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2:21 p.m. | 2001-08-20
my trip just a hint before you read this, i'm in a wheelchair and use a ventilator. things will probably make more sense with that information. My trip and how it went: (Thursday) adventures, i learned how to sleep on airport chairs, that was kind of an adventure. What happened was this. We got to calgary and i don't know how it came about but we mentioned that the respirator wouldn't last the whole flight to kelowna, so they wouldn't let us on. So we had to call my dad, who left saskatoon the same time we did, but driving, had to come with the external battery to calgary. Luckily they were going that way, so we had to wait and i slept in the terminal. Then! when we got the battery they apparently had to find out if it was safe for the airplane and the airline said no because what if it leaks (it says right on it non-spillable) and eats through the airplane and makes trouble with wires so we had to have it in a steel box, and not the plastic one it was in. Even though acid eats through steel and not plastic. Show me the logic there. So! we had to call my dad AGAIN. Luckily he hadn't left the city yet, he was getting fuel and stuff. He had to buy an ambu bag (you know those things they use in ER when the person isn't breathing or whatever). They wouldn't let us on the plane without one, plus we couldn't leave the battery behind cause it's special for the respirator. During this we also had to get a letter from the doctor, which had to be faxed all over the damn country so they would approve us on the plane. Dad had to find a medical supply store and buy one of those things (ambu bags) and come back to the airport with it. Then after we got all that straighted out, we finally took a plane to kelowna, 5 hours later. Air canada is stupid also a flight at 6am (the time we left saskatoon) is stupid.
So we arrived in Kelowna, mildly stressed out by happy to be there finally.After that the day was uneventful. Until the evening that is. My dad and sister and her boyfriend finally arrived and we all just hung out and visited with various people. My parents left to go sleep at my aunt and uncle's place and my sister and her boyfriend stayed at my grandparents' which is where i was sleeping. However, when my sister and her boyfriend were helping me get ready for bed my grandfather barges in the room and points at my sister's boyfriend and says, "you aren't welcome here." mouths hang open. jefferson (my sister's boyfriend) says ok and doesn't resist as grandpa is pushing him out the door. My sister goes a bit wild and asks what the hell is going on. They (my grandparents) ask if he was on the phone outside their window. (confusing). Jefferson says no, and blah blah messy situation. Turns out that my grandparents though he was a burgler. They had seen someone outside their window on the phone that looked remarkibly like jefferson and didn't even know that jefferson was staying in the house. Bad feelings all around until the next day when everything gets sorted out. We can't have a holiday without it being very interesting. I have an insane family.
next day (Friday) We start getting ready for going to the campground, dad drives jefferson and melanie to the camp and then we (me, mom, dad and my uncle joe) all go up to pick up the motorhome that my parents had rented in summerland. They rented a motorhome for the camping part, and they needed someone (uncle joe) with a BC licsence to drive it so they didn't have to pay extra insurance. Good trip really, great scenery and it was relaxing. Except my butt hurt on the way back and i got dehydrated and drank a litre of water. When we got to the camp site, people are starving but no food yet (i'm hungry too). Jefferson and melanie are ticked cause they didn't know they were being just left there and they were hungry and bored. It took about 2 hours or more to get the motorhome and all that stuff. Parents go off to set up the motorhome and i go sit in the sort of hall thing at the camp. (It's a boy scouts camp rented for the weekend). My favorite cousin patrick arrives (i've had a huge crush on him since forever, not that kind of crush you sickos), strides in says "hello beautiful" and gives me a big hug. *melt* didn't do much that day except eat visit and drink some. I didn't get drunk that night tho (most everyone else did, that was my age anyway, i have over 40 cousins of various ages.) At night I went down, sat by the fire, talked, blah blah. I went to bed around 11:30 cause i was tired. I was sleeping in this tiny trailer that is my aunt's and uncle's. Frankly it was very uncomfortable and it took a team of people (well alot were observing) to get me in the thing and to bed patrick and his brother craig of course were always part of this team. *smile* next day (saturday) i had a shower and my two cousins, both named michelle helped me out. We all compared nipple rings. The bathrooms weren't wheelchair accessable and neither was the shower, so that was also a daily interesting adventure. I got carried in by someone usually. On a side note, everyone loved my red hair (i had just dyed it 3 days before), except my grandmother who said out right that she didn't like it at all. She doesn't like any kind of hair dye though. Ok back to our regular programing. More people arrived, more food, i slept through breakfast though. I mostly hung out and talked to people. Being in a wheelchair with lots of rocks and dirt around is also an adventure. I think we went down to where all the tents where and visisted there as well. I had some good visits with various cousins. Waterfights had been breaking out and would continue to do so the rest of the weekend. Later in the evening we all gathered around the firepit again and on this occassion i got myself quite drunk. My dad tried to send me to bed for not behaving. hehehe. We were just hanging out and laughing i told my cousin patrick that next time he was supposed to bring a single friend that i could play with. The one he brought was engaged, but quite cute. Pat and I just were being crazy for the most part together. At one point someone handed me a ciggarette and so i took a drag. I never had before in my life, and some people had minor fits. I thought it was hilarious, so i kept smoking various people's cigs. Stealing them mostly and then giving them back. i also flashed my cousin mark my nipple ring. Which invited comment the next day however, i didn't realize but my dad was there and he saw. Oops. He pitched a fit, and told me if i didn't behave i was going to bed. I started laughing (bad movie), and he got more mad So i had to take him seriously (difficult when you are drunk, 25 and your dad is trying to send you to bed). My mom apparently noticed him pointing and being angry so she came over and smoothed things over. I was done showing mark my nipple ring so it was all good. I think i went to bed a 3:30am. A bunch of us drunk people somehow managed to get me into bed in the tiny trailer. I think a few of them were sober so that was good. next day (Sunday) I got awakened for pictures. They were being taken of everyone. Families together, then all the grandparents' kids and then all the grandchildren, etc etc. During the pictures of the grandchildren my cousin jay mooned everyone taking pictures of us. He was drunk and i'm glad i was in the picture so i didn't get a view of his ass. People kept bugging me about being hung over, which i wasn't cause i don't get hangovers. We all were drinking lots of water though, out of a rum bottle. For some reason we thought it was funny. That night a priest came out and do mass for my grandparents cause it was also their 60th anniversary. Catholic mass, made me jittery but i made it through. After that there was a really cool presentation in the hall about my grandparents' lives and their kids. A few people sang a few songs and we presented grandma with a book of all the grandchildren with pictures and write ups that we all had to do. My cousin wendy put it together over a few months time and i don't see how she did it without going insane. There was crying all around. next day (monday) People started leaving, and we all had to pack up and clean up the camp site. (dad and melanie and jefferson left monday morning.) Everyone was saying goodbye and hugging and taking pictures. Goodbyes can take up to an hour in our family. Lots and lots of pictures were taken over the whole weekend and the week we were there. Plus i got a bunch of emails from cousins. That night we stayed at my aunt cora's and alot of people weren't leaving til tuesday so we ordered pizza and sat around outside there had a bit of a party. I goodbye to patrick and craig because they were leaving early in the morining, snagged their email addresses. I didn't cry when patrick left so i was proud of myself for that. Said goodbye to other people and went to bed, in the motorhome this time. The bed in the trailer had killed my back.
next day (Tuesday until Thursday) Today was pretty uneventful. Really the rest of the days were too. We (my mom and i) spent til wednesday at my aunt's and then the rest of the time at my grandma's. We went shopping thursday with my aunt sammy (her real name is anne). i got a discman, but i never got any cds, so the purpose of buying one kind of went out the window. (the purpose being so i could have music for the next couple days and on the plane). Now i have a discman though, so it's all good. I also got my sister part of her birthday gift. The whole time we were in kelowna it was high 30s low 40s C (high 90s low 100s in F), so walking back from the mall was not exactly fun. My mom says we made it the last leg purely on determination. I completely agree. I was bored a day or so cause i ran out of book but that's ok. Friday Of course we ended up rushing around to get to the airport, cause you know, that's the rule. You have to rush to the airport. So we get there and apparently when mom changed the flight ticket from lorene's name to her name (my friend lorene was supposed to fly out with me originally) the flight back changed. Somehow she didn't write it down or something so we had missed our plane. Yes, so, we are not happy people at this point. However it turned out not to be a huge deal. They found us seats on the flight that we thought we were going to be on and we had to basically run to the plane. Well i didn't run but you know what i mean. After that everything went fairly smoothly. Got home, said phew and that was that. For the most part it was fun, a few neurotic instances but it was good overall. One of my aunts decided to be a child and one of my uncles is a chronic pest. On sunday my uncle jerry broke his leg and i think my uncle stan mildly sprained his ankle. There were no major fights or anything so that was good because a few of them really don't get along well. The trip was really good and i'm glad i went. In fact it couldn't have been too much better. I got to have some good talks with alot of cousins, including patrick. I got to know his mom really well too, aunty sammy, so that was good. i didn't get to meet that guy i wanted to though, he never got back to me over the computer before i left and i had lost all his information in the computer transfer and that was really the only bad thing for me. Great trip, i enjoyed it.
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This is my blogchalk:
Canada, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, , English, , Female, 26-30, Reading.