June and July – what a bust for our cross stitch meetings…

In June we decided rather than have a cross stitch meeting we would go see the movie “Bridesmaids”. 

It was discussed whether to head into London or Sarnia.  Bonnie works in Sarnia and it is closer for her and Tracey, but Anita and Jody were closer to London.  Because we had to switch our hostess schedule around a bit, it was decided to be Bonnie’s night to host; therefore Sarnia was the winner and Jody was to meet Anita at her place and together they would travel to meet Tracey and Bonnie at the theatre.  Then guess what – Bonnie had a business meeting off site that day.  Where you ask?  Why London of course.  It would make things far too difficult to rearrange now for London so Bonnie made Matt promise with his life that he would have her back to Sarnia by 6:30pm.  It was after all …Cross Stitch NIGHT!  Bonnie told Tracey she would call her when they left London so she and Paul could time themselves accordingly as Paul was driving Tracey from Forest to Sarnia to meet Bonnie, then he would go do his thing and we would go do ours.

Question was…. Did Bonnie remember to call Tracey before she left London?  No!  Of course not!  The arrangement was to meet Tracey at the bench outside the Running Room at the mall.  Just as Bonnie approached the doors and did not see Tracey on the bench was the moment she realized she forgot to call her.  Scrambling madly for quarters to use the pay phone because she Never remembers to charge her cell – she only succeeded in reaching Tracey’s voicemail.  This was a moment of relief thinking ‘Phew…they are on their way’.  Then Bonnie began to have second thoughts (this is a personal disease of hers by the way…) and then she began to think -- Crap, what if she just didn’t think I would be back from London on time since she hadn’t heard from me – changed her mind – sent Paul on his way and took the dog for a walk.  Crap!  OR what if she decided to just have Paul drop her off at the theatre and meet the others and Bonnie would just catch up.  Double Crap: do I stay at the mall or head on over to the theatre.  Then for some reason Bonnie started singing ‘should I stay or should I go now… should I stay or should I go now...’

Sitting and waiting for a short while, Tracey finally did show up & apologized for running late and Bonnie said, ‘No, I owe you the apology because I forgot to call you before I left London!’  To which Tracey replied, ‘Oh I forgot you were going to call.’  Bonnie felt her shoulders slouch.

 

‘Bad news though, Jody has a migraine and cancelled.’ 

‘oh no!’

‘So I told Anita to meet us in front of the theatre’

So we head right on over to the theatre, gathered our things from the car and promptly got in line for our tickets.  Bonnie grabbed her wooly shawl because it can get so cold in the theatre in the summer time with the air conditioning and Tracey grabbed her wooly blanket.  We got a few stares with the blanket, but we concluded we didn’t care because you can’t properly chew your popcorn with chattering teeth.

We were so excited to be going to a movie as that is one thing we have not done as a group, but we were sad that Jody could not make it, BUT we were also excited that Anita was bringing the leftover Cadbury mini-eggs from retreat to go with our popcorn.   We got our tickets and decided to get our popcorn while the line was low and we stood by the window to watch for Anita.  Each dark SUV type vehicle that approached – one of us would say – Is that her – no.  Maybe this is her – no. She’ll be along any minute. Well it was show time so we decided we better get in and get settled before it got completely dark in the theatre.  We sat where we thought Anita could pick us out of the crowd easily.  Bonnie almost put her neck out cranking it by watching for Anita while Tracey rearranged her blanket suitably. Finally, the show started and we both sighed and concluded that Anita must have changed her mind.  We slunk down in our seats to settle in and Tracey threw half her blanket over Bonnie and while we wondered what others must have thought of us, we really didn’t care.  We were happy to there, but sad that Jody, Anita and mini-eggs weren’t.

The show of course was hilarious.  If you haven’t seen it, you must. 

Following the show, it’s off to home we go, laughing all the way… HA HA HA  and Tracey said – ‘I bet Anita emailed to tell us, but I had already left .  I hope everything is ok.’

Sure enough when we arrive home there was an email from Anita explaining why she was unable to make it.  As long as everything was ok – we were ok!  Followed next day by Jody’s apology and by then she was feeling much better.

When the movie is released I’ll buy it and on my host night – that’s what we’ll do before we stitch.

Now on to July:

July 1^st was not only Canada Day, but for Bonnie it was a surprise retirement party for Paige’s God-father.  Next day Bonnie and Paige were off to Burlington to spend the weekend with her other daughters, then home to start the work week. The plan was (and note the word was…) This week was going to be a good week to get caught up at work, cross stitch Wed night and then off to Toronto Friday night for Chantelle and Martin’s wedding reception. Bonnie was really looking forward to the week.

Jody was hosting cross stitch for July and she let everyone know that she happened to be off that day and for anyone who could - to come early!  Tracey said to Bonnie, ‘If you don’t mind driving alone, I thought I’d like to leave about noon to get to Jody’s and then meet you after 5’.  The more Bonnie thought about it, she thought hmmmmm… I wonder …..if I could get all my major deadlines done by Wed noon, perhaps she too could leave early on the Wed.  She told Tracey she would do her best, but may not be able to let her know until that day. Something to look forward to. Yippee, 12 hours to cross stitch. 

However, the headaches Bonnie started getting before Canada Day were only the beginning.  And Bonnie put it off as just being tired. But by July 3 while in Burlington, the chills began to set in.  Bonnie was not sure how she was going to drive the QEW, 403,401,402 for the next 3 hours. Paige excitedly exclaimed, “I’ll drive home!” 

The thought of this made Bonnie shivered more under her blanket and she thought ‘oh god, I can hardly stand driving on these highways, how is such an inexperienced young driver going to do it?’ – ‘yes the only way for her to get experience is to actually do it, but why meeeee? Why nowwwwww?’  Bonnie finally concluded that it was safer to let Paige drive than it was for her to attempt it. Bonnie tried to keep her mouth shut as much as her eyes were, but she had to check every once in a while to make sure Paige wasn’t ‘white-knuckling’ the steering wheel. They arrived home safe and sound by Sunday night at 9pm and Bonnie couldn’t wait to get to bed.  All she wanted to do was get some rest and get up and go to work and get on with the week.  

Woody Allen is credited with saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”  Bonnie likes to make people laugh, so apparently God is listening to her because she had plans and Boy - did HE laugh! 

The plan was to get up and go to work next day.  But in actual fact Bonnie could not even move; and she couldn’t even get out of bed until 4:30 on the Monday. Ok, fine.  I hear you God.  I’ll go to work on Tuesday – you know… Jody is looking forward to us showing up early and I do want to get my work done.  Apparently, this made God laugh even louder and Bonnie missed Tuesday at work as well.  So much for an early cross stitch night for Bonnie – and -  two missed days of work.

It was finally concluded that even if Bonnie did get to work on Wed, she should not go to cross stitch that night at all, she should just stay home and rest.  :-(   So Tracey went at about noon to join Jody and then Anita showed up around 4:30. The next day Tracey sent Bonnie the following email: 

How are you feeling today?  I hope A LOT better!!

We sure missed you at x-s last night!!  (Oh, and while I think of it next month (Aug.) will be at my house and Anita is having Sept. at the cabin.)

Since you weren't there to take "minutes", we thought we would pass on our version for you to add to the book:

·      Missed Bonnie!!!

·      ate

·      listened to Tracey talk about the wedding (and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk...)

·      ate

·      stitched (a tiny little bit)

·      laughed 

That was July 6^th.  Today is July 11^th and Bonnie is still sick.  It’s been 9 days of flat on her back sick and a million reruns of ‘quiet’ movies, because there was not one ounce of strength to cross stitch!    After almost calling the ambulance to take her to the hospital on Sat night, Bonnie finally found someone to take her in and was able to acquire some kickass antibiotics.   It’s Monday morning and Bonnie has more strength today than yesterday, the meds are kicking in, but guess what?  Bonnie is NOT telling ANYONE her plans!