The week that has passed has been an extremely surreal and weird one. This week, I have done things that I have never done before and this isn't to say that I have stuff that I could tick off my bucket list (that is, if I had one).
Anyway, I have, in the last week,
1. Lived through the horror of Muffin getting bit by a husky. What goes round does come around. My dad tells me that the scariest day of his life was when our dog leapt up and bit me square in the eye when I was four. And now, I've had front row seats to that happening to my own child. Never again.
2. Sent off a letter from a lawyer to the dog place where Muffin got bit.
I never imagined being one of those people that had to send out 'lawyer's letters'. It was every bit as cold, intimidating and condescending as I imagined and I didn't really like being at the sending end of such a notice.
3. Become a typical Singaporean Kiasu mother watching statistics and stalking the poor admissions people at 2 schools.
Jordan's Primary One registration happened this last week. We were pretty set on the one school that I volunteered at. What complicated matters was that Jordan's grandma expressed explicit desire for Jordan to go to her alma mater, her not having had daughters to send there. All the while, we thought that grandma's school wasn't in the running, but this year, there were more vacancies and there was a possibility for Jordan to get in.
That meant I had to play my cards carefully. Give up the spot at the school I had volunteered at to possibly end up balloting for Grandma's school. To eventually make the decision, I had to call the schools almost on the hour to get updated numbers. I also appeared at Grandma's school once on the first day of registration and twice on the second day to see the break down of the numbers. Embracing the kiasu mom totally.
I couldn't have on me the responsibility of not having given Grandma's school a fair chance. But that meant a constantly elevated blood pressure and a constant urge to vomit from the anxiety of possibly making the wrong decision that might render Jordan school-less. It really was too close to call at some points. Eventually, the take up rate at Grandma's school excluded everyone outside 1 km and all I had to do then was to race down to our original school of choice to submit all our documents with about 50 minutes to spare. Never again.
4. Packrat and I are now separated. On paper anyway. Because we wanted to give Grandma's school a fair chance, one of our addresses had to be at Grandma's house. I drew the short straw and changed mine over. Procrastination does have its benefits since a lot of my mail still gets sent there.
So on paper, both Packrat and I don't live together. When I told him that, he said "Trust you to break up with me and not tell me. Trust you to break up with me, move in to my parents house and not tell them."
To be fair, I did tell his parents.
5. Our neighbour died on us. Our neighbour is very old. She's been hospitalised for a while. An hour after she got discharged and came home, her care-giver was screaming and hysterical. That drove both Packrat and I over. While there and trying to call the ambulance, Muffin ambled over and wonders why his parents were in the neighbour's house. I had to shepherd him back and when I returned, Packrat was performing CPR under the instructions of the emergency services operator on his mobile's speaker. He looked at me and shook his head. At that moment, the Fast Response Emergency Rider entered the house, took over from Packrat for a moment before pronouncing time of death. Thereupon, the entire squad from the neighbourhood police post descended upon floor.
So the gamut of strange; over for now and hopefully for a long time yet. It does bring out the ostrich in me, wanting to bury my head in the ground and pretend to hide in full view.
Desperately in need of a vacation and a time out from this surreal reality that I find myself existing in.
* The title of this post is based off one of my favourite episodes of The West Wing, What Kind of Day Has it Been which ends with a shooting.
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