HayFever

Did you know that Hay Fever is simply one of those nonsensical terms for allergic rhinitis? I didn't know that until I googled up the term last night after spending an entire afternoon and evening sneezing the nose off my face and wondering if there was a quicker way to drain my sinuses. Like maybe removing my eyeballs and just scooping the snot out. This morning we are all sneezing, dripping and snuffling to some extent. Part of the trouble is the near ubiquitous state of renovation we live in. Not complaining, mind you. Every project started and completed is another step closer to selling the house and building a new one together. Still, the reality is that I am allergic to dust and I live in a continual state of it. The other side of the tipping point was that Rob is using the fire-pit in the backyard to dispose of some of the old wood from even older reno projects past. He also decided yesterday to burn paper. Between the two of us we have the death of a what appears to be a whole forest on our hands. Some of it is the accumulation of paper generated by years illness on the part of both our late spouses. It's hard to know what needs to be saved for this or that purpose. Much of it was just the inability to deal with concrete tasks when so much of our reserves were split, unevenly, between day to day survival and sorting through the inner piles of "paperwork" that grieving generates. The end result though is that today we are snotty, and not in that satisfying way of sticking out our tongues at the world either. Drippy, mucousy, wheezy, throat-clearing yukkiness. Rob deals with it by refusing to acknowledge it. If he doesn't say the words "I have allergies," out loud then it just isn't so. Such a man thing. My dad and my late husband have/had similar coping strategies. As a women, while I lament the need to do so, I would rather just own up and begin to seek a solution. So far, I have not found a solution to my allergic woes. I systematically have purged offensive foods from my diet and this has helped but the whole rhinitis issue can't be rectified unless I stop breathing air. I kinda need air, as filthy polluted as it is, and have only imperfect remedies. Anti-histamines. Decongestants. Herbal teas. A pitiful arsenal really. The commercials you see with happy, snot-free people wandering cheerfully through a Disney picture perfect wilderness that begs for Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty to come waltzing through with their entourage of cheeping, squeaking and squawking menageries are an offensive load of poop. Drugged up to the hilt, the truly allergic can maybe manage not to drip, but the truth is that your eyes still sting and your sinus cavities sting and ache and you can still hack up a nice wad of phlegm at a moment's notice.

Hay Fever is a sign of a hyper-vigilant immune system. Personally if my immune system wanted to be really useful it would be coming up with ways to protect me against the coming Bird Flu epidemic, but I guess dust and pollen is the best it can do in its off hours when it isn't fighting the good fight against all the viruses and bacteria that penetrate our systems from time to time. Practice is practice, I suppose.

Egg Shitter

The book is called NO KIDS: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children and was written by a French author named Corrine Maier. In it this psychiatrist, and mother of two, attempts to dissuade young childless French women from succumbing to the baby fever which is currently sweeping their country. Unlike most other countries in the EU where birthrates have fallen well below population replacement levels and young children are swiftly becoming an anomaly, the French are experiencing a renaissance of motherhood thanks in no small part to government sponsored maternity leaves where mothers are paid full wages for up to sixteen weeks, receive "bonus checks" for having more than one child and enjoy a creche, or childcare, system that is unequaled anywhere. Ms. Maier feels that these programs are part of a larger plan to imprison women in the traditional, and largely unfulfilling, role of "mom". The phrase she coined for women who buy into the myth that motherhood is the ultimate goal for a women is merdeuf which a French speaker would recognize as the contraction of mère de famille, which is the traditional phrase for a full-time mother or a housewife and someone who makes the act of mothering her career. The contraction of this term, however, sounds like a combination of merde, which any first year French student can tell you means "shit" and oeuf, which means "egg". Combined these two sounds seem to imply that these xeno-phobes disguised as patriots and uber-mommies are in fact little more than "egg-shitters."

Now, it may seem ironic that someone who has given birth to and is raising children of her own would counsel women who have not yet had children to steer clear of the "profession" of motherhood, but only if you weren't a mother yourself. Even the most rabidly devoted mother has moments when she wishes she had opted for the power career or the guy with no real potential other than showing her a really great time. Why? Because it would have been easier and finite. There is no end to motherhood. No way to quit or backtrack. Just 15 or 20 years of intensive, sometimes mind-numbing, and certainly unappreciated but for hindsight freakin' hard work. For nothing. There are no monetary rewards. No company perks. No advancements. If men had been handed this role at the dawn of creation the human race would have began and ended with Adam and Eve. And yes, I know as a mother myself that there are intangible rewards to having and raising children that shouldn't be compared with the consumer-driven objectified greediness of the material minded, but when you stop to consider that in the vast majority of the world women are little more than breeding cows with nearly identical rights it is hard to argue against Ms. Maier's attempt to warn off future generations of brood mares.

It could be the poor translation but I think some of Ms. Maier's reasons are stupid, but a few drive home the point that women are still being forced to choose between having children and having a life, eg. career. Children are limiting for women in a way that they are not for men. You can argue the point as much as you like but the facts are the facts. Mothers, even really crappy ones, are tied to the early development of their off-spring in a much more physical way than fathers are and because of this, they will inevitably lose time. Time for education or building careers or simply to pursue some personally fulfilling dream. We can't have it all in the same way men can and it's time this was acknowledged and made generally known to women before they have babies. An uninformed choice is hardly a choice at all.

Internet Sites and the Small World

Katie Coles is an old college roomie of my cousin, Anne. I vaguely recall meeting her when I first went away to college myself. Both Katie and my cousin are just enough older than I am that at the time we weren’t quite peers. She and Anne have kept up over the years and distance. My cousin was always better than I have ever been about staying connected with friends and family, but it speaks to the kind of person she is. She is glue. One of those who holds people close and keeps them near and connected not only to herself but to others.

It’s interesting who you find on the Internet. Since becoming a Facebook addict my husband, Rob, has discovered all sorts of old friends and acquaintances from high school and university. I haven’t found many people I know on Facebook but on the Classmates site, I saw a few people I know. I signed up there because my 25 year high school reunion is coming up and I wanted to track down contact information for some of my friends. As it turns out the best source of information was simply calling my friend Julie who, incidentally, is also a distant cousin of mine. I lost track of so many people when Will was sick and until now hadn’t made moves to reconnect though I had thought about them and doing that often. Having found them, I don’t do much with the Classmates site anymore, so I was a bit surprised to get an email telling me that someone had left a message for me there. It turned out to be Katie Coles.

From:
Katie
To:
Annie
Sent:
September 27, 2007 01:27:53 AM
Subject:
Hi, this is Katie, Anne Kenney's college roomie


Hello. I was poking around seeing who's new on the U of I listing and your name was familiar. I visited Anne in CR for a couple of weeks this summer. In fact, I went with her and Betty to pick up your mom at the airport from your wedding. I saw the pics you sent by e-mail and Anne and I "oooed" and "aaaahhhed" over them quite a bit. You are so lovely!

Anyway, although I only know you vicariously through Anne, I am compelled to say that I think you are wonderfully brave to follow your heart with a good man and I wish all the best for you, your daughter and your husband.

Katie

I am continually amazed by the effect that Rob and I seem to have on people that we don’t really know or who don’t know us except through family or friends or just from randomly hearing about our story. My dear friend Meg’s 89 year old mother is an avid follower of ours and through her a whole host of elderly friends in one of Des Moines’s senior homes is keep abreast of us as though we were an afternoon soap opera. I am also quite amazed by the way people seem to pick up on our love for each other merely through the pictures I have posted or sent to those I know. It’s not validation really and I personally don’t need that anyway. I don’t live my life by committee anymore. What other people think, as my mother always told me, is none of my business, but it is a nice feeling knowing that by just being “us”, following our hearts and living our lives, that we have touched people in a positive way. I am not sure I could have said that about my life ten or fifteen years ago. A late bloomer, I guess.

I was telling my mother about Katie’s message today, and she told me that Katie hasn’t been well. She has a very hard time getting around. Arthritis or something similar is robbing her of her mobility, but still she made the drive from Arizona to Iowa with her kids in tow to spend a few weeks with an old friend. There are so many things in life that we think of as being very important when the truth is that there are only a few things in life that merit such status. Friends are one of them.

The Terry Fox Run

Thursday was the Terry Fox Run in schools all across Canada. The day is part of an extensive effort by the Fox family to honor Terry and his wish to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Terry began the original run called The Marathon for Hope in 1980, three years after losing his leg to bone cancer. He captured the hearts of Canadians by pledging to run across the country, taking pledges and donations for cancer research as he went. The marathon began with just Terry and a friend who would follow him in a van as he ran 26 miles every day. He started in Newfoundland and as the miles piled up he attracted followers and donations. Terry made it as far as Ontario before he was stopped by a recurrence of cancer. It was in his lungs. Terry reluctantly stopped running, but the next year Canadians picked up where Terry had left off and to date the Terry Fox Foundation has raised $400 million dollars world-wide for cancer research.

I knew Terry’s story before moving here. I was in grade 10 at high school the year Terry attempted to run across Canada. I can’t recall the context in which I learned about him. Maybe it was in school or perhaps I read about him in the newspaper. School children in Canada remember Terry by bringing “toonies” - two dollar coins - to school and by participating in running and walking events. Katy hadn’t heard about Terry Fox Run Day. It’s not something they do in schools in Iowa though Terry’s run is a world wide phenomena now. She was quite caught up. We had to make sure she had a “toonie” to donate. She had no idea what the day meant or who Terry Fox was though. I didn’t stop to consider that the children her age might be given too much information concerning Terry’s illness or death, but apparently they were. Since last evening Katy has quizzed both Rob and I about Terry, cancer, and why people don’t get better even with medicine. Since her father’s illness, and more-so since his death, Katy can fixate a bit when somehow she knows is ill or she hears about someone dying. Especially if that someone is young.

Rob was very matter of fact with Katy at supper yesterday when the cancer questions came up. Like me, he goes clinical and deadpan when discussing disease and death. Unlike me, well me most of the time anyway, he tends to give out more information than is technically necessary. “You need to give me a sign or something,” he says but it’s hard to put Katy off. She is a smart little girl and a persistent one.

The whole incident made me think about a recently published article about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and children of cancer patients. The study found that having a parent with a life-threatening illness can cause PTSD in children and the effects can linger for years. Many of the symptoms are things I have observed in Katy though to a lesser extent as time passes. Some of the symptoms were things I had suffered myself in the aftermath of sitting alone with my late husband the night he died. Like my daughter, I have a hard time with the knowledge of anyone’s illness or even suspected illnesses, but I am torn about shielding her too much. How much is too much? My father is dying. He has a progressive lung disease. I am told he is spending the majority of his time these days in bed and that he isn’t eating or drinking much. I spent enough time in hospice to know what that means. We are heading to the States for a visit in a few weeks and I don’t know really know what to expect for me or for Katy. It may well be the last time we see him alive.

Back in the day, people cared for their aged and sick in their homes. Both my parents can recall the deaths of their grandparents. My mother’s older sister will tell you that both of their mother’s parents were bedridden. Grandma was their only child and caretaker for not just her elderly parents but five children and a husband, who as an aside was having an affair with the girl she hired to help her out with the care-taking of everyone but herself. My dad was just three and sitting in the summer kitchen with his grandmother when she keeled over in front of him. The wakes were at home after family prepared the bodies. Wakes could last a few days, I am told, in order to accommodate family that needed to travel from a distance. Were my parents, aunts or uncles traumatized by the close proximity to death? My great-aunt was just a little girl when her three younger sisters died in rapid succession during the Spanish flu epidemic. She still cries when she talks about her sister, Emily, and what a beautiful little baby she was. No one was shielded. When my dad’s aunt died of cancer it was at home with her husband, two very young sons in attendance. Maybe we are too far removed from death anymore. We have been led to believe that death is an anomaly. Something that happens mainly at the very end of a long life. We certainly scrap against it and deny its possibility. Hide its raw reality from ourselves in any way that we can. When we do let it out in the open it is through stories like Terry’s because we want death to be meaningful and uplifting in a movie of the week sort of way even if it’s a lie that we tell ourselves.

I think death is traumatizing and it has always been that way. The difference between now and then is the level of involvement we allow ourselves.

Adopting the Cat

So, we have pretty much decided to adopt the mama cat whom Katy has already named Bouncy. The kittens will need to be placed. Where? I have no idea. I do know that Rob is not fond of the idea of raising one kitten, forget about three and truthfully, starting from ground zero with any type of pet is just a lot of work. Our neighbor has friends who live on a farm, and she is checking to see if perhaps they would like a few kittens, once they are weaned. Feral cats, which they would likely end up, are somewhat of a farm staple. They help keep the rodent population in check. Friends of mine back in Iowa always have kittens at one stage or another it seems on their farm. They are not pets in any sense of the word. They eat from the scrap bucket that is also given to the pigs, and there is an old dog dish with food in it as well. Otherwise they fend for themselves. I feel a little bad that we are condemning the kittens to such an existence, but unless someone steps forward wanting a house cat, that is the only option for them.

Having come to this decision just yesterday, I haven’t had much time to research about cats, or kittens, and what steps need to be taken now. They need to visit the vet. Bouncy needs a clean bill of health, shots and to be spayed lest we have another batch of kittens to deal with soon. I think the kittens are about 3 to 4 weeks old. According to the little bit I have read, they wean around 5 to 8 weeks. They will be moving about, and quickly, within the next week or two, so new shelter provisions will need to be taken, or they will be road kill, food for the coyotes and foxes or even the neighborhood dogs. Right now they are still in the cardboard box sheltered by a few boards nest to the garage. Nothing really keeping them in but their own inability to walk well enough to escape.

Bouncy is to the point where she will come when called, or when she hears Katy’s voice. I am sure that she was someone’s pet not long ago and was dumped once they discovered she was pregnant. I am hoping she hasn’t been in the “wild” long enough to not recognize a litter box, which is my only real reservation about her. I haven’t ever litter trained animal, but I have vivid and distasteful memories of potty training the dog I foisted upon my unsuspecting folks when I was in high school. Come to think of it. I probably did something similar to that with Bouncy and Rob. He even asked me when I was planning to tell him I had decided to keep the cat when we discussed the cat’s future yesterday over the phone.

So, we are for sure a cat family now. Hopefully not a multiple cat family. Anyone need a kitten?

For Your Own Good

Do you hate it when someone tells you that something that you really don’t want to happen, or to have, is for your own good? So do I. And I will tell you why. Because whenever someone tells you that you can bet the house that the good they are speaking of is their own, and your health and welfare and over all well-being don’t have one blessed thing to do with it. Case in point, the women of Saudi Arabia have launched their first effort since 1990 to try and secure the right to drive an automobile. Saudi Arabia is a patriarchal country that makes my Irish Catholic (wait strike the Irish part because the Irish are notoriously matriarchal) upbringing look profoundly feminist. The Saudis strictly interpret the whole “woman in her place (two steps behind I am told) thing”, and women are forbidden to drive based on this skewed point of view. All women. Muslim or not. A woman is a woman is just a sperm receptacle in Saudi Arabia. Saudi men see this, or so they say, as a safety issue. Women and children are safer being driven by men. However, drivers there, whether they are public taxi drivers or private chauffeurs, tend to be foreigners who are, according to Saudi women, notorious for harassing the women and children they are transporting. Which brings me back to my original point. The “good” part of “for your own good” is not about protecting someone. It’s about maintaining something, usually control, and in the case of Saudi Arabian women it is about maintaining control of them by restricting their movement.

But it’s not just Islamic men. The male gender just about anywhere, sometimes aided and abetted by some of the dumbest females I try my best to avoid, spend a good deal of time and energy coming up with ways to protect women from themselves. In my native country of the United States this kind of paternalism takes the shape of groups who oppose reproductive rights from access to abortions to contraceptives. Even with Roe V. Wade, access to abortion, even in the case of medical emergencies has never been so sparse and the ability to purchase legally prescribed contraception from the birth control pill to emergency day after contraception like Plan B is equally in danger. And it’s for our own good. Adult women in the United States must be protected from the “dangers” of these things. The only danger however is to the status quo. As fewer and fewer women have litters of children and more and more put off having children all sorts of things are occurring that is changing the playing field. Most notably is that more women are on playing fields that traditionally they couldn’t access before. The bottom line is that there is no better way to control women than to deny them the right to regulate their own reproductive systems. Being eternally knocked up is better than foot-binding for keeping women in their place.

But it’s not just whole genders that are kept in line. Governments use the “for our good” line to perpetrate all manner of suppressive acts. The Bush Administration, with the blessing of Republican congressional representatives suspended Habeas Corpus to protect Americans from terrorists even while it allows them to imprison “dissident” citizens without warning, without cause, without trial and seemingly without end. In Canada the government of Quebec is attempting to suppress its Islamic population by forcing its women to unveil before being allowed to vote. This is similar to the recent Indiana law in the U.S. requiring photo I.D. for all voters. It is to prevent fraud but the only fraud is that of governments who hide their true motives behind their concern “for the good of the people”.

In the workplace, this hypocrisy takes the shape of wellness programs for employees. Recently back home the government decided to allow employers to charge higher payroll deductions to employees with high cholesterol, over the limit BMI’s or to people who smoke. It is for the good of the employees they say, but the bottom line of the companies and their shareholders is the primary motivation.

For my own good I have been sold a lot of what I now recognize as self-serving crap over the course of my life. It is a shame that I listened to so much of it and more of a shame that I actually followed some of the advice at different times. We are the arbiters of our own good. Skepticism should always be the approach of choice when someone approaches you, or imposes on you, anything that is supposedly good for you.


Add a Comment

Happy Anniversary, Baby.

Although I was recently reminded that I have been widowed for less than two years and only married again for about five minutes, I want to take a moment to recognize my wonderful husband, Rob, and be grateful for our life together and bask in the glow of our love and happiness for all the world (a small world indeed as there are but a few loyal readers here) to see.

While it’s true that this is just the third month of our damn long time together, and just ten months since we met, all journeys have to begin somewhere. And, every new beginning, to borrow a line from the group Semisonic, comes from some other beginnings end.

Happy Anniversary, my lover. Je t’aime.

Homeroom Mom

I volunteered to help make apple pie with Katy’s kindergarten class today. There are nineteen kids in her room on days when the all day children are there. There were four adults. The teacher, her husband who took the day off to help out, another mother and myself. We weren’t greatly out-numbered and yet when Katy and I got home after not quite three hours of non-stop apple related and pie-making activities, I was ready for bed. This full time mom gig is not for the out of shape, the sleep deprived or those short on patience. Of which, I can be any or all of the above depending on the day or the week or the time of the month.

It is full moon. The time of the month when children, animals and people inclined towards being a pain in the butt crank the volume up to eleven. If I were teaching, I would have known it was full moon when I walked into the school building today, but my old supervisor was right about how little time it takes to forget nearly everything you ever learned about kids and their ways. Still, I can be forgiven. I was not an elementary teacher. Certainly my only experience with five year olds consists of nephews, nieces and the children of friends. And now, of course, my own little girl. Kindergartners do not have the pack mentality of their older academic brethren. They do not look for weakness. They do not misbehave for effect. But what they lack in cunning they make up for in energy.

The activity was a good one and I found myself missing my old profession quite a bit. There was nothing like teaching a great lesson to a receptive audience. Nothing like imparting knowledge and seeing the lights come on. Katy’s teacher is very good at keeping things moving and teaching to the moment. Kids are actively engaged and even the little ones who you can tell are going to become more and more difficult to manage and engage over time were tuned in and on task.

Katy was so proud to have me there. The last two years in Montessori I was seldom able to get off work for field trips and was never able to volunteer in the classroom. Her former school was made up of primarily two parent families. Single parent needs weren’t considered when it came to planning much of anything. Now that I have the time, I am seeing just how much of an advantage children with a stay at home parent has.

Tomorrow there is a field trip to the nearby park to look at trees and leaves and all the signs of the fall and coming winter. Katy is thrilled that I will be coming along even if it does mean she will miss riding the bus home for a second day. Nice to know I am more important than riding the yellow school bus. I expect to be dead ass tired again tomorrow afternoon, but it is a good kind of tired.

My First Fiction Submission

The Edmonton Journal is sponsoring a writing contest for the next eight weeks. The author, Thomas Wharton, will write the first and last chapters and readers are invited to continue the story by submitting chapters they have written. The first installment of what may end up a published novel, Murder on the North Saskatchewan, appeared in the Saturday edition with subsequent chapters to be published on the following Saturdays until the story is completed. Submissions have to be in by Tuesday of each week and writers are allowed to win at least twice, but not in a row. I don’t write mysteries, or at least I haven’t since I was in fifth grade. I don’t even like to read crime/detective style stories anymore which is odd because I was a huge fan of The Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown in grade school and then Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen as I got older. But, the chance to be published was too big a siren call to pass up, and I admit the $500 prize moved me a bit too.

I started the second chapter Saturday night and thought about it on and off during the day on Sunday while we were in the city to visit the zoo and run errands. Rob very helpfully drove me around the area where the first chapter takes place because as a newcomer here its hard for me to write convincingly about the setting. Last night I spent a couple of hours hammering out my first draft only to find it was 143 words too long. Word counts can be maddening but there is nothing like have to lose a few dozen sentences to force a writer to get to the point without losing the substance.

So, below is my second chapter of Murder on the North Saskatchewan. You can use the link to read the first chapter before reading it. Let me know what you think. I emailed it this morning and I am very excited!

Murder on the North Saskatchewan - Chapter Two

"I'm a professional investigator," Emmy corrected him and immediately felt stupid for doing so because apparently her surveillance hadn't gone unobserved.
Bert chuckled, "Feisty. I like that in a girl dick."
Emmy didn't know whether to be insulted or merely disdainful of his Albertan redneck sexism. Flashing him a cool eye of contempt, she squirted her wayward quarry square in the face. He staggered gamely backward a few stiff steps before toppling straight back onto the parking lot pavement. Emmy quickly shoved the pepper spray into her bag and scrambled to assist him,lying flat on his back with arms and legs flailing. Fleetingly Emmy noted how much he looked like the turtle Chelsea had when she was eight that never could stay right side up and met an untimely end in the garbage disposal.
As Emmy bent down to help Bert, he awkwardly rolled onto all fours and crawled away from her outstretched arms.
"Get away from me," he snarled, rubbing at his eyes.
"Oh, don't do that," she cautioned him too late as the rubbing elicited a string of expletives.
She glanced about the near empty parking lot, not for help but to make sure that no one was watching. By the time the EPS had finished taking statements from the passengers, even the news reporters from the various local stations had packed up and left. The only evidence of the night's events were the police tape cordoning off the riverboat, and a banner proclaiming the ill-fated opening of the casino boat's maiden voyage. Guiltily Emmy tentatively approached the now partially righted Bert, sitting on the nearby curb he had crawled to, back held at a painful angle and using the hem of his shirt to dab ineffectively at his eyes. He looked up when he sensed her nearing. Even in the dim light coming from the streetlamps on 98th Ave, Emmy could see that his eyes were as red as the sunset earlier that evening. He held up a large, powerful looking hand to halt her approach. Though it was clear that he was greatly hampered by the apparent injury to his back, it was also obvious to her that he was a very strong man. Biceps bulged perceptively. Despite his receding hairline, slightly graying close cropped beard, and gimped back, he was a still a young man.
"Don't come any closer," he told her through gritted teeth. "I have had about all I care to take from anyone in the employ of the late, and sure to be unlamented, Brian Fulton."
"I was hired by Ixion Construction," Emmy corrected him, puzzled by his assumption that the murdered man had employed her.
Bert laughed. "You are green."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Didn't they teach you in correspondence school to check the background of your employer before taking a job? Just to cover your pretty little bum?"
Emmy flushed. "It was an Internet course. Through MacEwan if you must know. Very reputable." But even as she spoke she was remembering something that Jack had told her. "Everyone is a suspect, Em. A good investigator gathers facts because there ain't no such thing as a completely innocent party. They all have motives and things to hide. Even the victims."
"I thought as much," Bert grunted. "Not that I owe you a thing. Especially after the pepper bath. But Fulton was a silent partner in Ixion. His ex's cousin may own it on paper, but he fronted the cash."
Emmy stored the information for further rumination and asked, "So you came here tonight to confront him?"
Bert shook his head. "I came here tonight to remind ole Bullrider of a few facts."
"Facts?"
"That are none of your business, lady," he retorted and with a mighty heave pushed himself up onto his feet.
Even though she was standing a good ninety centimeters from him she still took an involuntarily step back. Bert Gombrick was tall and quite imposing. Emmy entertained just the briefest thought about whether or not he looked as good unclothed as he did in dark blue jeans and white button down shirt before regaining her composure. Defiantly stood her ground, meeting this angry blood-shot pale blue eyes with her own stormy grays.
"I'll tell the police what I saw."
He smiled grimly. "Go ahead."
"You wouldn't care? I saw you arguing with Fulton shortly before he turned up....and over the paddle wheel of his own boat."
"I'd care. It would be inconvenient, but I have nothing to hide. I was off that boat before it left the dock, and I can prove it."
Emmy couldn't tell if he was bluffing. Jack had always told her that a good liar "feels more fair than foul...to borrow from Tolkien....the less likely to be mistaken for an angel, the more likely you can believe them."
As she was thinking, Bert limped by her towards his truck. She silently watched him leave. After he disappeared towards the legislature, she climbed into the van. She didn't feel quite the failure she had. He may have known all about her, but it wasn't because he'd spotted her. He'd been told. And that didn't make any sense at all. "When something doesn't make sense, go back to the beginning." That was Jack's motto, and despite the fact that Jack was a prize-winning boob, Emmy knew that she was being played. She was supposed to be on the Edmonton Queen tonight. Just like Bert Gombrick was supposed to know he was being tailed by a private investigator working for Brian Fulton. The question was, why? Emmy pulled out of the lot and headed for the High Level Bridge. Since the divorce she and Chelsea had been staying in a tiny rented house near the University of Alberta. Tomorrow she would start at the beginning, Ixion Construction and Steven Hollis, the man who had hired her. Tonight, she needed a shower and a beer.

House Guests

Rob and Katy discovered a family of kitties yesterday evening. The mother cat has been roaming about the neighborhood for a few weeks. Our neighbor, Charlotte, took to feeding her eventually, and I guess that was enough hospitality to convince her to move her newborns to a spot behind some stacked boards next to our garage. The kittens have only just opened their eyes, and they wobble when they attempt to walk. Rob moved some of the plywood and found a cardboard box into which he put an old blanket to make a better nest for the young family as they were living on a bed of rock. We haven’t seen any posters up for a lost cat, so the mother could be local or, more likely, abandoned in the near past as she is very tame. She will eat right out of your hand and comes when you call her. Katy has been lobbying for a pet for over a year now. She has stepped up her efforts a bit since we moved up here, but we have held her off with time vague promises of a pet sometime in the future. The main reason for this is that she is too young to really take care of an animal. That would fall to me, and Rob is worried that I wouldn’t take to it well. Also, Rob is a tiny bit happy to be pet-free after years of cats and dogs. Jordan took the last animal, her cat Tigger, with her when she moved this last June. Another cat, Nike, and a yellow lab named Loki live in the city with Farron. One of Katy’s arguments for a pet is that she is the only sister who doesn’t have a cat. Nothing escapes that child’s notice and she can be quite clever. She began one of her pet campaigns by sitting Rob down one day and saying in a calm, matter of fact way, “ Can we talk about a dog?” She would be happy with either a cat or a dog, but for the moment she is leaning more towards dog because she is convinced they would play with her more. This was pre-kittens though. The gray mama has already seemed to have decided to call our yard home. The kittens will probably go feral at some point without intervention. Rob isn’t inclined to intervene much beyond the home he fashioned for them and some leftover cat food in a leftover dog dish for the mama. Fate has its own ideas though I have come to realize, and certainly a sense of humor that you can appreciate or resent depending on your world view. Nothing is decided, but, for the moment, we have cats.
1 Comment Manage Comments for this Entry

Living Your Dreams

Randy Pausch is a Professor of Human Computer Interaction, Computer Science and Design at Carnegie Mellon. He is also the Director of the Entertainment Technology Center. And he is dying of pancreatic cancer. When this date rolls around again next year, his wife will be a widow with three small children.

I discovered a link to a speech he gave recently in a lecture series at Carnegie Mellon. It was very positive and meant, I believe, to urge people to look closely at their lives and assess them. Many of us have dreams. Some are relatively recent ones and others are of long standing, but how many of us realize our dreams? Pausch’s speech focused largely on himself. What he dreamt of when he was young and what he had achieved. The best teachers are able to use themselves as examples to make points. His point, in my opinion, was to not lose sight of those things that inspire you, give yourself permission to dream big but specifically, to know what you are and aren’t capable of achieving, and to learn what you need to in order to make your dreams a reality. A message that gets back to the heart of the reason why so many people are failing to live the lives they would like to live, were created to live really. Being the person you dream of is work. It means overcoming shortcomings and obstacles. It means acknowledging that sometimes you can’t have things the way you want them. It means sucking it up, even when the world is giving you permission not to.

Personally, I have to work hard to see the other hand and not dwell on the negatives or the critical nay-sayers. I can’t recall a time in my life that I was handed something I really wanted. Things worth having require time and effort to have and to hold. Maybe this is the nature of the universe or maybe it is just me, I don’t know. I do know that Professor Pausch is in a unique position to teach his students how to deal a hand as dealt. A lesson that our society does not expect any of us to learn because we live in an era of no personal responsibility. There will always be a reason why it’s okay not just to fail but to not try at all. To quote Pausch:

"I've never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion," Pausch told Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America" today. "We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn't matter. Life is to be lived."

Dinner and a Movie Again

Rob took the day off. We had immigration stuff to attend to, again, in the city, and it took so long we were pushing it to get Katy to school on time. Apart from a quick project meeting after lunch, Rob and I had the whole afternoon to ourselves. Alone. In our home. Did I mention the “alone” part? That hasn’t happened even once in the three months we’ve been living together. Three months. Our anniversary is coming up next week. We’ve been married for three months. We’ve known each other for almost a year. It seems longer. Funny how there are people who come into your life and it seems as though they have been there all along just waiting for the chance to finish your thoughts with identical ones of their own. Kindred. There is no rationally explaining such people. Maybe just subconscious memories of another time? Another life? Sometimes I get the feeling that Rob and I have been separated for a long while. Lifetimes.

Dinner was Boston Pizza with a very tired five year old straight from ballet. There is romance in that if you care to look. I don’t need to look far. Just across the table. The movie is a leftover from last Saturday night’s trip to the video store. Strange that we still call them that even though I haven’t seen a VHS cassette for rental anywhere in ages. The cranky five year old, who is crankier yet, is still stirring but she won’t last. And then? It is the old sofa, blankets, snuggling and Bandits with Bruce and Billy Bob and hopefully our first movie without widowed or grieving characters.

Dating your husband is the best way to spend a Friday night. Even if you are dating in for the evening.

Paragraffers Writing Club

Last night I went to my first writing group meeting since moving here to Canada. The group calls itself The Paragraffers and meets every second Tuesday at the library in town. When I first arrived I thought that everyone in the Fort must be a writer because the parking lot was full. Truthfully everyone in town thinks they need to lose weight and were there for the Weight Watchers meeting. I don’t think I have ever seen so many women happily walking through the door of any group whose existence depended on their inability to eat right and exercise regularly. Of course, if I get any happier or sassier, I might end up one of them. For last night however, I was there to check out writers’.

My last group was organized by a fellow widow and teacher back in Iowa. It was a group of just women, and we met once a month at a local coffee house. I have to confess, I didn’t have a chance to really get heavily involved though I did met some wonderful women. By the time I had gotten my feet wet, I knew Rob already and it wasn’t long before I was having to start my long farewells to a number of groups with whom I had only just begun to feel comfortable. What I had enjoyed the most about writing group was simply the conversation that spun off the writing. Sometimes it would stick closely to the topic at hand but just as often it would verve off into lively chatter about a range of things that were just as important in nurturing my creative spirit as sharing my writing was. The group last night was typical of what I am accustomed to as far as work-shopping goes. I have taken a number a writing workshop courses through the University of Iowa’s writing program, even taught the workshop model myself at a variety of grade levels, and most clubs base themselves on the workshop method developed there and fostered now on many academic campuses. Someone reads a piece aloud, or the group comes together having already read someone’s piece via email attachment or shared document file, and the readers offer feedback to the writer. In the college, or professional I imagine, setting the feedback usually errs on the side of criticism which can be brutal and of dubious use. Most of it though is jealous pulldown. No one, in my opinion, can be as snotty as an insecure writer. In the “laymen’s” writing group however, the feedback is generally positive and the critiquing meant to be constructive. There aren’t, or shouldn’t anyway, any ego’s at stake. Realistically there should never be ego at stake in any writing group. A person is either a writer or he/she is not, and comparing one piece of writing to another is like trying to decide what shade of blue is “the” blue. Blue is blue. Writing is writing. It is good or it needs work. For nearly every kind of writing there is an audience, and no one type or genre is better than another. It all depends on the tastes and needs of the individual.

The Paragraffers were brought together a year ago by a woman named Kathie Southerland. She was tired of driving into the city to attend writing groups and wanted something closer to home. The group’s size and participants varies from month to month depending on people’s needs, and last night I was one of six attending and one of two newbies. An engineer from Calgary named Brenda was the other newcomer. Though she downplayed her skills, I noticed that she was quite insightful when offering feedback and easily picked up on such things as recurrent theme and the way Kathie made use of past and present tense in her third person narrative of the tale of how her parents met and fell in love. It reminded me of Rob and how dispassionate he can be when editing my work. An engineer thing, I suppose. There was a junior high school teacher who moonlights as a stand up comic. Rob’s girls both had her for English. There was another woman, Christine, who might also be an minister just going by her comment about writing sermons, but I could be wrong. There was an elderly woman named Pat. She is eighty-six which reminded me of my Great-Aunt Liz who was still taking university courses to improve her writing when she was that age. Now, at one hundred, Auntie Liz merely writes the occasional piece for the local paper and contributes to the newsletter at the facility where she was forced to take up residence when she broke a hip at 94, slipping on the ice right before the weekday morning mass. There was another older gentlemen. Possibly in his early sixties. It was hard to tell. He has vision trouble and wears those thick glasses that remind you of magnifying lens that came out of Cracker Jack boxes long ago. Only, of course, his were much bigger.

The meeting followed the predictable pattern of meetings when new people are present and began with introductions. I hate introducing myself. Rob asked me later if I had been nervous. I can be notoriously shy. However, I don’t find myself reticent anymore when I am in my element. Those being nearly anything to do with education, widowhood, and writing. All three are topics on which I can expound and are groups I “get” on a deep gut level. I speak quickly however and I am acutely aware of my accent here, so I went as slowly as I could, consciously trying to not veer off topic as is my wont verbally as well as on the page. Being from the United States makes me a bit of a curiosity, and my widowhood and remarriage gives others a bit of pause. These revelations were might in stride though. After introductions come readings, feedback, more reading and more feedback and the evening ended with a writing exercise. Last night’s exercise was to take the first line of a poem, brainstorm and write your own poem incorporating that first line. For the life of me, I couldn’t do it. Probably because I am not much of a fan of the reading of poetry. I enjoy writing it, but I haven’t much interest in anyone’s poetry save my own. It’s just not my thing. I am always fairly free-wheeling with poetry too. When I taught poetry, I emphasized free verse and use poetic lines to literally shape the ideas in it. This appeals to kids who are frightened of the writing process in most, if not all, of its forms, and the idea of writing without rules finds fertile fields in their rebellious little souls. Mostly I taught that way because it’s the only way I enjoy poetry. I like a good acrostic poem to facilitate the learning of science or social studies now and then, but free verse in the early fall when summer is waning and the reality of another 8 months hits is like visiting the pumpkin farm before the first heavy frost. It’s all orange-gold and solid. I managed to knock out a tiny poem about how writing poems is difficult. Which it is without the proper preparation and inspiration. At least for me. Judging from the group’s newsletter, poetry rules for many of them.

The two hours flew by. I had forgotten what fun it was to sit with other writers. There is another group that meets at the county library in Sherwood Park that I want to check out as well, but I am definitely going to return to The Paragraffers.

Lunch by the River

I met Rob for lunch yesterday down by the river that flows past town. The last time we were there was to watch the fireworks display late in the evening on Canada Day. The weather was nice. Mostly sunny with that nip of fall in the air when the wind would blow. I had dropped Katy off at school earlier, and she expressed only mild disappointment at being left out. Now that she is back in school, even if only for the half day, Rob and I have a bit of free time to play with again, and it’s so nice to be just he and I.

Funny how the day to day routines and demands can so quickly erode time that was once set aside for the simple pleasures. Breakfast on the weekends. Sitting around the dining room table in our robes munching toast and sipping tea until it could officially be brunch. Curled up on the couch after bedtime stories and rituals have settled down the little one, so we can watch The Daily Show together. Running errands as a family that could have been more easily accomplished alone. Catching up on movies via the bookmobile coupled up on the sofa or bed. Even just walking to the bookmobile together on Wednesday evenings, arms around each other is such a joy. Such simple things, and so easily brushed aside at times by reno work and house work and aqua classes and writing groups. And I am not complaining. We make plenty of time to be “just us”, but the real world can only be kept at bay through willing blindness on yourself for just so long. Still it’s hard not to miss some of the early day routines of first being together full-time. Lunch with my husband however is still a must. Even it isn’t in the park. Even if it is just a phone call on days that work demands its due. It’s important to not go the whole day without touching or talking or saying “I love you.”

Yesterday as we snuggled up on the picnic table bench like teenagers playing afternoon hooky, I was struck again by how really blessed I am and how wonderful he is and how much I love him and being with him. I still worry a bit about the “other shoe” and the “wolf at the door”. It’s hard to have been where I have been and seen the things I have seen and not carry a few of
fear ‘s scars, but in the moment, I have no worries. The sun shines. The leaves whisper like small children practicing indoor voices. My love warms my hands between his own. We are in love, and I am happier, I think, than I have ever been.

Shredding Life

I have spent the better part of today going through stacks of papers, trying to decide what should be kept, what can be recycled, and what needs to be shredded. I think that shredding as an activity ranks right up there with monthly faculty meetings and cleaning the bathroom. Mind-numbing and faintly disgusting. But, until modern life becomes the truly paperless utopia it secretly deludes itself that it already is, sorting, storing and shredding are just one of several downsides to be an adult. Not a grown-up, mind you, but an adult. Adult is a term that recognizes the number of years spent living and breathing (and for some of us those years were spent breathing more than living) but to be grown-up means to have come to terms with the downs as well as the ups of attaining the age of legality. And, I think, acting accordingly.

Having exhausted the shredder, which now sits idly as I wait for it to cool down, I am left to ponder how the room consuming piles I had this morning have, being lessened, managed to take on an even more unkempt appearance. A lesson to be learned about organization is that it is always more chaotic before order is restored. In my case, this isn’t quite true. My ideas about order could unhinge even the most bohemian soul, but it (mostly) works for me.

My Facebook profile of late has stated that “Ann is currently attempting to force organization on her life.” This is only partly true. There is order, of sorts and even routine. It just still seems that some days I am not making headway though where I think I am going is a mystery. I am where I want to be, but, and this should be unsurprising, I am still the same haphazard person I was before baby and dying husband supposedly infected me with disorganization. Who knew? Well, I did. I like to imagine that I cleaned more often and had all my important papers sorted, labeled and safely stored. I really didn’t clean but once a week and since it was just me, it was pretty easy, and I have always filed horizontally. Even at school. I remember one time when I was teaching eighth grade Language Arts, a student came in at the beginning of class and remarked upon how wonderful it was to be able to see the top of my desk. And she was one of my nice students. I am order challenged, then and now. Still I somehow retain the fantasy of clean and put away.

Shredding is like cleaning toilets though and on a scale of one to ten, it is a two when it comes to increasing efficiency and aiding the quest for order. It’s dusty, dull and intermediary because even when you have finished shredding, you still have shreds with which to deal. It is a task that forces you to actually read and assess the worth of the items Many of the papers concerned medical issues of my late husband’s and paperwork that was generated by his stay in the nursing home and then hospice. Lots of application copies and consent forms. Nothing heart rendering but there comes a time when you wonder where the end of the paper trail is. Though some people refer to the process of downsizing official files about their loved ones’ illnesses and/or deaths as “shredding their lives” for me, my life is and was more than a stack of wood pulp. Rendering them confetti doesn’t signify literally or even metaphorically a loss of my past. Memories are not that easily gotten rid off. I suppose for some their is a finality to getting rid of old papers (or clothing or anything tangible really) but most stuff is just stuff. In my personal frame of reference there are only a few items that hold meaning to deep to allow them be destroyed or cast away.

Still, even minus drama the kind of burrowing in today’s efforts entailed is taxing. In the end though, it is better to divest oneself of the literal baggage of the past, good and bad, on a more regular basis then we do. It is an exercise in growth as well as space saving.

Bikinis and Me

I recently began deep water workouts again. I abandoned weight training in favor of a similar program about 8 or so years ago, and it proved to be a very effective program. Toning, strengthening and best of all it was in the water, my adopted second home at the time. Fast forward to now. I happily discovered that the local pool offered a deep water class twice a week for an hour. The upside is that it is as good a workout as I remember, and the downside is that it is from eight to nine in the evening. It’s not even five, and I am ready for a nap.

My current swim attire turned out to be unsuitable for water workouts, as I feared it would. Tankinis have a tendency to “fly up” in the water when you are aqua-sizing. Back in the day, I wore a two piece. I owned quite the assortment of bikinis, and I made good use of them. During the summer, I swam nearly everyday, and a bikini top was pretty standard for me under my t-shirt and sometimes without the tee at all if it was warm enough. When I mentioned to Rob that I owned several of these suits, he asked if I had been an exhibitionist. I never thought of myself that way then though I suppose, looking back, I was. Growing up I had been quite uncomfortable with skimpy because, as I have mentioned before, I was pretty hefty. When I reached thirty though, years of religious work out, including an avid love of running, had put me in the physical shape necessary, in my opinion, to carry off a two piece. However, pregnancy and years of care-taking pretty much wiped up my gains, both physically and confidence-wise. Though I am in actuality thinner than I was a decade or more ago, I am not nearly in as good a shape, but I needed a two piece to be able to work out sans annoying suit.

So yesterday, I trekked across Edmonton (by myself thank you very much) to the West Edmonton Mall. It’s fall here in Canada and the swim-wear is gone from the department stores, but there are plenty of specialty shops at West Ed because Canadians, as I have oft-mentioned, take their holidaying seriously. The Surfco shop was nothing but suits and the vast majority were really tiny bikinis. Sure they had one piece suits that would have worked, but I just can’t work out in them. They are too short=bodied for me. So, with the help of a very pretty and annoyingly thin shop girl, I picked out three suits that I hoped wouldn’t shatter all the confidence I had built up just for this occasion and into the dressing room I went.

The first suit was actually too big. It feels great to try something on and find that it is too big for you. That doesn’t happen often. Usually things fit but are too short or not the right design for my frame, but too big is always a treat. The next suit, I have to admit, I looked pretty darn good in for someone my age. I read recently that the actress Demi Moore has spent about a half million dollars on “upkeep's and upgrades” for her body. She is a year older than I am, and looks better than both her teenage daughters, but she has the too-taunt facial expression that screams “botox” and a stomach too flat for a mother of three that plainly pronounces her a cheater because once you’ve given birth there is a certain curvature to the solar plexus that you will never be rid of regardless of how stringent your diet or vigorous your workout routine. Looking at myself in that light blue sting bikini, yes....it was a string bikini, I felt sorry for her. I looked great. No muffining over the stings. The bum cheeks didn’t have that stuff sausage look of trying to put too much flesh into to small of an area. Yeah, my stomach could be more flat and my thighs a shade thinner, but I am nearly forty-four. I’ve had a child and know the stress of long term care-taking. My arms and legs have seen a bit of sun, though no deliberate sun worshipping. I am not young and firm and impossibly thin though I am smaller than the average size American (and Canadian for that matter) woman.

However, I didn’t get the string bikini. Maybe if Rob had been shopping with me, I could have been (easily) persuaded, but my old prejudices and standards wouldn’t allow the purchase. Looking good for my age, doesn’t quite cut it with me even now. Last year I would watch the girls in the high school where I taught with a feeling that couldn’t decide if it was admiration or horror. They would strut proudly up and down the halls wearing clothes that were clearly designed with small and taunt in mind, not pudgy, paunchy and even quite overweight. When I was in high school, well.....I wore a uniform it was Catholic school, but girls of a certain size were barred from wearing “thin girl” outfits. And this was not just a social admonishment, it was by design. There wasn’t yet the financial incentive needed by clothes makers to cater and pander with lycra and spandex enticements.

Suit number three turned out to be the winner. And not by default. There is something about practical, functional and sexy rolled into one that takes a clothing purchase to the next level past shopping nirvana. It’s halter style made it good for actual use in the water, and it fit even better than the string one, although there is something about a string bikini that just says sexy in a way that no other suit truly does. For my part I am pleased to be back into a two piece. Believe it or not it is part of the reclaiming of myself process that has been going on for a long while. I modeled it for Rob later that evening and he pronounced it hot looking. Of course there is some bias there.