It's been recommended that I censor my blogs - removing the name of a certain SOB in past postings for example as well as excerpts from an "alleged" email exchange. So I've done it - heaven forbid I enter into a lawsuit with him, as is the concern of my husband, and have to give him MORE money.

I avoided the final meeting with ___, instead bringing dinner over to Scott & Kim's place to heat up and eat while Paul dealt with ____. Suffice it to say, ____ won. When Paul brought up that he should perhaps get better in communicating and managing expectations with clients he began to get aggressive and combative again. Paul decided whatever and gave up, figuring we're done and he'll never concede. So a cheque was left in the mailbox Friday morning with his inflated amount and gone with out any note or message.

But later that evening I found out something huge is happening in ___'s life. Something that is going to completely turn his life upside down and how can I stay angry at someone who's life could potentially turn in to an absolutely nightmare?

We have our final meeting with our contractor tonight to go over the last bill and give him his payment. I am so angry with him right now that I can't bring myself to be at the meeting and will hand over the reigns to Paul. I'm taking the kids and going next door to Kim's so that I don't have to look at his face.

He is such an unethical bully. Paul wrote him asking him to clarify the cost of doors and credits that we should be entitled to after revisiting the original contract and the discrepancy with his final statement to us - and Paul wrote the email because if I had written it, I'm sure it would have led to a cat fight. It still led to one. Here are a couple of excerpts from his reply letter:

REMOVED

and then he hit with:


REMOVED


I'll write about how the meeting going tomorrow. I need to get back to my school newsletter.

Our project this weekend, outside of hanging pantings and curtains, is that we're supposed to go over the initial contract from ___ to determine if there is anything else we can hopefully deduct from his last invoice. So far we have a credit for the front door knob that R__ threw out, hopefully a credit for a $40 dimmer switch that Ron threw out and replaced with a $1 light switch, and we want ___ to justify why we were charged $500 the final clean when it consisted of R__ running through the house with a swiffer and a paper towel, and a half ass job at steam cleaning the attic carpet. I'd like to deduct $450 for that joke of a job.

My poor camera is dust, may it R.I.P. I am now waiting for Henry's to send me a replacement by Sony valued at with lens, $1,200. Yippee!

I am still poor having lost at the Millionaire lottery - not one number the same. Sigh.

Paul had his birthday on the 28th and I threw a birthday party which ended with American Idol on the PS2 and all of us signing and being rejected horribly by SImon. Well not all of us, William ended up being brilliant, David getting a perfect score and Paul doing quite well too. I think they're all wannabe lounge singers, needing only a polyester suit. While at the party I gave Scott a belated birthday present: Jesus Christ bandages which I told him I'd had blessed by a priest which tripled their healing powers and a little punching bag that when knocked, swears like a Newfie fishwife (or me). Scott took to shaking it at William everytime he'd make a comment about his "competitive nature."

Now we're desperate to get the game so we can have kareokee parties regularly. We're kareokee junkies!

Wow, Jakob has a friend coming over tomorrow - that's never happened before. I didn't think he had friends. Crazy.

I started back to work last week - Wednesday the 21st was my first day. God it was exhausting. I'm not meant to get up before 7:00 am - I'm meant to have slow, leisurely mornings - sleeping in until nearly 10:00 and then watching Cityline with Marilyn Dennis while yelling at the television set.

Thursday, my second day at work, at 9:20 a.m. the school calls me to tell me that Satchel had an accident during gym and needs to be treated. The vice principal calls me 10 minutes after the first call to tell me that he thinks it's serious, that Satchel may have broken his ankle and should go to the hospital. In fact he'll take him there if I can meet up with him.

The ambulance finally arrives and Satchel gets wheeled to admissions. 3 hours, 2 x-rays, 2 examinations, 1 small room shared with a woman who's 20-month-old daughter hasn't pooped in a few days, but makes up for it in our room, Satchel's diagnosed with a sprain and we're discharged with a brand new pair of crutches ($28 but I can donate them to a third world country when we're finished with them - probably by Monday).

Friday, Paul stays home with Satchel and I actually make it through my third day at work without incident, receiving the most beautiful arrangement of flowers from a woman I work with.

Sadly I wanted Satchel to walk to a store to buy a lottery ticket with me. I was going to press the money into his hand and have him ask for it because it's the only way I figured I'd have a shot at winning. I'm not a very lucky person and he usually is, but I guess not any more now that he's my little Mr. Hop Along.

Today I went to Royal Lighting to pick up my second sputnik light fixture for over the island. As is my way I choose the worst possible route to get there but finally make it to the shop. I pick up my light fixture and also a dimmer switch because when the sputnik light is turned on, with 24 bulbs lit, you can probably make out my kitchen from space. Because the combined wattage for both lights is insane, I had to buy a 1000 watt dimmer switch which ended up costing $125 - instead of $40 like the little 600 watt capacity dimmers. I brought our new sputnik home to find out the manufacturer changed the mounting plate so it doesn't look anything like our original one and it's kind of decorative which is kind way of saying "ugly." After 2 hours of repeated calls to the store they're now trying to track down an original plate and I have taken a liking to beer.

John is leaving daily messages on our machine asking for payment, no longer in a nice tone, more of a "I WANT TO GET PAID. NOW!!!!!!" tone. I keep ignoring the messages telling Paul to deal with him. I'd only end up in another fight.

I'll write more tomorrow - time for bed.

We are finished with ___. I can't believe I'm finally writing these words after 9 months. T__ came last week to install the hardware on the barn door and L____ came Friday to do the final paint touch ups. And yesterday, well yesterday we received his final bill.

I didn't sleep last night thinking about the bill and how he completely screwed us financially...yet again. How I border on hating him because I feel I'm a pretty nice person, was incredibly easy to work with even though I did get diagnosed with breast cancer 4 months into the process, made decisions quickly, paid him promptly...even offered him a drink when he came over to collect his funds.

And he sends us this final bill, over charging us on the last bits of the job and yet crazily low balling the amounts we were to be credited to the point of me wanting to shake him and ask does he truly think we're that stupid or naive to accept these numbers? I kind of want to contact Mike Holmes, not to complain about the quality of work but to complain about unethical and fraudulent billing practices.

But how do I go about it when ____ refuses to surrender any receipts to me? He can make up any cost he wants and ship them my way - as he bragged to Kim about a year ago at a separate party on how he handles his life as a contractor. A conversation I wish I'd been privy too.

He's going to wait a while before he sees the last cheque from us - I have many phone calls to make and prices to verify.

I think what also makes me angry is that this was supposed to be finished before Christmas, not the week before I return to work. Did I really have any time to recover from my 15-hour mastectomy and reconstruction? No. I was to busy having to deal with his guys in the house before 8:00 am or him forcing me out, hunting down lights while holding my insides together - only to find he didn't really need them as urgently as he led me to believe.

But the saga of ___ will continue in this blog until I do hand him that last amount. There will be a lot more pins in that voodoo doll and no recommendation.

Unfortunately my camera is still in the shop so no reveal pictures...yet.

Now that I have finished picking all the stickers off Sputnik (and screaming at Cityline because it was a fantastic show with incredible giveaways and reaffirms how much I love Marily and Jann), can anyone recommend a product to get all the sticky stuff off the 20+ bars?

Good god - will this reno never end?

Tim was here before 8:00 am to work on the barn door forcing me to get out of bed. How do I make them understand that I want NO ONE IN THE HOUSE BEFORE 10:00 (my getting up time of choice). The barn door is now finished, hardware installed and track cut down, but the painters now need to come back to touch up dings, cracks and spots they missed before.

This reno will never be over.

Tim is now gone and I'm currently sitting cross legged on my island peeling stickers off Sputnik 1 while watching a fabulous episode of Cityline with great give away prizes and Jann Arden who I adore and is so freaking funny.

The show is back on so back to my perch, back to picking labels.

Home day on Cityline must have been the most boring show ever aired in their entire on-air history. It really was all about how to make a bed, how to make those perfect hospital corners, how to iron the sheets while on the bed, how to measure the height of your boxspring, how to fold a fitted sheet...absolutely painful.

Fortunately I had Brenda to give me a good jab in the ribs when ever I looked like I was about to nod off - and she was very enthusiastic about it. And because of the absurdity of the content, I laughed so hard - to the point where I had tears welling up in my eyes and I had to hold my nose to try to prevent them from spilling over and down my cheeks.

Brenda was the best person to go with. We started laughing hysterically, again with tears threatening to roll, when we found out that our take home gift was tea. Bad tea. A painful show only to be rewarded by bad tea - it just couldn't get better. Actually it did get better; it happened when I looked in to my gift bag and discovered stationary with teddy bears and a coupon for a day's shopping at Sam's Club but at a cost which equaled 10% of their regular annual membership fee.

And also when I went to shake Marilyn Dennis's hand, hoping to win her over as my new best friend with some witty comment, only to spit out a few words that made me seem like I had serious mental issues.

When she gave me a crazy look and said "oh yeah, I hear you" and started backing away, I knew our friendship was doomed.

This is my luck of late: for fun I booked tickets to Cityline with Marilyn Dennis for myself and a friend (I love Marilyn Dennis and would quite happily stalk her...and Margaret Atwood, love Margaret Atwood) - the tickets are for tomorrow. What are they doing tomorrow? Showing us how to make a bed. Great, I never make my bed and I definitely don't need to know how to do hospital corners. Reading over the day's profile it has to be the most boring show ever. And then Tuesday, well Tuesday is pajama/girlfriend day with Jann Arden. Jann Arden makes me laugh harder than anyone and coupled with Marilyn Dennis, well let's just say I would have had to borrow a pair of Mom's depends.

But instead I will making beds with Lynn Spence.

Anyway, if you're home tomorrow from 10-11, tune in and see me passed out unconscious in the audience...hopefully I won't be drooling.

I've just returned from taking Jakob to swim class.

Really, is it so wrong to have a drink at 12:23 on a chilly Saturday afternoon because he was really, REALLY horrible in the class. This time he didn't even pretend to have a passing interest in the swim instructor - and she's adorable.

Jakey spent his time acting like someone with an IQ below 40: gargling pool water, sucking on floating devices, splashing and making guttural noises. Lot of fun. I'm sure I was as much entertainment to the other parents as I yelled at Jakob, making hand gestures, continually hopping off the wall to remind him to listen - and he payed as much attention to me as his instructor. Of course when I told him no treat afterwards there was remorse - but it was fleeting.

My frustration was exasperated because our car broke down this morning leaving us stranded. I called CAA and they came an hour later. We were hoping that worst case scenario was that it needed a new battery, now it's at the shop while they perform a diagnostic. Seems the car is draining the battery even when completely shut down. Thankfully it worked fine at 11pm last night when we drove home from Norm's birthday party - all I can say is please don't let it be expensive. So to get Jakob to swim class, I dug out our dusty old sled and pulled him all the way to the pool while Paul dealt with the CAA guy and took the car to the garage.

Sleds are not meant to be pulled on concrete.

Sadly it will be a while before I post more pictures. I took my camera to Henry's and it turns out the there was a recall on my camera and also that Minolta is no longer in the digital camera business and has been bought out by Sony. Off my camera went to Sony with a promise to have it returned either fixed or replaced in 6 weeks. Hopefully before we head off to New York, and seeing as Minolta is no longer in business, and a new camera rather than a repaired model that's probably obsolete.

But there is news on the house front - and I really wish I had photos to post - our light fixtures are all up, we're missing only one Sputnik which will hopefully come in soon and the barn door has been installed, and everything looks fabulous! The painter was in doing his final touch ups so we're nearly at the end of this whole crazy process.

All we're missing now is the hardware for the barn door, which was to be installed last Thursday. But after a no-show by Tim (the carpenter) and still no word from John - I'm not holding my breath that it will come in any time soon. It's a bit disconcerting that John can't even be bothered to phone me to let me know the reasoning behind the no show when a date had been committed to. And it also makes me wonder how accountable he will be when it's time to do the touch ups next spring after the house has settled. If he can't be bothered to show up or call when we still owe him money, how am I going to get him here to do final repairs when we no longer owe him money and I no longer have a carrot to dangle?

Good news regarding my skimmed funds, the money is back in my account! - well was, it's now in the hand of the daycare. I am still sending out evil thoughts to the people who did this but thankfully I have a fantastic bank manager who put all the paperwork in place and had the money returned to me on Thursday. While I was out with a couple of girlfriends the other night, Beth told me the same thing had happened to her and it was the No Frills on St. Clair where her card had been compromised - and that was also one of the places I had used the week before with my debit card. My bank is not passing on the information on where my situation happened which is unfortunate. Going forward in life, I will be much more cautious when and where I use my debit and credit card - other than that I really don't know what more I can do.

I have been a victim of debit card skimming - $1,000 taken from my chequing account. I think it happened at the Paramount theatre on John Street, where I took Satchel on Friday to see a movie. Now I have to call my daycare and tell them to hold off on cashing the cheque on the 1st because it will bounce and can only hope that the bank will replace the money quickly.

I am so angry and also feel very helpless as I wait for my bank manager to call. I tried using my bank card today only to have it declined and a message showed to go to my bank to have an issue resolved. Once there, the teller replaced my card but it took her quite a while because she had never done it before and when she showed me the screen with my bank activity, there was really nothing to see. It was only coming home and going online to check my account that I found $1000 missing - in 2 neat $500 packages.

So what does one do? Hide their money under mattresses? Try to manage now all transactions with cash? Charge everything and then pay up at the end of the month?

Fuckers.

Ron has been over the past two days - the official reason behind his coming over is to work on the deficiency list. The REAL reason for his coming over is to play GUITAR HERO. He's an addict.

___ has promised that the electrician will come tomorrow to hang all the light fixtures and that we will have an installed barn door on Friday. That should be interesting...why do I have this nagging feeling of doubt? Because he LIES? Hmm, maybe. Then it's only the painters that are needed for touch ups. Of course now we're noticing the screws in the kitchen ceiling are starting to pop which means we will never be free of ____.

But will I be able to photograph the finished result to post to the blog? Nope. Because someone in the house BROKE my digital camera. This I found out when I walked over to the kids' school to photograph the new principal for the newsletter only to find that when turned on, it looks like I'm trying to document some radioactive mass. Nobody will admit to messing with it in the house, even when I ask in a calm rationale voice.

We also had to buy a new vacuum cleaner and I didn't go cheap. I bought what was promised to be a really good one, one that would last at least 10 years. It isn't/it won't. It's crap. A big red plastic canister of crap. Now I'm going to have to take it back to Sears - or I should say Paul will have to take it back - and bring my other neglected one back in off the porch.

What has me excited right now is that we're going to New York from March 22 to March 25 to attend our friend William's art opening. I have booked our hotel and will try to score flight tickets off airmile points tomorrow morning - otherwise I'll be reserving those tickets too, first thing and then no doubt writing about it.

Time for bed - I have a wicked head cold. I have noticed my immune system isn't what it should be - I'm catching everything.

When I awoke from my mastectomy, I felt like I had a thousand pound weight sitting on my chest, drawing in air was excruciating. And my throat was raw from having had an air tube forced down it for 15 hours - but the nurses and doctors would only give me ice chips to relieve the pain for fear I would throw up and pull my incisions.

My ears were plugged and would pop every time I opened my mouth, it took days for them to clear.

The following morning in step down (like ICU), a man was brought in in a special chair. He had a trachea and therefore couldn't speak. He too was desperate for water and kept slamming his fist on his chair. They finally brought him a pad of paper to communicate and he kept writing water...over and over. Every time a new nurse or doctor entered the room he would pound his fist on the pad of paper.

The crazy thing is he had this tube that looked like it was attached to the top of his head which made him look like he was a Borg from Star Trek. And he made me uncomfortable because by my day 2 (his first) they finally gave me water and I drank constantly - with him glaring at me the entire time. I'm sure that if he could have figured out how to detach himself from his chair, out of desperation he would have attacked the nurse for one sip.

I'm anticipating another flip-out session between ____ and Paul. Get the pop corn popping!

We were supposed to have the painters here today - Paul called at 10:30, leaving a message asking what time to expect them. ___ phoned back later and said he forgot to call us - they aren't coming today. They're not finished another job so will be here on Monday. "What time?" I ask. "I don't know." says ____.

I check my calendar to see that on Monday, Pella is supposed to come too. I ask John if he knows what time they're coming and he says no. They haven't called him yet.

How much do you want to bet neither shows.

Man, are all contractors useless like ours has become? Useless and over priced?

There may soon be an end to this irritating, exhausting and financially bankrupting reno - well at least in terms of our relationship with ____.

I now have in my possession an unstained barn door in my basement - not exactly what we expected which was a stained finished door ready for installation. The painters are supposed to descend upon us again which should prove interesting with cats and children at the ready. And all of expecting to get mad headaches from the fumes.

It was kind of fun watching Paul flip out though and then call John up complaining that he had LIED to us about the barn door. That he had been told before Christmas that the doorway had been replaced and finished and that instead what we were given was the same door sanded. I love when he gets mad, though it's not the explosion that I'm privy too when he finally calls ____.

We're still waiting for the deficiency list to be tackled. I'm sure we'll never have the hardware for the bathroom installed. Ron doesn't even pretend any more that he's going to come back and do it. In fact Ron's given his notice so it will be interesting to see if anyone, outside of the painter and hopefully the electrician, comes back to our house.

Sadly too our cleaning woman went around and pulled all the green tape off the walls which marked all the deficiencies and now we have to go back around trying to remember where they all were.

I did manage to get most of the light fixtures though - we have only one that has to be ordered and it could take up to two months to get. I went out on an aesthetic limb and chose a style for the kitchen that I have nicknamed Sputnik, a decision fully supported by Kim - and I do trust her taste. I brought one home and I think it will look amazing. I am attaching an image of my kitchen with two sputniks dropped in to give you an idea of what they will look like - they're larger in my constructed picture then they are in actuality. They'll look even more fab (I think) then they do in this picture. And then with Paul's large red painting up on the wall - our kitchen is going to be amazing!



On to the body reconstruction part of the blog: I was at the hospital twice last week - once to the radiation oncologist to confirm that I hopefully don't need treatment and another follow-up appointment with my plastic surgeon. Fortunately I don't need treatment - thank God, after seeing all these poor people with gray pallor, slumped in chairs and wheelchairs, it reinforced that this is an exclusive club I do NOT want to join - and my plastic surgeon feels there's still too much swelling and my scars are still quite red so I will return in 90 days to see if we can nail down a date for the next surgery. I do look pretty rough, though if I squint, my scars look a bit like a one-eyed happy face.

On Monday I spent time with a woman working on her PHD as part of a breast cancer research study. I think after talking to her comprehensively about my experience for an hour and half, I was left a bit depressed so I hid from the world until Wednesday where I took baby steps which involved drinking way too much wine with the neighbours. But I felt much better after that!

The cleaning woman was here today - she's very chatty and I was incredibly tired. I just wanted to go back to bed and sleep all day. I just wanted to sleep for days. But I got up, dragged myself into the shower and then spent quite a bit of time chatting with her.

A side note, when I woke up I felt like I had punctured my tongue and sure enough I had. There was a small hole at the tip and it hurt ALOT. I have no idea how it happened but am suspicious of what Paul gets up to in the middle of the night. Plus I now have the biggest freaking bump over my left eye - again what is Paul up to? It's like one incredibly huge hive but what allergic reaction could I have had in the middle of the night and why in only one spot over my eye. What the hell is Paul up to?

Finally I managed to get my sorry ass out of the house (1pm) and into the car and took off looking for some lighting fixtures as requested by my contractor. I should offer to show him my scars again because obviously he's forgotten I'm recovering from surgery. I had no luck at all. But I did buy 2 plants from Home Depot which a lovely young boy carried out and loaded in to the car for me.

I think I'm becoming a crazy cat woman because when I brought the plants into the house, slowly and one at a time because I'm pathetically weak, Hamish (his original owner changed the spelling of his name on me, dropping the E) dropped to the ground into a commando-like crawl and scurried over to investigate. Then it was full out attack mode. Thank God he's Canadian, Bush would recruit him in a nano second! He'd win the war on terrorism, and fast.

Here are the shots of Hamish - confirming that I truly am a crazy cat woman.

I met the radiation oncologist yesterday and...NO RADIATION FOR ME. I would have hugged him if he'd looked like he'd showered sometime during the past year. But I have to wonder why, when an appointment is scheduled for 1:30 and at 3pm you are switching a a little spot light on and off, pretending it's a laser gun, that all doctors' appointments can't even come close to being on time.

And I really didn't like being on the second below ground level floor of Princess Margaret Hospital because that's where they keep all the really sick people. People who look half dead and probably are feeling pretty much that way from all the radiation and chemo treatments they are going through. A group I thankfully don't have to join because again, I don't need radiation! Of course, Dr. Wells did have to be a bit of a bearer of bad news, he just couldn't leave it at "radiation will not reduce the risk of reoccurrence after having had the mastectomy." No, he had to throw in "women who are diagnosed with DCIS - meaning me - generally die from breast cancer." I asked what kind of time line are we looking at here and he said "30 years." I'm feeling pretty optimistic though so I'm going to move that number up to 40 because 72 is too young for anyone.

Outside of that, John my beloved contractor - oops sorry, I choked - wants to wrap up my house and was wondering if we found any light fixtures over the Christmas holidays. Nope, we didn't even think to look because it was Christmas and I'm only now up to driving. But the barn door is supposedly done, just needs to be stained - at our house, in our basement. This has Paul in a tizzy because he's positive John had told him that the door was finished and stained before the holidays and now we find out it's not done and has to be finished here so that we're subjected to all the odours. All said in a very loud voice while having the ray gun pointed at his head.

Pella is also scheduled to arrive on the 22nd to replace the panel of our french door.

And finally, Friday I'm off to my rock star plastic surgeon for a follow up appointment. That should be harmless, I think I'll bring up de-droopifying the non reconstructed breast when she goes in to fix the new one. I can hear my university professor (a nasty little lady who taught survey art history courses and had a full length portrait of herself in her house) now saying "MEG STOP MAKING UP WORDS!" I was never actually subjected to her wrath, that was Ian.

I forgot to mention that I have to meet with a radiation oncologist on Monday at 1:30 to determine if I need radiation treatment. In my mind I have already decided I don't need it since the pathology showed my lymph nodes were clean and it will also wreck the result of my reconstruction. I really hope he doesn't say anything differently.

One other distressing note, I had to go shopping to buy bras that will fit the new me and accommodate my big old chest mound. That was absolutely depressing - standing in a change room with a floor to ceiling mirror, brilliantly lit, showing off my scarred body in all its glory. I almost started crying.

I went to bed when I got home.

I'm sitting here with a glass of wine, my mother sitting beside me and I'm struggling to know what to type. Something that won't incriminate me (with my mother) and impact my inheritance.

My Mom's been here for two weeks and has been keeping me distracted. My Mom is diabetic and is currently popping Hershey kisses with almonds with a fervour that rivals only a crack addict focusing on their next hit and also musing on why her blood sugars are a bit high.

I feel like I have so much to catch up on...starting with Christmas.

Christmas...

...started with the kids rising early and me mumbling "go back to bed, NOW!" Finally I relented and sent them down to see if Santa came...and he did. Then I managed to score a couple more minutes by saying "okay, go down and open only 2 presents." When Satchel came back up saying Jakob had opened ALL the presents, I pulled my weary self from the bed and finally descended the stairs.

We opened our stockings and not so patiently waited for Mom to join us, her stocking sitting neglected on the chair. Finally we moved in to the kitchen to our Christmas presents and we began to tackle those while still waiting for Mom to come down. Finally she arrived and was thrilled with what Santa brought and we bought (as you can tell from her expression). Shoot, I can't find the picture. I'll recover it later.









After all the presents were opened - and for the first time Jakob did NOT cry when he had finished opening his stash - Jenifer, Norm and kids joined us for brunch and then spent the afternoon. After they left I hit the kitchen; we had been invited for dinner at Kim & Scott's and I needed to get working on stuffing and cranberries. Embarrassingly the cranberries were from a can so I tried to find creative ways to present them, I'm sadly short on nice serving bowls. This could be a new years resolution for myself, second only to the "drink more" as suggested by my friend Pat.

We had a wonderful time at Kim's - the turkey dinner was fantastic and no one fell ill to the evils of salmonella like last year's dinner at Paul's sister's house. And I'm still a waifish 126 pounds!