A Snapshot of Happy

I have just discovered no one has taken our trash to our local garbage transfer station in weeks, possibly months and no matter how many stars you wish upon, trash bags will not grow legs and march itself to the dump.

The trash will, however, get ripped open and spread itself around your yard in what can only be called as Redneck chic.

Guess what I'm going to be doing today?

Hint: It involves wearing rubber gloves, swearing at cats, dogs, wildlife and husbands all while carrying a new garbage bag.

So while I'm outside picking up trash, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite memories from our trip. Because y'all haven't heard enough about it as it is.

I'm such a giver.

Capela dos Ossos

In Evora, Portugal, stands the Church of St. Francis and next to it you will find the Chapel of Bones. It's a small chapel, built with the remains of over 5000 humans. Or so they say. I personally didn't count. That would have seemed weird. Weirder than posing with my daughter in front of a wall of human heads while saying Cheese! for the camera.

This room brings a whole other layer of meaning to the phrase Dead Heads.

Camel riding: It's harder than it looks.

Taking the ferry to Africa to spend some time in Morocco was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I didn't get enough time to explore the treasures of Morocco, instead only getting a small taste of what life in Tetouan is like. I fell in love with Morocco and its culture and I will be back to see it again in leisure at some point in my life. It's on my bucket list.

My daughter's highlight of the trip was when I decided to be a traditional tourist and climb atop a camel. And them promptly almost fall off.

Because camel riding is hard when one has rods in her spine.

SMARTEST MOVE EVER. The screams of my neurosurgeon are ringing in my ears.

But. I rode a freaking camel. And then it spit on me. Awesome.

The interior of one of the restaurants we dined in while in Tetouan. Also the inspiration to my living room makeover when I decide to stop dragging my feet and try to redecorate around my giant oversized, over-stuffed Godzilla-poop coloured sectional couch I stupidly agreed to let my husband purchase.

Ahem.

La Alhambra. Also known as a buffet of eye candy.

Granada, Spain was my favourite Spanish city. I don't know why. Every where we went was lovely but there was magic in the air in Granada. Perhaps it was spending the day inside La Alhambra. Perhaps it was getting stuck in a public washroom and having to impersonate a spider monkey to find my way out of it. While wearing a skirt. Whatever it was, Granada, you are the awesome.

Granada: The place where Fric officially had enough of me sticking a camera in her face every other second of the day.

Tasting my very first and very last anchovy.

It turns out it doesn't matter what continent I am on, I will never develop a taste for fresh olives or anchovies. Especially when they aren't adorning a pizza.

Also fun? Drinking European beer while playing pictionary with a Spanish bartender because neither of you speaks a lick of the other's language.

Valencia Coliseum, the place where blood is spilled.

One afternoon Fric and I had the opportunity to tour the Coliseum in Valencia and learn more about bull fighting. It was here I learned my daughter is a blood thirsty matador in training and I am more squeamish than I gave myself credit for. The coolest part of our time in the Coliseum was having the opportunity to watch the bull fighters train for their sport.

Those are boys who really know all about poking the bull and getting the horn.

Wait. That didn't come out quite right...

I love a good walrus.

Here's a random Tanis fact for you all: When I was in grade five I had to write a school report on an aquatic creature of my choice. I chose the beluga whale. It was inside the aquarium in Valencia that I finally got to see my very first, in person, live beluga whale. It was a very cool personal moment for me and my inner ten year old self. I may have been hopping up and down with excitement, even if I told others around me it was because I had to pee.

Also? A dork at aged ten will likely remain a dork at aged 35.

There may be a wee parking problem on the streets of Barcelona.

It was in Barcelona that I had the pleasure of taking my daughter on her very first subway ride. It was here that she announced to everyone on our subway car that she really enjoyed twirling around a pole.

I have never felt prouder as a mother.

Silence is golden. Especially when you are traveling with a 14 year old who likes to talk.

I love you kid, no matter what continent we are on.

The Planet of the Apes

It's a wondrous thing to be able to take off to Europe for two weeks and share the history of the world with the girl you created 14 years prior.

Our lives, hers and mine, haven't been the easiest these past five years and there was a time I could not dream of such a reality as a trip abroad with my child. It wasn't so long ago that I feared her childhood would be lost to me, held hostage to the grief I was mired in, sinking to the bottom of the sea of self-pity I once swam in.

It's funny how life turns out, empty of one child's life, yet filled to the brim with three others'.

There was a time this child of mine was all chin rolls and dimples. I'm having a hard time reconciling the two images.

Seville was our first taste of summer weather. And for two girls whose neighbour may be Jolly Old St. Nick, we couldn't get enough of the blazing Spanish sunshine. The scent of orange blossoms tickled our noses and it was there I had no shame playing a tourist as we reveled in the warmth.

The Seville Cathedral, Seville, Spain

Seville was also the place Fric and I had our first mother-daughter argument of the trip. After four days of spreading her wings, Fric longed for freedom. I tried to keep the leash I had her on long enough so she couldn't always see my shadow as she wandered about but it was in Seville that I reined the rope in.

As a rural Canadian, I have the luxury of going days without seeing people if I choose. I can look out my windows and there is nothing but nature staring back at me. It's not often I am surrounded by so many people and I'll admit, it freaked me out.

Seville was populated. Tourists. Residents. People! Everywhere! Starbucks! On every corner! It's like America! Only older! It's not like I have never been to a big city before but this was the very first time I had taken my daughter to a large city where neither of us spoke a lick of the national language. My instincts were to keep her close. Hers were to fly away and explore.

Commence mother daughter head bunting 101.

Standing in front of the Christopher Columbus tomb inside the Seville Cathedral.

Lucky for both of us, a new marvel awaited around every corner and it's really hard to be an angry maternal tourist when your eyes are constantly popping out of your head and you are filled with awe.

Lucky for that Spanish pervert who tried to tap my kid on the arse that he didn't seem to understand a lick of the angry torrent flowing from my over-protective mouth. While he may not have understood my actual words, the look for disapproving pissed off protective momma bear is universal and he quickly moved on before I could land my arse into a Spanish clink for killing a pervert resident.

Thank you Spain for making me feel like an aging invisible hag.

The ape liked my kid. My kid liked the ape.

Our time in Seville was fleeting and it passed entirely too quickly. I've now added Seville to my list of places to return, hopefully with my husband in tow because I dream of walking down it's streets arm in arm with Boo, marveling at the beauty around us.

From Seville we traveled to Gibraltar, a British overseas territory at the tip of Spain. It was a close to Britain I got on this trip and the teens I was surrounded with were delighted when they saw the bobbies on the street.

Um, wait, a second here. Sit PRETTY. Dammit.

The Rock of Gibraltar will go down as one of the most interesting places I have ever been. It was the place I first saw the hazy shores of Africa far off in the distance. It was also the place where I was ferociously attacked by a pack of apes monkeys.

Please don't pee on me.

As our tour guide wove his way up the Rock, he regaled us with the legend of Gibraltar and historical tidbits. When we stepped out of our van, the little critters were everywhere. You know, because monkeys have a way of being monkeys. When he asked if any of us would like to pose with the animals, my daughter and my niece were the first to raise their hands.

Happily the monkeys jumped on their heads and oh, the laughter ensued! Aw, how funny! A monkey is on your head! Since I'm never one to shy away from a possible blogging photo opportunity I thought, why the heck not? I nodded to our guide that I'd like the chance to get up close and personal with a monkey and then waited to meet the critter of my dreams.

As I stood there, the guide suddenly starts warning everyone about how, under no circumstances, do we touch the monkeys. The monkeys are ferocious! They are vicious! They will tear your face off! Just last week a monkey tried to rip the face off a female tourist! Suddenly what seemed like touristy fun now seemed fool hardy and stupid.

"How exactly do we not touch the monkeys if they are sitting on our heads?" I asked.

The tour guide looked at me like I was a stupid tourist (um, heck ya) and said, "It's different. The monkeys are touching YOU. Don't touch the monkeys."

Semantics.

Just then a damn monkey jumped on my head.

I may or may not have peed a little bit with fright. Visions of my face being peeled off as my daughter gleefully documented the attack with my iPhone ran through my head.

I survived the monkey attack. The dang thing wouldn't get off my head and more than once put his arse in my nose. Apparently he liked the smell of my shampoo. I wasn't so fond of the smell of his arse. I think he was eyeing me as a prospective future mate. I do have freakishly long monkey toes after all.

Baby apes are awesome. Especially when sitting on weaponry.

Monkey paws are very soft by the way. You know, when they aren't trying to rip the flesh off your body.

Part of the reason I was so keen to take Fric to a far away place wasn't just to watch her discover a world that had previously remained hidden to her and only existed in history books. I wanted my daughter to see me, for a small second, as more than just her mom. I wanted her to see me. Tanis.

I never, however, wanted her to see me as monkey bait.

Semantics.

At the top(ish) of the Rock of Gibraltar. Or as I call it, Planet of the Apes.

Grandma Baked My Baby

Or, My Mommy Went on Vacation and All I Got Was 2nd and 3rd Degree Burns

Or, A Pound Of Flesh: The Cost One Child Paid For His Mother's Vacation.

I could do this all day; the possibilities are endless. It all started like this:

I had really hoped to blog my way through my vacation with my daughter.

When it became evident to me that posting on the blog was all but impossible due to time restrictions, complete and utter exhaustion from trying to keep up with a rabid herd of teenagers and a lack of free wifi every where I went, I promised myself I'd blog the crap out of our trip the moment my feet touched down on Canadian soil.

You know what they say about the best of intentions.

I was so excited to get back home and back into my regular routine of neglecting my household chores in favour of surfing the net and playing Scrabble with my kids that I didn't even mind when my plane almost fell out of the sky on our trip home.

I simply thought to myself, "Awesome! Fodder for another blog post!"

Clearly I need some sort of blogging intervention. Because the normal reaction to when you are standing outside of an airplane loo, waiting to squeeze into a pathetically small space to relieve oneself, only to have the plane suddenly drop from the sky and sending you hurling to the floor, maiming yourself on the way down so that 7 days later you still have a giant purple bruise down most of your posterior side, the correct reaction would be one of general fear and complete and utter panic.

It became apparent that our plane hadn't just hit a bad pocket of turbulence.  However, since I had just managed to gracelessly land square on my arse and damage my already injured spine I wasn't quite in the panic "We're all going to DIEEEE" mode.

I was in a more of a 'Holeeeey heck, that HURT and where is the damn flight attendant with the booze?' mode.

So when our plane safely landed fifteen minutes after almost dropping out of the sky and our flight attendants politely reminded us to exit the plane as quickly as possible, I was thinking about all the big bang jokes I could make on twitter.

(I was the third last row on the back of a very large, very full plane. There was a lot of time during disembarkation to think of clever ways to make fun of landing on my arse in a plane.)

When I finally had the chance to stand up and hobble my way towards freedom off the plane, the flight attendants were less polite and much more urgent about getting off the damned plane. Likely because our engine was on fire. But hey, who knew?

"Please exit the plane as quickly as possible," the blonde attendant hissed at me as I limped past.

It had been a 9-hour flight. Other than the one time I stood up to go to the bathroom only to land on my butt, I had been seated the entire time. There was no moving quickly at this point as I was crippled up, sore and walking like a monkey humping a football.

Just as I stepped off the plane, the sounds of sirens flooded the air. I remember thinking as I walked onto the gangway that hearing that many sirens on a tarmac could never be good. It wasn't until I was in the terminal and looked out that I realized all those sirens were from the emergency vehicles surrounding the plane I just walked off of. A plane now streaked black with soot on one side from the engine.

Awesome.

Later that night as I crawled into a questionably clean hotel bed, thoughts for blog posts swirled in my head. Air crisis along with two weeks of vacation excitement were swirling in my head. My fingers itched for a keyboard.

So the next day, when my daughter and I waited to board the last plane on our journey home, I didn't even mind when our flight was delayed because they discovered our scheduled plane had 'unfixable mechanical issues'. Better they discover that stuff on the ground rather than while we are in mid-air, right? I was mentally composing nuggets of brilliance to share on my blog as my daughter sat next to me, slightly green and wishing we could walk home.

Luckily for us, we made it home safe and sound, after a rather uneventful flight on a fully functional plane.

I fully expected to take a day or two to rest from our long flight home, do some laundry, love on my boys and then resume life as normal. In other words, blog the crap out of my trip and bombard you with so many photos you all start begging for mercy and threatening to beat me if I showed you one more poorly photographed ancient ruin.

What I got instead was a multitude of text messages when I turned my cell phone on saying there had been an accident.

Turns out, there is a price a mother has to pay for leaving her children to traipse around Europe for two weeks. That price would be a pound of flesh.

Literally. Off the arm and hand of my sweet little Jumby as it turns out.

As my daughter and I were busy bouncing around the skies above, my son was busy burning the flesh off the top of his fingers, hand and arm.

As accidents go, it could have been worse and an important lesson was learned by all: Wood stoves and blind kids go together about as well as oil and water.

There has been no return to normal since the moment I arrived on home soil my life has been consumed with burn care, skin debridement and doctor appointments.

And to think, only days before my biggest concern was worrying a monkey would pee in my hair.

*The Jumbster is recovering nicely but has a bit of a road ahead of him. His grandmother may never recover though. *

*Also, for the record, I love my mother-in-law. Even more than I love teasing her. *

Jumby. The poster child for one tough little kid.