Catching Up

It’s now a week+ since our last conversation so there’s a whole lot of catching up to do. I’d try to cram in as much detail as I can without boring you. Just sit, relax and enjoy the ride.
The week began with getting the University Painters and Window Cleaners ( for those adults who may have seen the movie – “Confessions of a window cleaner”, what you are about to read is an exact opposite and as far from the movie as you could find. Sorry to disappoint you) to put a fresh coat of paint on the garage door and all window frames while the glass windows and doors got a thorough wiping down. Now you must be wondering why this is worthy of mention.
I was blown away by the professionalism and dedication to duty of these university students – two males and three females with their respective franchise managers who themselves are students too. For the two days the teams worked, you could count how many times, they engaged in idle chatter or frivolous conduct. They split up and painstakingly tackled the respective aspects of the jobs they were assigned. Wait for it, the ladies did all the paint job which included carrying ladders and climbing the roof to paint the windows that were that high up. They were quite handy and deserve generous commendations.
My boy Danju had on Monday following Mother’s Day began his soccer practice after a successful school tryout. The challenge here is that some practice will hold after school hours which means that I would have to pick him because the school bus which usually brings him home will be unavailable that late. Did I hear you say big deal. Perhaps you will have kinder words for me when you remember that Papa has his football practice twice a week at the opposite end of town and on the same days as Danju’s after-school-hours soccer practice. Boy who said life was easy. I am still scratching my head about fitting both conflicting events so no egos are bruised. Phew!!
More about Danju. He turned fourteen today and is away to Ottawa on a school trip for four days. I had to rush him out of bed at 5am this morning to enable us meet the 6.30 am departure time for the 5 hour-long bus trip to Ottawa. He (like most of his mates on the trip) was excited at all the activities lined up including visits to the Parliament Building – our Canadian seat of federal power and the Rideau Canal -a visitor's paradise for boating, cruising, sightseeing, fishing, swimming, shopping, relaxing and more. A part of me is happy for my boy but another part of me is anxious because this is his first trip without a family member. Well I guess I have to learn to start letting go. He has grown so tall in the past year and has yet to still grow.
Papa had his first game of the football season on Thursday last week and finally the monkey is off his back. I quote verbatim from a report done by the team manager on the game:

Our First Game and VICTORY!!
Congratulations to the boys and the coaching staff on a fantastic start to the 2009 season!! The Renegades ran the ball exceptionally well en route to a 20-6 victory over Toronto last Thursday night. Touchdowns by our running backs -Trenton Ford (#74), Riley Manning (#13) and Felix Mba (#8) - capped off an all-round team effort! Following an early Toronto touchdown, our defense tightened up and played tough Renegades ball for the balance of the game. Great job, boys!

Special thanks to all the parents for camping out on the far side of the field away from bench. It is critical in football that the boys remain focused as the coaches need to constantly teach them about how to play especially while the game is actually being played. Having you cheer them on is definitely encouraged from the far side of the field....while the coaches do their valuable work with the boys …

Just in case you are wondering, Felix Mba is Papa ( a name he got as an infant because of his age inappropriate behaviour. He acted and still acts at times, way more mature than his age would lead you to expect!)
It was Victoria Day weekend and a time for fireworks and to chill with family. The Queen Victoria celebration is one of the vestiges of colonialism that still hangs on Canada’s neck and one that is not likely to be shed soon. Just for the records, Canada is a member of the British Commonwealth and we still have a Governor General position as well the face of the queen of England on our currency.
So it was Victoria Day weekend and Siya came down from her base for some quality time with the family. It was short ( time with loved ones always seem short) but it gave us a much cherished and ‘longed-for’ time to be a complete family once again. She went back to base after three nights and this morning it was Danju leaving for Ottawa. So it’s back to just Sampi, Papa and yours sincerely at home until Danju gets back on Friday.
I promised to bring The Diary up to speed and feel like I have done the catching up as I said I would.
Now I can go get some sleep and leave you to attend to other matters. Good night…

Mother's Day

Today is special (well shouldn't every day be special if you really think of it) it is Mother’s Day in North America and so the diary sends felicitations to all Females - mothers, yet to be mothers, those who are unable to be mothers (for whatever reasons) and also to those who have decided not to be mothers. May the good Lord bless your every effort and meet you all at your various points of need.

My children and I have just finished saying our prayers for the night after what was largely a day we goofed around. Saturday was busy with two home showings (yes the showings continue as we look forward to a reasonable offer in the hope that the ultimate buyer will see as much value as we have extracted thus far living here). We also touched up a few areas to increase the curb appeal and exterior ambience.
Papa’s scrimmage was cancelled not because it rained but because the rains came with some lightening. Better to be safe than be sorry.
So we slept in until 9am on Sunday when Sampi who was billed to do a power point presentation at church left. The boys and I then went to pick up the mother’s day gift item we had worked on for Siya (who sadly will wait until she’s here next weekend to see it).
Our next port of call was Etobicoke to attend the Igbo Mass and the christening of my cousin’s grand kid.
We returned to Oakville after the Mass and it has been childlike fun all the way. Boy, I am loving it. Part of what we’ve had to do was sing the ‘Song of the South” – the Zippity Do Dah song.
Please don’t blame me if this is a song that you can’t relate to. For all who are baby boomers or within a shouting distance of the golden generation, I can understand your plight. I will attempt to post the lyrics below. For the younger ones among us or the young at heart, please clear your throats and sing along:

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headin' my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay

Mister Bluebird's on my shoulder
It's the truth, it's actual
Ev'rything is satisfactual
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Wonderful feeling, wonderful day

Happy Mother’s day and have a good night.

All it takes is a Day

Indeed a day can make a world of difference. Ever tried talking with someone who missed a very important deadline (such as closing the deal on a house purchase, or the purchase of a long-haul flight ticket that was on a sale, or someone’s wedding etc) by just one day. It could be just a day to you but if you are involved (apologies to Ikemba Nnewi of “Because I’m Involved fame”) it could be mean the world.
So Monday and Tuesday my baby boy Papa was as shadow of his usually ebullient self and could not go to school. To get him to eat was like pushing water uphill. By this time, Danju was feeling much better. My poor Sampi had to take some hours off her school time to stay home with Papa while I kept a business appointment at mid day on Monday. Talk of team work and I say give me better examples.
As suddenly as it came, it disappeared. I mean what the medics had said was Papa’s flu (not the swine one). So early on Wednesday, my little guy (a description he would rather I did not use) got up and got dressed for school. Wow! The sun shines after all. I would have preferred breaking him back into the scheme of things gradually but here he was ready to roll. So after making sure he had his multivitamin, vit-C, his Buckley’s (that awful tasting but efficacious cough concoction) and of course something to eat, I let him roll.
Meanwhile I made sure my cell phone was by me at all times just in the event that he got to school and had a relapse (is that word correct in this context?). Three hours after, no phone call. Four, five, six hours later still no phone call. God is with us! At 3.05pm, the door bell rang and it was Papa. He had made it through the school day but that wasn’t all. He had also cemented his place on the school’s track team and would be representing the school in 100m as well as being the relay anchor. See how much difference a day can make. He did look very tired though so I pleaded with him to have his lunch and take a snooze. I also made him a glass of smoothie as additional refreshment.
Wednesday night was youth night for the boys. Danju wanted to go for it and so did Papa. Between you and me, I did not feel comfortable allowing Papa to attend – the cautious daddy not wanting to push his son’s recovery.
Sampi meanwhile had an art exhibition at school and I had to go take a look at my girl’s works. From Sampi’s art exhibition, she and I went over and picked the boys (yes Papa twisted my arm into allowing him go for youth).
Meanwhile I forgot to mention that because Papa was not in his elements on Tuesday he had missed Tuesday night’s football practice. I got an email on Thursday in the morning that an extra practice had been scheduled for Thursday night to further prep his Atom team (who meanwhile had been baptized Oakville Titan Renegades) for a scrimmage fixed for Saturday. If we had not missed the Tuesday practice or his position on the team was not key, I would have passed on the Thursday one so Papa could recover some more.
Anyway we went for the Thursday practice but left after about 70 minutes when he got tired. The upside was that he had shown his team he would battle with them on Saturday.
By the way, I sometimes wonder why football teams (not soccer please, so don’t ask me what I thought of the Chelsea versus Barcelona game and of the refereeing) have intimidating names – Renegades, Bengals( Cincinnati) , Buccaneers (Tampa), Chargers (San Diego), Packers (Green Bay), Raiders (Oakland) etc. You can leave a comment on this blog if you have an opinion.
Today was Talent Day show at Papa’s school and tomorrow is the scrimmage I touched on earlier. Wish us well will you?
Good night now and keep your eyes open for more …

Roller Coaster

I was about to say that last week was largely uneventful (which is not a bad thing) until yesterday.
The week had gone fairly routinely with more showings of our home (I pray this comes to a close soon because it’s beginning to tell on my kids what with the disruptions and all), the weekly youth programs, football practice on Tuesday, the occasional character building chats and stories with the kids, making lunch and rushing everybody off to bed at nights inter alia; until Saturday morning when Danju woke up with, wait for it – sore throat and a headache. Oh dear! Not at this time with the threat of the swine flu now christened H1N1 flu after protestations from pig farmers for a name change because their sales were plummeting.
Papa had his football practice scheduled for Saturday at midday so I had to take Danju promptly to a walk-in clinic. The doctor saw nothing to worry about (don’t they often say that to you only to recant if you threatened to seek a second opinion?) and just took some swab for the lab. To deal with the sore throat, Danju has been gargling with saline solution and sucking on minty hard candies.
Papa’s football practice then followed and it was drills and practicing plays- running the ball and a couple of throws. As a running back, he’s in the thick of things and took a few hard tackles.
Today being the first Sunday in the month was to be our usual Mass in Igbo ( an activity which our community in Toronto began some 2+ years ago that helps with ensuring a sustenance of our mother tongue and an opportunity for bonding as well). We were all looking forward to it.
It was therefore unexpected when Papa started running a temperature late on Saturday night and in spite of a cold bath and Tylenol, it just would not subside.
Needless to say he hardly slept a wink and so did ‘old ranger’. Implicit in that therefore ( a line that I have borrowed from one of my old undergraduate teachers) was that we could not go for the Igbo Mass. In its place we were at the emergency ward of the Oakville hospital. As fate would have it, a childhood friend (T-baz) was scheduled to visit with us in Oakville today so he unwittingly had to be part of the train that hit the emergency ward.
Once we arrived the hospital, the usual inquisition began. Had we visited Mexico in recent times? Had we been in contact with someone who may have visited Mexico recently? Had we been to a pig farm farm in Alberta (where it is alleged, a man had infected some pigs on the farm. Funny it was a man infecting pigs and not the other way round) Our answers were negative and yet because my little guy was running a temperature and by this time had began coughing a bit, a face mask was quickly handed to him. Could we have suddenly become another statistic for this flu? I reject it in Jesus’ name! (apologies to Nigerian new generation churches)
Tests after tests were run and a chest x-ray was quickly done. To our relief, it was nothing but a minor viral infection and we were let go but requested to get some cough medicine and some rest.
My baby boy is now sleeping and so are Sampi (the only woman standing) and Danju (who it seems is back to his usual self). Siya of course is still in Edmonton but had been on the phone many times today and for long periods as we waited at the emergency triage.

So here we are. I am tired and my bed calls. We’d keep communicating.