I watched “The Hours” last night, one of the many films on a mental list to watch sometime over the holidays. I’ll write a review later, but for now I had to pass on a link to Mr. Cranky’s review, which seldom fails to crack me up. Since I practically abandoned my Geocities site that had my film reviews on it, I have not been giving Mr. Cranky the exposure he deserves for writing his scathing remarks on cinema.

Eliza called with good news for Ebi, who was examined and found to have no fluid build-up in a week! Needless to say, Eliza was elated!

I tried to take the kids there on Wed/24th, but they closed early, so I thought today we’d try again.

Maddy

Michael in the mirror room.

We love Science World. Not just the kids, me too! There are so many activities going on that we can be there for more than four hours and they still want to play. We had a few mishaps, but overall Michael and Maddy were well-behaved. We saw two shows on centre stage: Balloons (which they’ve seen a couple of times before, but it still holds their fascination), and Illusions, which was late in the afternoon and Michael was ready to nod off from fatigue. I considered taking them home then, because Michael didn’t nap in the car, only Maddy, and I knew he would be cranky… but I decided to brave it and take them back up to the second floor to the smaller kids’ play area instead. We also saw a “magic” show in the Weyerhaeuser Theatre — the seasonal theme was “A Magical Christmas” and there were professional magicians from the local chapter of the Society of Magicians performing all over Science World. The show we saw was amusing — a Hong Kong magician with colourful costume and lots of bright props.

spaceship

water table

Every time we go to Science World, I notice the kids learning a bit more, experimenting, and making advances. For example, there’s a station in the smaller kids’ play area that holds circulated water and teaches kids about current. Before, Maddy just played with the boats, but today I showed her how to control the current by moving around the grey wall pieces, and this really held her attention for a long time. She went all around the table, moving pieces and floating boats “downriver.”

One of Michael’s current favourite stations is the parachute launch…

We miss having Melissa with us, but Science World will still be here when she returns!

Lunch was at Auntie Crispina’s house, and as always there was enough food to sink a ship!

Boxing Day at the playground.

playplace

in Candycane Land with Auntie Susan

More photos here…

candycane land

gingerbread house

White Rock

Miss Maddy

The photo on the left is White Rock. Allan took Michael (3) to Hope to visit some friends of theirs who have little boys and like playing with Michael. So I took Maddy (2) and Cheryl, who hadn’t left the house in 10 days and was going stir-crazy, out on a Sunday drive. We went to White Rock to look at the ocean, and stopped by an Art Knapp store to buy a Christmas tree. I decided to get them a live one as I prefer the idea of having one live tree to use every year rather than a fake one or a cut tree that gets tossed afterwards.

Maddy and Mom

I also picked up my mother’s mail and some stuff from her apartment to take to her at the hospital. While I was at the hospital I also set up a phone account for her so she can make outgoing calls. Maddy was the first of the kids to visit her in the hospital, and was pretty well-behaved the whole time. My mum is in much better shape these days — she can at least sit in a wheelchair now, and says they are nearly ready to move her out of the orthopedic ward and over to rehab.

Ebi in recovery

Ebi is one very ill cat. I noticed on Thursday night that he was breathing very, very heavily. Eliza said she’d been observing Ebi, and he’d been doing this for probably a couple of days. So she immediately looked up vet clinics, and took Ebi on Friday morning. That quickly set in motion a chain of events that sent Ebi off to a critical care vet hospital in East Vancouver, where he was looked at by top (also read: expensive) doctors. It was here that he was diagnosed with feline chylothorax:

“Chylothorax is a relatively uncommon disorder in the cat whereby lymph fluid (chyle) accumulates in the pleural cavity. This small cavity lies between the lungs and the inner lining of the chest wall. Normally, only about a teaspoon of clear fluid is present in this space. The purpose of the fluid is to keep the surface of the lungs slippery so that they don’t adhere to the chest wall. When chylothorax is present, up to a quart of fluid may be present.”

It explains why Ebi was breathing so heavily. Eliza was completely distraught on Friday, and she went to visit Ebi on Friday night after dinner at the Vancouver Club. She was able to keep Ebi over the weekend before he had to go back to the vet, and I took a few photos of him recuperating from his hospital ordeal. More surgery is in store, so hopefully he can keep his strength up. While he was at the vet, they certified him to be a beautiful cat, which was a compliment to Eliza, since she really takes care of Ebi and Tako. They are her children.

massive dining table

King Ross

(top) Our massive medieval-length table in the UBC Room at the Vancouver Club
(bottom) Ross, after a few drinks, dons the patriarchal crown that comes inside one of those Christmas crackers

Kevin and Lee

Our last company Christmas Party hosted by Ross and Lee was held at the Vancouver Club, one of those posh old-boys-network clubs that are set up around the world to — basically — keep out plebs like myself…

That didn’t really stop me from eating my weight in food, though. The Christmas buffet at the Vancouver Club is legendary, and there’s something surreal about standing in front of a mountain of lobster next to billionnaire Jimmy Pattison. Must be all the wine that flows at these functions. Meanwhile Jane kept pointing out a delectable of the male variety over yon at a faraway table (too bad so far away), which only momentarily distracted me from the scads o’ gourmet food…

Allison and John

I wasn’t the only person who stuffed myself at the Club — everyone went for several rounds each. Allison and John ooh’ed and ahh’ed over the scallops sauteed in front of you by chefs, and Michel did of course partake as well. I think at the end of the night we all had to roll away from our medieval-style table.