The Day Before The Day

There is a shocking pink doggie bed on the floor of my room. A recent acquisition. Today, actually. After I finished the slew of errands that I had to get through before D-hour, I went out there and bought my Arnold what in doggie-world should be the heights of luxury. A doggie bed. I didn't think he'd mind the colour. After all, it's roomy and comfortable.

But Arnold, being Arnold, and rapidly turning back into his spoilt self (the emotional effects of the shelter apparently wearing off, though not the cough or the cold) sniffed disdainfully at it. I coaxed him on by sitting on it and gathering him into my lap. Then slowly removing myself and allowing him to test it out. He rolled
over once or twice, caught up my hand and pretended to bite it (a favourite game) and after a bit, he'd had enough and picked himself and trotted off the more attractive floor. Where he's seated himself out of reach, but where he has direct sight of said hideous bed and whatever else I might be up to. Have to give him his second dose of cough mixture today and am not looking forward to it. Mostly cos he hates it and fights pretty hard. I don't seem to have the knack of giving this dog his medicine. At best, he spits it out. At worst, he throws up.

It was a busy day. After Arnold woke me up with his usual hacking cough (I thought I'd taken care of that, somewhat, but apparently it's more persistent that I thought) and I forced his antibiotic and then his cough mixture down his throat, I fell back into bed for a short nap (pretty short, I had a full day and couldn't afford to sleep as much as I wanted) and then took myself off.

First to immigration to go see about my wrecked passport which they were giving me a break on and not filing a case. When I'd told my friend Harvinder about the broken bottle of port in my bag and the drenched passport, she leaned back coolly and asked me to "be prepared" for a whole heap of shit.

Apparently when you mess with your passport in anyway, immigration comes down heavy on you. Hers had disappeared into the washing machine, courtesy of a husband who didn't like clothes strewn on the floor, post-trip, gathered them all into his not-so-scrawny arms and dumped them higgledy piggledy into the machine.

Apparently when your passport goes through the wash, it looks worse than when it is baptised by a bottle of port.

Who knew?

Anyway, an immigration officer who identified herself as Subashini called me: "Miss Jennifer, I'm the officer assigned to look into your case. Actually the damage is not too bad. You can come do the passport the normal way."

Which is why when I finally made it there at 10 in the morning (which is very late by immigration standards) and finally managed to locate her, she greeted me with a smile and said, "next time don't be so careless with your passport or we'll have to open a case." I hung my head, dug my toe into the ground, and "aw shucksed" like any errant teenager. Then she handed me over to a smiling fellow who processed everything quicksmart and asked me to stick around to pay for my passport.

"How long?"

"Not long. Maybe 15 minutes."

"Oh good. I have time to get to an ATM."

And I was out and back in the appointed time. And the cashier dudette said, "OK come back at 11.45 to collect your new passport." It was 10.45 then. I went out for an ill-conceived wander around Section 17 which is large and sprawling and where the road numbers make no sense at all. I traversed the length and breadth without finding the road I wanted. But when it got close to 11.45 and I had to head back to immigration, I saw roads that looked close to what I wanted.

So I went back (getting very familiar with this carpark now - thankfully today, no creepy dudes tailgating me) sprinted upstairs, just in time for my number to be called. Who'd have thunk?

So there I was, fresh with new passport, a good start to the day. Then it was off for my medical (starting a new job after all, and it's apparently par for the course, though I've had two jobs in between this and my first real job with no medical at all, none!).

This time, I found the road straight away. A little more difficult trying to park but eventually I did. And then I was in and out in about 20 minutes. Urine sample. Chest X-ray. Tired-looking doc taking my blood pressure, pulse, listening to my heartbeat. Aced the eye test. Simply aced it. Which was about the only thing I could know for sure.

While sitting in the doctor's office I called my credit card company and asked them why they hadn't sent me a cheque for the amount they owed me. Instead, they had credited it into a non-existent credit card. The girl goes, oh we didn't know you wanted to cancel the card. It's only blocked not cancelled.

Hmmm. My understanding is that when someone steals your card, it's cancelled.

Neways, she said, don't worry. I've just done it. The money will be credited into your savings account by Friday. Anything else?

I hung up feeling lighthearted. More and more stuff being gotten out of the way. Amazingly I'd be able to cross everything off my to-do list today. And this with practically no sleep at all.

While I was in the throes of the medical a friend texted me. "Lunch?" Well, actually she'd texted me much earlier. I only saw it when I retrieved my phone to call the bank.

I answered: "Medical now. After?"

Which she was cool with. So after reading B and P off the charts, I took myself off to the shopping centre she was in. Only, not being familiar with the roads, I found myself heading in the wrong direction.

No problem. Internal GPS recalculating. Make a U-turn here. So I did. Light traffic which made it easy. (I love easy. It sure beats hard). Got there. Found the last bit of Supernatural Season 6 (Yay!). And the full Season 4 of Big Bang Theory (Double Yay). We had a lovely quick lunch at Subway - mmmmmm....sandwiches...it amounts to an obsession, but if I were not obsessive I would not be anything. Just shadow and vapour and clothes walking around without a person inside.

Then we found a hairdresser. Yay! Hairwash. Seated next to each other, chatting away over the din of the hair dryers, there was a minor adventure. The wires caught fire. Really! One minute it was a hot afternoon in nearly June and the next minute...it was a potential disaster. My guy stamped it out, removed wires that had been burned through (extension cords, what else) and fitted his hair dryer directly to the power point. And tried to act nonchalant. It sort of worked in that we calmed down. At the same time it didn't work in that we won't be going there again anytime soon.

And then it was time to grocery shop and I bumped into a famous senior journalist who'd heard from his girlfriend that I would be joining them (his girlfriend that is, not him). He said congratulations and I didn't know you lived around here and you must come by for a drink sometime. And he gave me his address. He was looking for corn chips and pineapples and he was making dinner. Salsa, or so he told me. Yum.

And then I decided to head over the other side of the road, to see if I could get Arnold a bed. I could. Ugly colour, but it was comfortable right? Isn't that what counts? Apparently not.

Anyways, I got home, unloaded the car, shooting off instructions to my father (you see, I bought fish. I'm putting it in the fridge. Don't forget to cook it. Fish. Tenggiri. I repeated a few times in case he hadn't caught it the first few hundred times) And then I climbed onto my bed, sorted out the DVDs trying to figure out which one to watch first.

Supernatural. Definitely Supernatural.

And so saying, fell fast fast asleep, so much so that I shot out of bed, heart pounding hours later thinking, oh shit, my first day of work and I'm late.

I wasn't.

It was still the night before.

Time for bed.

Good night sweet princes/ses.