what gives?

Yes, I'm bitchy and achy, 'scuse me while I go take a handful of pills.

Something less serious

I'm just in desperate need of thinking about something frilly and dumb.

For today, just one day, we're all going to pretend life ISN'T unfair and shitty, okay?

I've clicked through a bunch of Perez Hilton posts and contemplated new colors for my pedicure. I'm getting my hair done this afternoon, and I may buy some new shoes. Or makeup. Or whatever.

We got the proposal from the architectual firm, and frankly, it looks a bit over the top expensive to me, but I'm going to ask around before I assume. I think they also included construction management and project management in there which might explain it, or else I just wasn't green enough for them so they pitched high enough to scare us away. Dumb....I'm a big 'ol gossip.

I still haven't ordered that furniture, so that may be my next little mission.

And even if I spend the rest of my life with the hubby and two kids, and no more pregnancies, I can live with that because at least my body is acting normal.

The crone has left the building. Now let's get the new me some pampering.

Another quick update

Cross posted from Meg's blog:

Aurelia here again, just to say that Meg is still in the hospital. The ultrasound she had showed that she may have retained placenta or possibly just some blood clots.

So tonight she is having a very gentle D & C, at least that was the plan according to her lovely doc. She should get out by tomorrow morning barring complications and we'll see what happens from there. The day of the funeral is yet to be determined.

I'll update when I hear from D. that she is safely out of surgery.

Thank you for all your love and concern.

Update on Meg

I've updated her blog as well, but I just wanted to add a few things. When I briefly spoke to Meg and D. this morning by phone, I had assumed her daughter was stillborn. She was in fact born alive, briefly, and died soon afterwards.

Meg will be staying in hospital overnight as a precaution, they just want to be sure she is okay before she leaves.

The response has been overwhelming and filled with love. She and D. are so grateful for all the support you have given.

Thank you so so much.

The next time some cynical commentator tells you that the internet is useless and doesn't help anyone, correct them for me, okay? Because today I have seen the value of all that love and support and damn, it can't bring back her daughter, but it helps to know that when tragedy strikes, the world cares.

Sad News

I just posted this on Meg's blog. She will need all of our support now. Please go to her.

Saturday Meg started to feel unwell, as if she was having contractions, and went to the hospital. They examined her and told her that her cervix was fine and there were no contractions showing up on the monitor so she and D. went home. Later that night she felt worse, and the contractions started again.

This time, they didn't stop. She was readmitted into the hospital Saturday night and the doctors tried to stop her labour but they eventually had to remove her cerclage yesterday and she delivered her daughter soon after.

Her beautiful, much loved and much wanted daughter was stillborn at 22 weeks on Sunday September 23, 2007.

Meg is physically recovering and will be home sometime today. Her husband is taking very good care of her, but they are both devastated beyond words. They saw their daughter, held her, and took photos of her. It's all they have to remember her brief life. This is so so unfair after all they had done to ensure a safe pregnancy & delivery. There was truly nothing more they could do.

Meg and D. I'm grieving with you. You are not alone. You are loved.

Technical interlude

My bloglines are all 'effed up. I am missing some posts from some of you, and bizarrely many other blogs have reissued old posts I have already read.

So my absence isn't on purpose....I currently have over 1000 posts to read, but really probably more like only 100? I just can't find the new ones in amongst the old? Am I the only one this is happening to?

Or is could be the upset stomach and nausea that I am suffering from. I'm sure it's not a symptom of anything except the meal I had yesterday at a lovely restaurant. Normally one of my favourites, it's a French restaurant with a beautiful yellow decor and windows filled with sunshine.

I had fabulous fresh hot baguettes; then seared tuna on a bed of avocado to start, cassoulet for my main course, and mango and passionfruit sorbet for dessert.

Fabulous meal---until I felt sick and was in the bathroom all night. I am too tired tonight to think.

And my stomach feels to horrid to sleep. This can't be the meal's fault, right? Please? It must be some virus I caught by accident?

Oh, and to the new lurkers who are hanging around? Your IP addresses are making me paranoid, especially the government ones. If you are a fellow infertile, okay...if you are watching me and monitoring what I say for your department communications strategy....uncool.

Delurk, I don't bite even when I am bitchy and tired. But I am another paranoid psycho according to some people, so maybe I should live up to my rep?

deeply happy again

*Updated below*

just a quick blog to say that I went out to a campaign event tonight and they are making a BIG announcement tommorow, huge, fucking huge, described to me as a neutron bomb by people who would know.

All about IVF and adoption and fertility treatment etc etc. but I don't know what.

I'll update after I attend.

To the adoptees reading this, just know that if you want less adoption demand and better adoption policy, all you need to do is provide better and free fertility treatment, demand will go down and then supply will be appropriate, cause it will meet in the middle. To the infertility patients out there, I have a vague feeling that Dalton McGuinty is going to get you all knocked up, but he already has four kids, so I may be talking outta my hat.

Or maybe the sperminator Julie ALP once described is coming to town.

Or maybe I'm just one drink too many. Yes, bad for potential embies, bad me. Still I needed to let off some steam, fuck....happier anyway.

Smooch

P.S. I don't mind if my friends comment or ask whatever on the previous post, I just didn't want to be the NEXT platinum psycho bitch to strangers. It's okay, say what you want I'll still love you forever. SMOOCH.

Update:

So I went to see the speech today, but unfortunately whatever the big announcement was---they didn't do it for some reason. Instead the they stuck to the platform statement which I had already blogged about. They make the big announcement soon in which case, I will hopefully be able to pass it on. (No I don't know what it was, but I'm being nosy on your behalf...)

Anyway, the good news is that I talked with a bunch of people and was able to discuss various issues and find out that they are going to discuss more specifics after the election when they get together the expert panel and decide what to do about everything.

Plus, a few more people came out to me and it turns out that they are interested in making sure this policy comes to light. So yes, thank God, more of us are coming out of the closet and I will no longer be the only Liberal in the country who talks about her crappy reproductive system.

The only question is what will the press do with this? Will they act like the Liberal Party is trying to turn women into breeders, (the most effin' dumbass interpretation possible) or will they start talking about honouring all of women's reproductive choices?

The reality is that we don't really have true control over our own bodies if we only have the right to end a pregnancy or prevent it, but we can't get pregnant in the first place, right?

Yeah, you all know that, just sayin'.

Back to campaigning....

If you ever wondered....

.....why I am so convinced that things have to change with adoption you only have to look at the newspapers to know why.

Yesterday the Ontario Superior Court struck down the new Ontario Adoption Disclosure Act that allows for all adoptees and birth parents to have access to their original long form birth certificate. The Liberal government had worked very hard for a long long time to work out the problems with this law. It included provisions to protect adoptees from foster care who did not want their new identities revealed to people who may have been convicted of abusing them, yet still allowed those same adoptees to know their past history and other relatives if they so chose.

It included no contact provisions for those few tiny number of adoptees and birth parents who wished no contact. It was simple and it was easy and it worked.

And it's gone, (short of an appeal win), all because the judge was incapable of understanding that no birth mothers or fathers were ever promised closed records or privacy. Hell, my adoption order contains my full birth name including my real last name and was issued to my adoptive parents. All the adoption orders in the 60's on were like that. So if we do the math, every birth mother for the last 47 years knew that this day would come. And since many of them didn't put the father's name on the birth certificate, the only way to find out who the father is, is to contact them directly.

The whole court case is completely illogical. I was appalled at the quotes in the paper from Clayton Ruby, the lawyer who took it to the Superior Court to quash it. According to interviews he did, his nightmare scenario is a 35 year old Catholic woman who gave up a child at 15 after after having premarital sex, and now is terrified that she will be found by her 20 year old child. Only one problem with his logic----any woman who gave up a child for adoption instead of ending the pregnancy would be turned into a saint by the Catholic church these days. And let's count back to twenty years shall we? 1987 people, hardly a big deal to be a single mother then. Every girl I knew in my Catholic high school was sexually active by then and not all of them were so careful with birth control.

I had classmates who gave birth that year and got an apartment and welfare and daycare and went to college, kid in tow. (This was pre-Mike Harris years. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't bad either.)

I don't know who these mysterious supposed birth mothers and adoptees are who are "terrified" of being found out, but they certainly haven't done much to protect themselves. Excluding the convicted child abuser cases, there have been few if any "no contact" requests filed. People I know in government are privately laughing at the Privacy Commissioner and her disproportionate concern for these theoretical people. The program has costs hundreds of thousands to set up and yet no one actually WANTS to be hidden.

Duh.....

Even in the child abuse cases, the adoptees so far all want to find other family members, just not the person who harmed them.

But just for sake of argument, let's ask? Don't parents, even ones who have signed their righs away have a natural obligation to help their children, forever? I think they do. If my sons want to walk away and not talk to me once they become 18, they can, and if they come back and need my help, I have to give it to them. It's what being a parent is. And no, it doesn't go both ways, in reality, children owe nothing to their parents once they are grown. If they have raised their children well, they'll get back all the love and kindness ten fold. If not---well guess what? You reap what you sow.

No one is owed a relationship, but all children are owed their identity, their heritage, their race, their religion, their genetic family history. Mine was erased in seconds, at the stroke of a pen by a judge who never even met me. He replaced it with a lie. Any scientists out there want to comment on how accurate it is to transplant medical history, to literally change someone's genes? Anyone think that a Greek Orthodox child can become Ashkenazi Jewish, like my friend Dani had happen? I can tell you she was bloody confused years later. Or the piece-de-resistance---an adoptee I know was told she was Italian, and in reality was one-half African Canadian. The social workers figured it was better that she never ever know "supposed" shame of being biracial, so they even faked her non-identifying information. She figured it out when she grew up and looked different than her family, so she found her birth parents and got a surprise.

Yes, social workers try their best, but unfortunately their best quite often means not telling the truth in a misguided attempt to protect adoptive families. Records were changed, altered, things left out, like the real father's name, especially if he was a family member and the child was a product of incest. Crimes like sexual abuse never ever reported so that generations of women in the same family were victimized and adoptees were left with the medical damage, but no way of figuring out the truth.

Ahh, but Aurelia, you think, didn't you find your natural mom? Yes, I did, but that doesn't mean I can look at my own birth registration, because I can't. And now the Ontario Superior court has denied me equal treatment under the law compared to those raised by their natural parents. I am being discriminated against on the basis of my family of origin, and on the basis of the circumstances of my birth.

This ruling has permanently infantilized my legal identity, even though I am a legal adult in all other ways in Canada. Even mentally incompetent adults can know who gave birth to them, even though they are not allowed to handle finances, or make decisions about where to live. Criminals are allowed to see their own birth certificates, represent themselves in court, and vote, but they have more rights than me, because I only score 2 out of 3.

My right to know the truth about my own life trumps my ancestors right to privacy. Always has, always will.

For the non-adoptees reading this who are relieved that this won't happen to them, remember something, if they can take my right to security of person away, who's next? Which right will you be asked to sacrifice because Big Brother thinks he knows better?

I'm assuming that I'll be trolled at this point or patronized, people patting my head and telling me that it's all for the best that records are closed. You see, some adoptees who have spoken up online at the Globe & Mail have been attacked and had their comments deleted. If you look at this story you will see a full slate of comments in which an adoptee who wanted the law kept was called a "paranoid, mentally unbalanced" & "a psychotic, platinum plated bitch." This was by a "supposed" birth mom who never wants to be found who also referred to adoptees as "ingrates" to their wonderful adoptive families. Good god, she isn't hiding her true identity as an overly possessive adoptive mother is she? Noooooo, they never pretend to be someone else online *eyeroll*.

If you ever wondered why I hesitate to post what I know about adoption, wonder no more. It's because as a infertile mother of loss, I have feet in both camps, and sometimes in real life, people blurt things out they would never say to my face if they knew I was adopted. It really is like being unintentionally undercover somedays. Things just like the phrase that woman used. I know, YOU all behave on your blogs, and say the right things, but your fellow real life travellers aren't always so careful.

So just call me, another paranoid mentally unbalanced psychotic platinum-plated bitch.

Whoever you are out there, adoptees who are being silenced, I am honoured to stand in solidarity. You are not alone. You have the same rights as your fellow citizens, even if it pisses off everyone else on earth.

Little bump in the road

First I am still feeling very happy and positive about my reproductive system.

BUT, my G.P. called today about the x-rays she had ordered last week on my foot. I knew it was broken, but I didn't get an x-ray on my foot at the teeny tiny town hospital two weeks ago because they didn't have a technician there who could do it until the next morning and I didn't feel like having Gomer Pyle poke at my naked foot any longer.

So I saw Dr.J. cause it still hurts and I couldn't bend my toes at all. She thought it might just be soft tissue damage and swelling bothering me, but she ordered an x-ray anyway.

I have three broken toes, not just one.

This picture might help illustrate. Basically, one of the two bones, (the bone at the tip) of my big toe is crushed, broken, squashed, whatever. And the second toe (The long one beside the big toe) has three bones. My second toe has a break in the bone on the bottom, nearest the base. My third toe has another break, middle section, but that's just a small fracture.

I learned the names!

Big toe break - Distal phalange
Second toe break - Proximal phalange
Third toe fracture - Middle phalange

See, not so hard, right? Bones not so hard that is....

It will take at least another four weeks to heal, then a couple of more weeks to gently learn how to bend at the joints. No more mad cleaning and organizing for me, I guess. I really should've been a little easier on myself, huh? Here I was thinking, oh, it's been a couple of weeks, I need to use it a bit, it's healed, blah blah blah, and damn that was a bad idea.

So, I'm just going to put my feet up on a pillow and relax. Maybe blog and surf a bit, or finally deal with all the photos I have that are supposed to be scanned in. Maybe buy some steel toed shoes in a sexy style?

Oh, and maybe plan my next vacation, somewhere soft and cushiony and padded.

Best political news I've heard in a long time

We all know the issues around infertility and adoption, because we've been through it, right?

And quite a lot of political people have been through it, even if they don't like to come right out and say it publicly. As I've mentioned before Stephane Dion is one of the few who have "come out" and admitted it, for which I unreservedly admire him. Makes me feel a little less self-conscious at campaign offices anyway!

Anyway, the Ontario Liberal Party's platform was just announced this past weekend, and I'm a little overwhelmed with emotion. I couldn't even blog about it for a few days, I was so speechless with happiness. (As you can see from the length of this post, yes, I've recovered my ability to yap yap yap...hehe, still happy though.)

(BTW, I have no idea if any of my efforts got this on the radar, and yes, I'm digging around, enquiring minds want to know, but whoever made sure this got in, is my hero, for life.)

Check it out here, and go to page 37. Or just read it in the summary, or just read it in the quote I copied below.

"Helping Ontarians Start a Family

More and more people are having trouble getting their families started because of infertility.
Ontario Liberals believe that everyone should have a fair opportunity to create a family.
Over the next four years, we will shine a light on this unspoken problem and help to solve it.
We will help more Ontarians realize their dream of having a family. Here’s what we’ll do:

•Make fertility monitoring available earlier in life, so people know whether or not they
are likely to have a problem having children

•Create an expert panel to examine all issues related to fertility treatment and adoption and
recommend ways to make both easier and more affordable "

In all the years that I have worked in politics, I can honestly say that I have NEVER EVER seen infertility or perinatal loss or adoption end up in a platform document.

It's a promise, in writing, that they give a damn about us. And not just in a mushy whatever way, but they actually used the word affordable!!!!

For those who have run out of money chasing the fertility dream of having children that word is HUGE. And for those of us who wish that money could be permanently removed from the adoption equation, but instead be truly based on the best needs of the child, yep, that's really huge.

Crying over here---with total unadulterated joy.

Fellow Infertiles and Wanna Be Moms, and Stirrup Queens: please link to this post and to the platform site and quote, because we need to reach as many readers in Ontario as possible, so they can spread the word and let their local candidate know how much this means. They need to know that we are are out here and that promise means something. And let the other party candidates know what you think, because none of them have said one word about these issues.

Tell families, tell friends, tell co-workers, tell your RE's, your OB's, your social workers so they can spread the word in their offices. This is an issue we should be talking about. Our future families very existence depends on this issue being on the radar with every politician, and letting everyone know that on October 10th, THIS WILL AFFECT OUR VOTE!

Why should your local candidate care? What difference could this make to them?

Because all politicians can count voters, and if one in five couples are infertile, and one in four women and men will experience miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death in their lifetime then we check and see that there are currently 8.3 million voters over the age of 18 registered in Ontario; translating into 2 million voters affected by this issue. Even if we halve that number to eliminate voters who are older, who do not want to have children, or who are not yet aware of their future infertility, that's still 1 million voters.

A big enough block to change the world, or at least this province, IMHO.

distractions galore

I'm very very good at avoidance people. I know I owe some emails, but I needed to not think about pregnancy etc. for a few days. And next week, my meeting with my RE. So let's all stick our fingers in our ears, and sing lalalalalalala til tomorrow okay? Cause tomorrow IS another day, and yes, I do have a slight Scarlett O'Hara complex.

I've spent the last 48 hours desperately shopping for clothes, shoes, uniforms, school supplies, etc. etc. then sorting and ironing name labels on everything, and after finally getting them off to school, dealing with the contractors and painters, and electricians who are descending on my house this week.

And during all this, Mr.Cotta picked up his new car, which as a second car I still contend is an unneeded expense. But, he wanted it, and we could afford it, so he got it. It's a Honda Fit. Tiny little car, 6 inches off the ground, no space for us & 2 kids with hockey bags and bikes, etc. If he was going to get something we couldn't use for a family car, he should've gone for the midlife crisis car and gotten a 2 seater sports car off lease a few years.

He was trying to be all frugal and budgety or something. Silly man, he'll just end up getting it stuck in our driveway this winter. Oh well.

Speaking of budgets, have you seen Bitch Ph.D.'s blog the last few days? She's broken the taboo again, and has written about her finances, with numbers!!! I mean, really, think about it, we all blog about our vaginas like it's no big deal, but she actually told everyone how much money they make, and how she's having trouble affording a house now that the subprime market in the U.S. is in meltdown, and how much of their budget goes on what, etc. etc. Comments are fascinating.

I'm still amazed that they net out so low after deductions. For years Canadians have heard that we pay such outrageous taxes, blah blah blah, and various academic studies all said it was bullshit, and that really Americans pay the same as we do, they just put it on property taxes, or pay user fees. Which makes sense, because you have to compare the same basket of services to the same basket of goods right? And I don't care if you call it a tax or a fee or a premium, it's still dollars coming out of my pocket, and what the fuck am I getting for it in exchange?

Speaking of the exchange of money for stuff....

This bit about adoption in the U.K. has me floored, and I've been reading about it at RT's blog and other places. Then I found this horror story at Amy Adoptee's blog, and it sealed the deal. I've really become quite concerned about the money involved in adoption and CAS, but the Telegraph series on adoption in the UK & the Times stuff really did me in.

And please don't think that Canada is an exception. Since the Mike Harris years when welfare rates were slashed, social housing was gutted, and single mothers were targeted as if they were the precursor to Al-Quaeda, Ontario CAS has increased the numbers of kids taken into care astronomically. It is unreasonable to believe that previously good parents "suddenly" started abusing kids, or that social workers "suddenly" noticed, especially when they only seemed to pay attention to the fate of healthy white infants who were wanted for adoption.

As I said explained to others, "They need healthy white infants to fill adoption quotas that their budgets are based on. They get X dollars per adoption completed at each CAS in the UK. The goal was to encourage the adoption of kids over 5, or non-white or disabled as these are the kids who languish in foster care and are classified as unadoptable.

Unfortunately, adoptive parents are only interested in healthy white infants period. The refuse to take a child who isn't perfect. So it's a standoff, and if the social workers don't fill their quotas, they are unemployed because the government won't give them the money. And they only get a flat budget for taking older or non-white kids into care, instead those kids just cost money for foster care and court time.

They are a drain. Cheaper for CAS to ignore the problem and cross their fingers unless a headline hits or a parent is being extremely abusive.

Which frankly is why running government like private business is bad. Instead of morality we get avarice.

Of course, the best solution is pretty simple, just pay for fertility treatment for infertile couples and do better research on why infertility is rising. And maybe give CAS the money it needs to operate properly."

Anyway, read the Telegraph story & the Times one about private equity firms getting into the business of running foster care; if I was from the U.K. I'd be nervous about adopting considering the implications. As an adoptee, I feel sick about a price tag on my compadre's heads. No thanks.

I'm also noticing the provincial election heating up here. For some interesting blogs on that, including todays hilarity about John Tory asserting that creationism could be taught in provincially funded schools check out Liblogs and Progressive Bloggers. (for my American buddies, this is a dead debate up here, so everyone is making fun of him. Between this and his attempt to fund religious schools with tax dollars, methinks someone has hired a right wing U.S. campaign consultant to determine strategy. Bad idea IMO, based on what happened the last time he did that.....)

Have to go call an architect now, and maybe finally read some personal blogs this afternoon!

Couldn't write yesterday, maybe today?

I'm back home, swollen and bruised, but alive. We all survived our trip. I'm running around getting everyone back to school & work, dealing with electricians and repair people, and yes, going back & seeing my RE soon, next week in fact. Oh yeah, and there's a provincial election happening soon. Forgot about that.

All this activity...I'm great at keeping busy when I can't stand to be alone with my thoughts.

The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, -

The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity. - Emily Dickinson

Yesterday was the anniversary of Matthew's death, 9 years ago he died the day he was born. If you've never read it, you can find the story under the label Pregnancy #2 on my sidebar. I've written a lot about him and all he meant to me.

Today is the anniversary of Georgia's death, 3 year's ago today, we discovered she had died in utero when we went to get our scan just prior to the amnio. I've really written very little about her. I had written a post before, then taken it down, and now, bits and pieces sit here on this blog & in my drafts, not really right somehow. I can't seem to get it out properly. I know I need to, but it's so much easier to just repress it all and pretend nothing happened? Right?

I know, wrong, I know.

I'll try to write something.

Maybe.

Maybe I'll just run screaming into the street instead.

Outta here

I stopped throwing up, but I never did stop swaying. And that was a bad thing, because a few days ago, I tripped on the outdoor steps, fell down them, and crashed, smashing my legs, foot, elbow, etc. etc.

I have a broken toe, multiple bruises and an absolute terror of the outdoors now.

Mr.Cotta fell too in a separate incident, bruised and banged up his foot, and his shin. Nothing broken thank God.

We were both stone cold sober btw, the steps, along with this entire house are built for extremely tall people, and I am short. The rise on these steps, combined with the gravel and log steps, makes for a difficult walk for anyone.

The water pump for the well broke the night before that, no clean water for hours. The landlord came quickly with a plumber, but it turned out that it was the electrical circuit that had become messed up. We had a choice, we could either have clean water, or have heat and power in the bunkie my son and his friend were sleeping in. It drops to 10 degrees Celsius (maybe 50 F I think?) at night in cottage country, so it was like choosing between a rock and a hard place. In the end, we hooked up the heater to the extension cord.

We're leaving early. Even he agrees, this was a debacle. He keeps muttering things like "filing a forty page cause of action when I get back to the office". I know he won't sue, but I wish he would at least get a refund. Sigh....

As God is my witness, I'm never going to a cottage again. Even a resort hotel anywhere rural or northern is iffy at this point. I'm too afraid.

Have to finish doing laundry & packing the car now. Even with a broken foot, the chores never end.