London Diary, Day One: Burnie McStuffy McPainie McPeesalot

Deb: I sent a private email to Barb and three other dear friends today about the glamourous saga of my take off and arrival in London. Barb dared to ask if I would do it as my first post. I have accepted the challenge. Please do not feel jealous of the jetset glamour and whirlwind adventures I am privy to. I cannot help it if my life is just that damn sweet and privileged.

It started two days before I left when I woke up with huge shooting pain in my lower back and a deaf ear. The ear was a result of wax buildup which I have developed since age 50. The fact that I poured cooking oil into it to soften it for my doctor to flush out didn’t help. As it turns out, there was so much wax the oil got trapped behind it and rendered me deaf. Not to mention the fact that I used (who knew) my husband’s expensive extra virgin olive oil.  I mean, who among us would not want to grab a little of the extra virgin, so long gone?! So my doctor flushed the wax out and, because of that fine expensive oil, the wax shot out, right past the medical robe and the metal ear bowl and onto my new pants. My doctor’s humourous response was, “At least it was YOUR wax.” She’s right. Thank heaven for small favours.

When I got home after the flushing I really had to pee and I went to the powder room and felt not relief, but searing burning pain. Phoned the doctor I had just left who told me (given that I was leaving the country) to come back up right away. The result as I suspected was a urinary tract infection, the first bout of which I had just had in August. The explanation for this reoccurrence had everything to do with my aging body parts and that darling of the female set: post-menopause. So she put me on Sulfa again, which when I took it in August made me gag and wretch. HORSE PILLS, I TELL YA!

At this point in the day, the pain in my back was so bad that I could barely stand, but my wonderful Chiropractor, the lovely Sasha, worked me over for a half hour! I got home to find that the treatment was not only wearing off, but that my buttocks were now covered in bruises as a result of the cure. I followed that up with a massage and now my butt is so sore that not only can I not sit down because of the internal pain, but I cannot sit down because of the external pain. Win win!

So, bless Sasha’s heart, she came in on Saturday, her day off, and worked me over again to little result. I think my back needed a break, but there was not time as we had to go for it. So ice heat ice heat ice heat muscle relaxers later, I was packing in slow-motion sporting a good Robaxiset buzz and a silly grin which was accompanied by nausea. I would start to pack toiletries and wonder, “How did I get on the floor playing “gimme it” with the dogs?” Add to that the fact that I woke up on the day of travel with a swollen bottom lip sporting a burgeoning cold sore. At this point I am staring into the mirror laughing my battered ass off. You gotta laugh.

The following excerpt is from the email I sent to aforementioned friends. The credit for the term “downstairs lady” should go to my brilliant and hilarious friend Teresa Pavlinek who has coined with this phrase a whimsical name for the female anatomy.

Dear Cheryl, Barb, Annette and Sheila,

So get to the airport and back is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.  Nausea from the Robaxiset is wearing off, but I am now in a full body sweat.

Limping along with a stiff upper lip, which is chapped and dry from the herpes meds, I manage to stumble to the Air Canada lounge and have a bite and a glass of wine to sooth my tummy. Then I take two Advil, which actually work quickly and quite well. Once on the plane I realize that although my back is better I am getting Colin's wretched cold BIG TIME, so stuffed up am I becoming.  So in no particular order, I take Tylenol, Coldfx, and of course Sulfa for my needy, burning downstairs lady.

I have a bite of food, watch a movie, take a nervie-dervie (sleeping pill for blog pepes who don’t know my vernacular) and sleep through to landing. Wake up having missed breakfast on the plane, driver picks us up and we get stuck in horrible traffic.

Hunger and dehydration nausea is building faster than a downtown condo. Get to the hotel which is beyond the beyond of chic, come up to the room, order breakfast, sit on the bed with Colin on the other side of the beautiful rose strewn dining table, eat perfect French toast until I feel my stomach is ready to accept the Sulfa pills to aid the woes of the “downstairs lady.”

Perched on the embroidered silk bedcover, I put the pill in my mouth, gag for all I'm worth and piss all over the bed. As I run screaming, gagging, laughing into the washroom, my husband follows me with a hand towel wiping clean the evidence.

HELLO London! The Clampetts have arrived.  

“Come and listen to a story ‘bout a gal named Deb,

A poor simple slut who just pissed a hotel bed.

She picks herself up, cause she's got nothing left to lose

And heads to the smart shops to buy her some shoes.”

***The following is the part that Annette, she of the great wit, added as response:

“So Deb sent an email to her friend named Annette

Who heard about the peeing and had to take herself to bed

Cause when she heard Jed singing about some bubbling crude...

Annette had no idea that it really was so ruuuudddee.

Pee that is ... Colin's knows...

Holding a towel ... away from his nose!”

JEALOUS YET????? I know, I know, I’m a jetsetter, what can I say? 

Our Taj Mahal

Deb: It’s the last thing I would have expected. My husband and I checked into a hotel in a small town for business. The company we were working for apologized up and down about the level of accommodation explaining that at this particular location it was the only game in town. They assured us the other locations would be better and it turns out they are. Mind you, the other hotels would not have far to come to top our current address.

Those of you who know and read me, are fully aware that I am a stuff snob. I like nice things. Sue me. I do not like to stay for business in a place that I would not stay in for pleasure. I know what you are thinking right now, but I have chosen to be honest rather than admired.


I will state categorically that I am NOT a people snob. Not even close. Don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you make, or how you lace your shoes. I will take you at face value. Things? Not so much.

Our hotel room had scary bedspreads, a shower drain that plugged up when you showered so that you are standing in water up to your ankles, a channel changer that changed the volume but not the channel, mold on the bathtub and floor, and a toilet handle that was so corroded that when you pulled it down you could see right through the tank. Add to that the fact that after I took my first shower (in flip flops, oh yes!) the noise from the drain was so loud and continuous for the rest of the week that we had to close the bathroom door in order to sleep. Okay, so I had to shut the door.  My husband could sleep soundly if he was laying in the shower, lucky bastard.


But the piece de resistance was the smell that started slowly day two and built through the week into what can only be described as dead rotting critter.  The only other room available was filled with smoke and so we chose to stick with Rotty The Reeking Rodent, rather than move. On the last day they managed to move us when a room came up and we slept one night reek-free.


But the biggest shock of that week in the Bates Motel came not in the form of mold or stink or stains or scum or one TV channel. It came in the form of romance. I cannot explain it. Neither of us can. But it became one of the loveliest romantic fun-filled weeks we have ever spent.


To offset the Eau de Roadkill, I lit a scented candle that I brought with me. I cannot begin to describe to you what the scent of lavender does to rot ... well, I can actually: lavender rot. And yet romance prevailed. Oh yes. The motel gods were trying to tear us asunder but we defied their damnation that week. We clicked rhythmically, exactly like the sound of the 6-dollar bottles of spring water dropping into the slot in the third floor vending machine.


If you had seen us laughing, walking hand in hand along the quaint streets, you would have thought that it was because we still had the sweet taste of our pillow chocolate melting in our mouths. If you had witnessed us holding hands at dinner you would have been certain that a champagne and strawberry tray awaited us back at the inn instead of the sickly sweet scent of rodent CSI.

It wasn’t this romantic when we were in Paris for the love of mike. Okay, twelve-year-old boy was in a cot at the end of our bed. Still. Relationships don’t always have as much surprise value as the years go on, so the silly shocking surprise of this week made us feel like newlyweds again.

Now I just have to figure out how to convince my husband that the romance was a one time only deal in such a place as this! Back to the 5-star we go. After all, a snob is just a person who has made a commitment to her high standards. And I for one pride myself on honouring my commitments!


But dumpy digs notwithstanding, I learned this week, especially since the nest is empty, that wherever my husband is, is home.


Barbara: Well, I’m not so much of a stuff snob. Deb knows this. I’m often as happy just admiring from a distance as getting to have it. But here’s where the wheels come off: dirt and smells. This Bates Motel you describe brings out every shudder that I have in my body. Dead critter smell? Noooooooooo! The worst. Mold in the shower? Arrrrrrgggggghhhh! Shiver, shudder, gag, and faint. And then not being able to go somewhere else? This is maybe my worst nightmare.


All this to say that I admire your romantic time that much more. It seems that when little things can so often get in the way of romance, it’s a downright miracle that this didn’t waylay even the best laid plans. So impressed with you guys. But also not gonna be searching for love in all the wrong places.