All hail the seated (walking) wounded

A good day again, as I got to catch up with Billy in Ormskirk through the magic of Zoom. Apparently it also works in other places in the UK so I might try and speak to my family one of these days. Actually, better not go there.

Here in Ottawa, there were incidents a-plenty. I've made a commitment to stop drinking in 2022: a whole year of misery and sobriety. What the hell could go wrong? As I check my Visa statement and see the number of 11pm eBay and Amazon purchases, I think it could be a good pension plan. Tom frigging Verlaine... my God, what was I thinking?

So, having made the commitment, I have made a concomitant commitment to pound my liver as much as possible until December 31. That way, I can lie in bed groaning on January 1 and not drink. With this in mind, I made an order from Dial A Bottle. This meant I had to wait in all day as apparently the 11-1 window means "any time after 5". Good job I am stopping drinking, I thought to myself...

Early afternoon, Ottawacker Jr. got a call from the family of a friend of his to invite him to an outside toboggan run (known as Grasshopper Hill)... Mrs. Ottawacker stepped in to take him and that was the last I saw of them for the next 4 hours. Around 5.30 there is the sound of a key in the lock and a great deal of groaning... Mrs. Ottawacker opens the door with a look of great anguish on her face. She'd come a cropper on the hill and was not happy - it was, apparently, Ottawacker Jr.'s fault... He'd jumped out in front of the toboggan as a joke and watched with horror as it had turned cartwheels in front of him. He was sensibly keeping his distance - an angered Mrs. Ottawacker is not anything anyone wants to see...

I said, rather helpfully, I thought, that she was supposed to be watching over O. Jr. - "you're not a spring chicken of 45 any more", I said, to give a little emphasis to my point. Instead of demurring, she said rather tersely that she was going for a bath and guess who would be cooking dinner. 

As she harrumphed up the stairs,  Ottawacker Jr. put his head through the door and asked one of his "Can I just stay..?" questions, to which I immediately answered "yes - as long as you want, but keep your mask on."

Dinner was being cooked, the hot bath seemingly doing little to that the frostiness in the bathroom, when there was a pounding on the door. Ottawacker Jr.'s friend telling me to come because the plum of my loins was lying in the snow having come off his sled, described a perfect midair arc, and landed flat on his arse. 

I picked him up, carried him inside, got him out of the 27 layers of snow gear that Canadians wear and went back to the stove to rescue the turkey ("on the fourth day of turkey, my father gave to me, turkey with spaghetti"). 

I helped Mrs. Ottawacker out of her bath, fed her Tylenol, put O. Jr. in the shower, carried on cooking, served dinner and drank a bottle of wine.

In between this, I started reading A Christmas Carol to Ottawacker Jr. Stave I is in the books. It was an unmitigated disaster. "This is boring. You promised me terror and ghosts and all I get is weird words and stupid names."

Then I brokered a fragile peace, served them dessert and took my blip of the day.

How was your day?