Jordan was remarking about her own willingness and ability to play with Katy. A friend had been asking her what it was like to have such a young step-sister and if she found it difficult to play imaginary games with her. Jordan admitted that she did find it hard and wondered when we lose the ability to do that and why. I have to admit that I didn’t have much of an answer for her though I share the dilemma. Katy is always after me to play with her. The game of choice where I am concerned is house, a game I didn’t play much at all when I was a child of five and find in more dull now. Unlike my daughter, I had chores from a young age. Making my bed, picking up my room every night, helping with supper dishes which progressed quickly to the point where at 9 or so, my sister and I were left with the supper remains to clear and wash up. House was not a game. It was a series of lesson designed to prepare me for my life’s eventual part-time and then full-time work. Or at least that is how my parents saw it.
I however that the real reason I lost my ability to play is that in choosing to marry and become a mother, I surrendered my right to down time. I wasn’t able to retreat to my own space anymore because I was sharing it all the time. Before, when I tired of company, conversation, interacting on any level – I could go home. To my apartment or my house. A place that was just mine and where I could do or not, read and write, go for a run or to the mall without taking anyone else’s needs or wants into account. In regards to the children I knew back then, I was much like an aunt or a grandparent in that I could leave when it wasn’t fun for me anymore. You can’t do that when it is your own child.
In terms of imagination, I haven’t lost mine anymore, I think, than Jordan has misplaced hers, it is just a grown-up’s version of one. No matter what we say, we all grow up and become conscious of the world around us. Our needs and interests change to reflect who we are becoming and however similar my imaginings may be to the child I was, I have other ways of expressing and meeting those needs now.
I think too that the grown-up disinterest in play as a child knows it is nature’s way of letting children develop that part of themselves without adult input and interference. Imagine if grown-ups did enjoy the long bouts of play that children demand. Children are already programmed to allow too much to be done for them. Would they develop any true self-interests or ability to think for themselves if bossy parents were inclined to play with them? Maybe that sounds self-serving. Maybe it is self-serving. I don’t remember my parents really playing with me beyond my father teaching me to play ball or my mother reading to me when I was very small. I don’t know that I knew any adults who played with children. So why do I sometimes feel bad that I don’t always play when Katy asks and that I often don’t find what she wants to do interesting?
Last weekend, we built a fort, and I enjoyed doing that with her, but once the fort was built and she wanted to continue playing clubhouse – I wasn’t as interested. And it’s not that I don’t have an imagination or that I don’t engage that side of myself anymore. I can lose myself in a daydream as easily now as I could as a child. I can create stories even more easily than I could way back when. I’m just not interested in being childlike. Which is interesting because isn’t that touted as this great attribute for artists to have? I am not so sure.
Still, an interesting question and on-going conundrum.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Leslie
Lately I have been dreaming I am back in university. They are not the typical dreams one has of being back in school. I am not late for a test or trying to drop a class I didn’t know I had or have never been to in order to avoid a failing grade. And I am not naked despite the fact that in several of these dreams I appear to be married or dating Rob – who I not only didn’t know existed back in my real university days, but who was actually married himself at that time and a father of two. In these dreams I am not searching or being pursued. The scenarios are really quite mundane. Going to classes. Working in the dormitory dining hall. Hanging out. Walking around. There is a lot of walking from here to there. Up and down unfamiliar streets, running into people known to me at that time and from my present life as well. One dream stood out for its “dream-like” quality though. I was questing with a group of people – a mix of then and now – in an underground labyrinth straight out of World of Warcraft, creatures and all. And I was pregnant and if that isn’t classic dream-speak, what is? That one memorable dream aside, there is nothing spectacular about these university dreams except for the one constant in all of them. My friend Leslie.
I haven’t seen or heard from Leslie in pretty close to ten years now even though I am almost certain she still lives in Iowa City and is still involved in the art community there. I can’t say really why we fell out of touch. I think though it may have had a lot to do with the fact that by our late twenties/early thirties it was clear that she was the hip in crowd girl who had managed to parlay her bohemian college persona into a Sex minus the City type while I was just a spinsterish Midwestern school marm.
Even in our college days, we were an unlikely friendship match. We met as residents on East 2 of Currier Hall. My roommate was a hometown friend of hers and she lived next door to Sarah, a high school friend of mine. She was a year younger chronologically and years older in style and deportment. Impossibly beautiful with apple cheeks and a rounded nose that most of us outgrow, she smiled from deep inside in a way that produced a magnetic aura. A dancer for years, she was lean and willowy and long. Long neck. Long arms. Longer legs. She would dress herself in thrift shop finds that I don’t imagine mere mortal people ever run across. When I would peruse the thrift store with her, I would find old bowling shirts and men’s suit coats that looked stolen from mortuaries. She would find some darling little Audrey Hepburn cocktail dress.
Still, we called ourselves the “happy co-eds”. The punch line of running joke we had come up with on the way back to the dorm from the library one evening before we realized that if we wanted to accomplish anything by way of study that perhaps we shouldn’t go to the library together. We wasted more time at the library writing mildly pornographic Shakespearean sonnets and talking about boys then we did anything else there. One poem – which I think I still might have somewhere – spoke of “moist loins” and “yielding maidenhoods” was typical of the direction conversations would often turn. I think she was the one who coined the phrase “lost the power of speech” when speaking about sex. As in “he was so good, I lost the power of speech” or “so, did you lose your power of speech with SoNSo last night?” It was from an article in Cosmo magazine that detailed what happens to men and women during an orgasm. According to this article, people lost the power of speech when climaxing. Of course, we found this extremely funny and just a little bit scary and we had little actual experience on which to gauge the veracity of the information. I remember her telling me some time after this that it was only partially true. Her boyfriend’s roommate walked in on them one afternoon during an oral moment, and she related that while she couldn’t verbalize anything coherently – she made herself understood.
Leslie lived the kind of life that the really cool characters in books and movies always seemed to have. The eclectic dwelling spaces with the quirky roommates. Better Funky Homes and Movies Set Gardens décor that she found at estate sales the way she stumbled across clothing finds at the thrift shop. The people she knew were in bands. They were artists and writers and activists. She had cool jobs in galleries or jewelry shops. And men straight out of romance novels pursued her. There was the pottery-making Scotsman from Edinbourough. A gay cheerleader who coveted her natural coolness to camouflage his completely artificial exterior. Her own boyfriend was a former body building interior designer who paid his bills plying the student population with all manner of recreational pharmaceuticals. Not cool in retrospect but in the mid-1980’s that sort of thing still seemed harmless in a TV sitcom sort of way. When we were all still living in the dorm, he did business right out of his room. I sat and watched he and his partner one day as they did their books and remarked that the little ledger would make some prosecuting attorney’s job all that easier someday. The looks on both their faces spoke volumes. Good little Gordon Gecko’s that they were it hadn’t occurred to them that what they say as just good business was a well-spring of potential trail evidence. I never saw that ledger again.
Of all the people I knew in school, and I knew many, many people although I can’t say that too many knew me, she was the one who was the least put off by my sometimes shell-shocked drifting through life exterior. I spent most of my time in university recovering from my teens and shaking off the years I had lived in the shadow of alcoholism. My standard survival mode was turtle and even during college I seldom poked my head out too far. Then, as now even at times, my preferred method of communication was writing. I was still writing. I hadn’t yet been told I wasn’t good enough, often enough, to put it away completely. While my other friends hadn’t time to sit and talk about things other than the guys they liked and the sex they were having and the parties they were going to, Leslie’s worldview was so blinkered. That I was bookish and quiet and needed instruction in things like hair, make-up and clothing – were not things that bothered her. I got the distinct impression from others that I was a bit hopeless that I didn’t get from her.
Over the years, I have tried to track her down. But she moved around a bit and eventually unlisted herself. During Google searches I would occasionally turn up evidence that she was still creating her metal creations and showing them in the various galleries in the area that would crop up and go out of business with regularity. She got involved in metalworking in between a series of aborted attempts to find a “real” career to please her family. I think she began as a dentistry student. At one point she may have been half-heartedly studying chemistry too. But it was the dance classes, the photography and finally metalworking that called to her loudly enough to drown out the Iowa practicality and the Catholic schoolgirl obedience. In a way, I think that was the thing about her that appealed to me most and that I most envied. She didn’t succumb to the “you need something to fall back on” mentality that we are all beaten into submission with by our parents and society. She followed her instincts and did what made her happy. And in the end I can’t really say that I would have been as content if I’d never been a teacher but stayed and gone to graduate school, as she did, and wrote. Rob made the comment to me the other day that I had suppressed my writing side for a long time and though that is a little true, what is probably closer to reality is that my inner writer was waiting for me to grow into myself. One must have confidence in oneself to chase after a goal like the one I have set for myself. I was too shy and uncertain of myself way back then to have withstood the criticism and the failures that are inevitable. My metal needed tempering.
Perhaps the meaning of Leslie is what she represented back then. An inner truth to stay true to. Dreams are not random as life is not random.
I haven’t seen or heard from Leslie in pretty close to ten years now even though I am almost certain she still lives in Iowa City and is still involved in the art community there. I can’t say really why we fell out of touch. I think though it may have had a lot to do with the fact that by our late twenties/early thirties it was clear that she was the hip in crowd girl who had managed to parlay her bohemian college persona into a Sex minus the City type while I was just a spinsterish Midwestern school marm.
Even in our college days, we were an unlikely friendship match. We met as residents on East 2 of Currier Hall. My roommate was a hometown friend of hers and she lived next door to Sarah, a high school friend of mine. She was a year younger chronologically and years older in style and deportment. Impossibly beautiful with apple cheeks and a rounded nose that most of us outgrow, she smiled from deep inside in a way that produced a magnetic aura. A dancer for years, she was lean and willowy and long. Long neck. Long arms. Longer legs. She would dress herself in thrift shop finds that I don’t imagine mere mortal people ever run across. When I would peruse the thrift store with her, I would find old bowling shirts and men’s suit coats that looked stolen from mortuaries. She would find some darling little Audrey Hepburn cocktail dress.
Still, we called ourselves the “happy co-eds”. The punch line of running joke we had come up with on the way back to the dorm from the library one evening before we realized that if we wanted to accomplish anything by way of study that perhaps we shouldn’t go to the library together. We wasted more time at the library writing mildly pornographic Shakespearean sonnets and talking about boys then we did anything else there. One poem – which I think I still might have somewhere – spoke of “moist loins” and “yielding maidenhoods” was typical of the direction conversations would often turn. I think she was the one who coined the phrase “lost the power of speech” when speaking about sex. As in “he was so good, I lost the power of speech” or “so, did you lose your power of speech with SoNSo last night?” It was from an article in Cosmo magazine that detailed what happens to men and women during an orgasm. According to this article, people lost the power of speech when climaxing. Of course, we found this extremely funny and just a little bit scary and we had little actual experience on which to gauge the veracity of the information. I remember her telling me some time after this that it was only partially true. Her boyfriend’s roommate walked in on them one afternoon during an oral moment, and she related that while she couldn’t verbalize anything coherently – she made herself understood.
Leslie lived the kind of life that the really cool characters in books and movies always seemed to have. The eclectic dwelling spaces with the quirky roommates. Better Funky Homes and Movies Set Gardens décor that she found at estate sales the way she stumbled across clothing finds at the thrift shop. The people she knew were in bands. They were artists and writers and activists. She had cool jobs in galleries or jewelry shops. And men straight out of romance novels pursued her. There was the pottery-making Scotsman from Edinbourough. A gay cheerleader who coveted her natural coolness to camouflage his completely artificial exterior. Her own boyfriend was a former body building interior designer who paid his bills plying the student population with all manner of recreational pharmaceuticals. Not cool in retrospect but in the mid-1980’s that sort of thing still seemed harmless in a TV sitcom sort of way. When we were all still living in the dorm, he did business right out of his room. I sat and watched he and his partner one day as they did their books and remarked that the little ledger would make some prosecuting attorney’s job all that easier someday. The looks on both their faces spoke volumes. Good little Gordon Gecko’s that they were it hadn’t occurred to them that what they say as just good business was a well-spring of potential trail evidence. I never saw that ledger again.
Of all the people I knew in school, and I knew many, many people although I can’t say that too many knew me, she was the one who was the least put off by my sometimes shell-shocked drifting through life exterior. I spent most of my time in university recovering from my teens and shaking off the years I had lived in the shadow of alcoholism. My standard survival mode was turtle and even during college I seldom poked my head out too far. Then, as now even at times, my preferred method of communication was writing. I was still writing. I hadn’t yet been told I wasn’t good enough, often enough, to put it away completely. While my other friends hadn’t time to sit and talk about things other than the guys they liked and the sex they were having and the parties they were going to, Leslie’s worldview was so blinkered. That I was bookish and quiet and needed instruction in things like hair, make-up and clothing – were not things that bothered her. I got the distinct impression from others that I was a bit hopeless that I didn’t get from her.
Over the years, I have tried to track her down. But she moved around a bit and eventually unlisted herself. During Google searches I would occasionally turn up evidence that she was still creating her metal creations and showing them in the various galleries in the area that would crop up and go out of business with regularity. She got involved in metalworking in between a series of aborted attempts to find a “real” career to please her family. I think she began as a dentistry student. At one point she may have been half-heartedly studying chemistry too. But it was the dance classes, the photography and finally metalworking that called to her loudly enough to drown out the Iowa practicality and the Catholic schoolgirl obedience. In a way, I think that was the thing about her that appealed to me most and that I most envied. She didn’t succumb to the “you need something to fall back on” mentality that we are all beaten into submission with by our parents and society. She followed her instincts and did what made her happy. And in the end I can’t really say that I would have been as content if I’d never been a teacher but stayed and gone to graduate school, as she did, and wrote. Rob made the comment to me the other day that I had suppressed my writing side for a long time and though that is a little true, what is probably closer to reality is that my inner writer was waiting for me to grow into myself. One must have confidence in oneself to chase after a goal like the one I have set for myself. I was too shy and uncertain of myself way back then to have withstood the criticism and the failures that are inevitable. My metal needed tempering.
Perhaps the meaning of Leslie is what she represented back then. An inner truth to stay true to. Dreams are not random as life is not random.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
A Thought
I’ve been thinking (again) about this life and loss stuff. There are those who believe with all their being that grief, whatever the cause, must be addressed until it can be wallowed in and analyzed and milked no more. There are those who are equally sure that it can be put away on a shelf like a book one has read and is done with forever. There are those who choose to deflect it with other activities - distractions. But does it have to be so all or nothing? So absolute? What about balance? What about moderation in all things?
I know people who live their pain and can’t conceive of a life without it. I know people who run from it and embrace all manner of distraction and are confused when the distraction is gone and the pain is still there. I know people who shelve it. And I know, for myself - and not just because of having been widowed, that it is not that simple. There is room in our existence for all things - all the time.
Life is woven like a tapestry, not a molded collection of synthetic fibers.
I know people who live their pain and can’t conceive of a life without it. I know people who run from it and embrace all manner of distraction and are confused when the distraction is gone and the pain is still there. I know people who shelve it. And I know, for myself - and not just because of having been widowed, that it is not that simple. There is room in our existence for all things - all the time.
Life is woven like a tapestry, not a molded collection of synthetic fibers.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Odds and Ends
Sometimes it’s difficult to come up with blog topics day after day. Today is one of those days. It’s not that I haven’t ideas, but many of them are vetoed by my husband as being to TMI for even him. Others just aren’t thought generating to fill an entire page of blog. Often, I self-censor. Yes, hard to believe that I would veto myself, but I do. And then there are the days when nothing comes and words limp forth “like crippled children” to badly coin a phrase from my favorite childhood book Harriet the Spy.
The ironic thing is that much is afoot but perhaps too much for me to break down into a single blog right now.
The highlights:
I have three good short stories in the works right now and very good idea of where I might get each one published.
We are all planned and booked for our honeymoon at long last. A B&B in Dubuque after we drop Katy off at my folks and a cabin on the edge of The Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois (yes, we are once again going for the non-traditional romantic spots because why mess with what works?)
My plan to get back into shape has hit a snag. I am putting on muscle and that means weight and size increase. I was really liking being bony but that is no way to approach old age, sadly.
We may be staying here in Canada after-all as the Texas thing is tied up in sky-rocketing costs and morphing into a position that might entail too much travel, but it may yet come out okay. We won’t know until late March at the earliest.
Canada Immigration has updated their turn around times on residency applications and we could have approval by early April.
We are still lice-free (knock large pieces of timber together).
I can navigate the city by myself (and with a little help from OnStar).
Oh, and I have reached a decision about wanting to give back in terms of grief and grieving. I don’t want to start/or lead any kind of group. I am not a mentor and think really that this is a silly idea. Mostly because of something Rob pointed out to me about the widow board. He noticed that people tended to group in the 1 to 6 month sections according to common dates or months and then stick together for a while lending support. He noted however that the vast majority of these groups disappeared as the people lost the need for the board and stopped interacting there. And he was right. My problem is that I never fell into any “peer” group there. I found the board too late in my first year and had already come to many of my own conclusions about a variety of things - hence my need to “give”. As Girl pointed out to me on my wordpress site, I will know what to do when the opportunity arrives. So, I think I will wait and see.
The ironic thing is that much is afoot but perhaps too much for me to break down into a single blog right now.
The highlights:
I have three good short stories in the works right now and very good idea of where I might get each one published.
We are all planned and booked for our honeymoon at long last. A B&B in Dubuque after we drop Katy off at my folks and a cabin on the edge of The Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois (yes, we are once again going for the non-traditional romantic spots because why mess with what works?)
My plan to get back into shape has hit a snag. I am putting on muscle and that means weight and size increase. I was really liking being bony but that is no way to approach old age, sadly.
We may be staying here in Canada after-all as the Texas thing is tied up in sky-rocketing costs and morphing into a position that might entail too much travel, but it may yet come out okay. We won’t know until late March at the earliest.
Canada Immigration has updated their turn around times on residency applications and we could have approval by early April.
We are still lice-free (knock large pieces of timber together).
I can navigate the city by myself (and with a little help from OnStar).
Oh, and I have reached a decision about wanting to give back in terms of grief and grieving. I don’t want to start/or lead any kind of group. I am not a mentor and think really that this is a silly idea. Mostly because of something Rob pointed out to me about the widow board. He noticed that people tended to group in the 1 to 6 month sections according to common dates or months and then stick together for a while lending support. He noted however that the vast majority of these groups disappeared as the people lost the need for the board and stopped interacting there. And he was right. My problem is that I never fell into any “peer” group there. I found the board too late in my first year and had already come to many of my own conclusions about a variety of things - hence my need to “give”. As Girl pointed out to me on my wordpress site, I will know what to do when the opportunity arrives. So, I think I will wait and see.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Off to Grande Prairie - Again
At some point in the next 24 hrs we will pile into the Avalanche and make our third pilgrimage up north to Grande Prairie in less than five months. Three funerals in five months. In many ways this is beginning to remind me of my childhood back in Dubuque. Around the time my Uncle Jimmy died back in 1972, there was a rash of deaths on my dad’s side of the family that had us attending wakes and funerals almost constantly, or so it seemed to me at the time. For a while, between my dad’s relatives dropping like flies and my mother’s nieces and nephews weddings, the only time I saw my extended family was in church or in a church basement after for dinner. Chicken, ham, and turkey and dressing sandwiches. Artery clogging side dishes. Homemade desserts brought in by the ladies of the various rosary societies. Food and death. Food and marriage. Linked eternally in my nine year old mind.
The only other spate of death I can remember in my life came the summer between my junior and senior year in college. All in July. My ten year old cousin died in a farm accident on the 4th. My great-uncle, Father John, one of the nastiest men I have ever know died in Texas mid-month. And Kyle died. I am fairly certain it was around the same time, but it’s been over twenty years now, so I am not totally sure. Kyle was my friend Sarah’s boyfriend’s roommate and friend at the Lambda Chi house. He was funny and very cute and a tad bit on the wild side. We ran into each other here and there over the course of my junior year. In bars or at parties. We flirted. We eyed each other and on occasion, we made out a bit. He was not interested in a girlfriend and I was not auditioning for the part - mostly because I might have gotten the job and I really didn’t want to be anyone’s girlfriend at that point in my life. Despite my laments to the contrary, I did my best to keep relationships at bay. For a lot of reasons.
The last time I saw Kyle was one of the last nights of finals week. It was warm. People were running around from bar to this party and that. I kept my eye out for Kyle and eventually ran across him. It was awkward. The last time I’d seen him, I’d sorta blown him off to go running about with my friend, Leslie. Guys don’t like that when they are trying to put moves on you. Anyway, we left it as “see ya in August and we’ll see”.
I was twenty-one. You don’t think at that age that you won’t see someone again. That anything bad could happen. But, Kyle drowned that summer and there was no “see ya”. I remember that I cried when I found out. I was at home in Dubuque for my uncle’s funeral, and I was owly the whole rest of my stay. My mother especially found my behavior irksome. She had never understood my aversion to the social aspects of death - the visiting and the eating. I could have explained, I suppose, but I really didn’t share much of my life with her. I still don’t really.
I went back to school. I didn’t discuss it. I am sure no one knew about how I felt about Kyle or that we had tentatively reached out to each other a bit. It was just a school girl thing and I still think of that way.
I only thought about this because Rob had mentioned that this will be the fourth funeral up there for him, starting with Shelley’s back in August of 2006. It will Jordan’s fifth funeral overall as she lost a friend to suicide around the time her grandmother died in December. It seems unfair when these cycles catch us up, but it’s life, right? Just as there are cycles of happiness and joy, there are darker periods of sadness and grief.
So, we are off to Grande Prairie.
The only other spate of death I can remember in my life came the summer between my junior and senior year in college. All in July. My ten year old cousin died in a farm accident on the 4th. My great-uncle, Father John, one of the nastiest men I have ever know died in Texas mid-month. And Kyle died. I am fairly certain it was around the same time, but it’s been over twenty years now, so I am not totally sure. Kyle was my friend Sarah’s boyfriend’s roommate and friend at the Lambda Chi house. He was funny and very cute and a tad bit on the wild side. We ran into each other here and there over the course of my junior year. In bars or at parties. We flirted. We eyed each other and on occasion, we made out a bit. He was not interested in a girlfriend and I was not auditioning for the part - mostly because I might have gotten the job and I really didn’t want to be anyone’s girlfriend at that point in my life. Despite my laments to the contrary, I did my best to keep relationships at bay. For a lot of reasons.
The last time I saw Kyle was one of the last nights of finals week. It was warm. People were running around from bar to this party and that. I kept my eye out for Kyle and eventually ran across him. It was awkward. The last time I’d seen him, I’d sorta blown him off to go running about with my friend, Leslie. Guys don’t like that when they are trying to put moves on you. Anyway, we left it as “see ya in August and we’ll see”.
I was twenty-one. You don’t think at that age that you won’t see someone again. That anything bad could happen. But, Kyle drowned that summer and there was no “see ya”. I remember that I cried when I found out. I was at home in Dubuque for my uncle’s funeral, and I was owly the whole rest of my stay. My mother especially found my behavior irksome. She had never understood my aversion to the social aspects of death - the visiting and the eating. I could have explained, I suppose, but I really didn’t share much of my life with her. I still don’t really.
I went back to school. I didn’t discuss it. I am sure no one knew about how I felt about Kyle or that we had tentatively reached out to each other a bit. It was just a school girl thing and I still think of that way.
I only thought about this because Rob had mentioned that this will be the fourth funeral up there for him, starting with Shelley’s back in August of 2006. It will Jordan’s fifth funeral overall as she lost a friend to suicide around the time her grandmother died in December. It seems unfair when these cycles catch us up, but it’s life, right? Just as there are cycles of happiness and joy, there are darker periods of sadness and grief.
So, we are off to Grande Prairie.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
My First Published Piece is Online Now
I have been checking and checking and today my first online submission made it to “print”, so to speak. I am psyched and hungry for more. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Yesterdays Magazette
And thank you to Karen of Ann Arbor, Michigan who copped to being my 10,000 viewer at the original blog site, Second Edition at .mac. Thank you so much. And thank you all, dear readers. Though you don’t post much, I know you are out there and I am happy to “see” you day after day.
Also, many thanks to my husband Rob who supplies me with many of the photos you see every day there at Second Edition. He is a wonderful photographer and very generously endeavors to get shots of all sorts of things that strike my fancy.
Yesterdays Magazette
And thank you to Karen of Ann Arbor, Michigan who copped to being my 10,000 viewer at the original blog site, Second Edition at .mac. Thank you so much. And thank you all, dear readers. Though you don’t post much, I know you are out there and I am happy to “see” you day after day.
Also, many thanks to my husband Rob who supplies me with many of the photos you see every day there at Second Edition. He is a wonderful photographer and very generously endeavors to get shots of all sorts of things that strike my fancy.
Idaho Falls: It's Been a Year Now
When Rob and I first began dancing with the idea of meeting in person, we were still just friends. He and Cheryl were trying to organize a Bago in Manitoba for July and I made up my mind to attend, so we could meet. Well, that quickly went from meeting at the Bago to his picking me up at the airport to my flying to Edmonton first and driving out to Manitoba with him. I guess we should have known at that point we were already more than friends.
Once the cat, who was already out of the bag and sitting there watching us expectantly, was formally acknowledged we began planning our March trip that eventually became Devils Den. But even knowing we would be seeing each other then did not stop us from plotting an earlier meeting. And then came Idaho Falls. Rob and Shelley had met a couple at the cancer clinic in Mexico who lived just outside of Idaho Falls. Tee has breast cancer and Rob wanted to visit her as she wasn’t doing well. He was also taking her some things of Shelley’s, and could I manage to fly out to spend the weekend with him there?
My best friend, Vicki, wouldn’t even let me use Katy as an excuse not to go. She barely took a breath before agreeing to assume responsibility for my child for the weekend and with that - I was on my way.
I remember posting about my upcoming trip on the board, as so many people did and still do. I remember all the cautionary advice and pooh-poohing of the notion that Rob and I could have gotten to know each other via email, IM and the phone. I remember specifically that I didn’t ask for any advice and I didn’t take any that was given. I was beyond polling the board. But, I was still nervous. How could I not be? There is much one can learn about another person via their words - in any form, but there is a tangibleness about physical presence that goes beyond knowing on an intellectual level. I actually felt as though I was missing him in that concrete way even before that night in the airport when I saw him and rushed into his arms.
We’d speculated quite a bit about those first moments and each scenario became a bit more intimate. Our first kiss in those first moments was interrupted by my mother. She called Rob on his cell phone and wanted to know if I had arrived yet. It was a bit like having your one of your folks walk in on you as a teenager making out or something. It didn’t break the mood though and we smooched away the waiting for luggage to the point where a TSA officer broke us up to inquire if the last bags standing were in fact ours.
Rob likes to joke now that the woman he sometimes can’t get to stop talking barely strung more than a couple of sentences together that first weekend. But I was just drinking him in with all my senses to a point where I was overwhelmed.
A year later and we are sitting in our robes at the dining room table, me blogging and him scouring the net for a used car for Jordan and Katy in the living room chattering away with her imaginary friends while watching cartoons. All that is sandwiched in between then and now is our history together. History. Wow. You dream about being swept away. And love. Intimacy. Never does it occur to you that there comes a point where the newness is the comfy familiar and you are sharing an existence with touchstones, high and low points, and a future to chart together.
Happy Anniversary my Sasquatch lover. I love you, always.
Once the cat, who was already out of the bag and sitting there watching us expectantly, was formally acknowledged we began planning our March trip that eventually became Devils Den. But even knowing we would be seeing each other then did not stop us from plotting an earlier meeting. And then came Idaho Falls. Rob and Shelley had met a couple at the cancer clinic in Mexico who lived just outside of Idaho Falls. Tee has breast cancer and Rob wanted to visit her as she wasn’t doing well. He was also taking her some things of Shelley’s, and could I manage to fly out to spend the weekend with him there?
My best friend, Vicki, wouldn’t even let me use Katy as an excuse not to go. She barely took a breath before agreeing to assume responsibility for my child for the weekend and with that - I was on my way.
I remember posting about my upcoming trip on the board, as so many people did and still do. I remember all the cautionary advice and pooh-poohing of the notion that Rob and I could have gotten to know each other via email, IM and the phone. I remember specifically that I didn’t ask for any advice and I didn’t take any that was given. I was beyond polling the board. But, I was still nervous. How could I not be? There is much one can learn about another person via their words - in any form, but there is a tangibleness about physical presence that goes beyond knowing on an intellectual level. I actually felt as though I was missing him in that concrete way even before that night in the airport when I saw him and rushed into his arms.
We’d speculated quite a bit about those first moments and each scenario became a bit more intimate. Our first kiss in those first moments was interrupted by my mother. She called Rob on his cell phone and wanted to know if I had arrived yet. It was a bit like having your one of your folks walk in on you as a teenager making out or something. It didn’t break the mood though and we smooched away the waiting for luggage to the point where a TSA officer broke us up to inquire if the last bags standing were in fact ours.
Rob likes to joke now that the woman he sometimes can’t get to stop talking barely strung more than a couple of sentences together that first weekend. But I was just drinking him in with all my senses to a point where I was overwhelmed.
A year later and we are sitting in our robes at the dining room table, me blogging and him scouring the net for a used car for Jordan and Katy in the living room chattering away with her imaginary friends while watching cartoons. All that is sandwiched in between then and now is our history together. History. Wow. You dream about being swept away. And love. Intimacy. Never does it occur to you that there comes a point where the newness is the comfy familiar and you are sharing an existence with touchstones, high and low points, and a future to chart together.
Happy Anniversary my Sasquatch lover. I love you, always.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Giving a Eulogy
My father-in-law Fraser - Shelley's step-dad - passed away last night. It's been less than three months since his wife - Leona - died.
I've been asked to give the eulogy at his service. I accepted this honour.
I've started many a blog post for here but due to other commitments have not taken the time to finish and post any. Writing the eulogy will be one piece I have to finish.
I've been asked to give the eulogy at his service. I accepted this honour.
I've started many a blog post for here but due to other commitments have not taken the time to finish and post any. Writing the eulogy will be one piece I have to finish.
A Good Question
As we were driving back from the hospice last evening, Rob asked me how I could have been so upset with the grief counselor on Wednesday night for suggesting that I needed to go through her 10 week grief and loss workshop and then turn around and dig through such painful memories at the parents’ session at Pilgrim house. It was a good question and I needed a bit of time to work out the answer into words and sentences because though I could feel why, it was hard to articulate even to Rob - who knows the answer already.
But the answer, when it came, was quite simple. What was being proposed in the workshop was purposeless digging. Like taking a butter knife to excise an scar. What would be the point? I understand that introspection is a useful tool in getting to the root of problems one might be having in their daily lives but when no problems exist than it is little more than emotional navel gazing. The topics that come up at Pilgrim house aren’t scripted really and they usually grow out of our conversations about our children. That we are there at all is to help our kids learn to cope with and integrate what has happened in their lives.
The subject came around to the genetic legacy that Katy was left by her dad. She is a carrier of what killed him and this will have to be addressed and dealt with at some point in her teens and then again when she decides to have children or not. It could even end up effecting her physical in middle-age if she happens to fall in the unlucky 10% or carriers who end up with dorsal nerve damage, so this is something she will have to plan for - the possibility of eventual physical disability. I try not to dwell to much on this. It is the future and who knows what that holds really, but they are things that sit in the corners of my mind, out of sight but never truly forgotten.
Talking about that last night was good for me in the moment. There was another couple there who have lost children to a genetic illness. Are carriers themselves. Have been through the diagnoses and the doctors and hospitals and long, slow declines to death. I seldom meet people who really know what that feels like firsthand. It was like finding my first widow board. The MerryWidow, and feeling for the first time that I was not a freak. Grief and worry are lonely enough without that sense of being only.
Not so ironically, anymore, our evening was book-ended by death. Rob’s father-in-law has not been well and went into the hospital Sunday complaining of heart trouble. He’d been in all week and the doctors hadn’t been able to pin point a root cause although he did have heart issues. I got the first call from one of Rob’s nieces in the late afternoon. She hadn’t been able to reach either of the girls and wanted to let us know that things were deteriorating. She sounded very small and lost when she told me that her grandfather reminded her of the way her grandmother had been at the end back in December. I remember from all those months Will was in hospice that you come to know the signs of impending death. The way it sounds and looks. There is a feeling in the air even. I felt badly for her. No one should have to watch a loved one die and she was bedside at her second such loss in just a few months. At one point in the conversation at group, a widow who’d lost her husband suddenly in a car accident remarked that she felt that her despair over not having had a chance to say good-bye was small compared to what I and the other couple had gone through watching the death process. I remarked that I had always been envious of those were widowed through sudden death because I would give much to be able to erase the memories and purge what I know. I sat and saw and still didn’t get to say good-bye. Not really.
Shelley’s brother, Jay, called shortly after we’d gotten home last night to let us know that Frazier had died a few hours earlier. The doctors still weren’t sure of the cause, but it’s not uncommon for elderly widowed people to follow shortly after their spouses and I suspect this was the real root issue.
I didn’t know Frazier but for a few visits to Grande Prairie and the first time I had met him in the city here after Leona’s surgery in August. He was nice and friendly and didn’t have to be and I still appreciate that. He was always after us to come and stay at the farm. We didn’t and I am sorry about that a bit now. Rob was asked to give the eulogy and he asked me what exactly goes into one. I only know Catholic funeral mass really, and eulogies are always given by priests. They usually talk about the person in general terms as they often didn’t really know the person, but if they did they would tell stories to try and paint a mental image for the congregation. They would recall the things about the deceased that brought home way he or she was loved. And they would try to comfort with images of heaven and God. We don’t believe in heaven though and my views anyway on what/who God is or may be are still evolving.
In all likelihood Rob and the girls will go to Grande Prairie without Katy and I. I have mixed feelings about this. I think that the family will expect to see us as we went up for Uncle Raymond’s funeral in September and again fro Leona's in December. We are family. On the other hand, I have problems taking Katy to yet another funeral. It is the only reason we have ever gone up north and seen everyone. She is just five. Too knowledgeable in my opinion and maybe in need of more sheltering than she has gotten in the past. She will also plague her sisters with questions about the situation and how they are feeling. Farron bares up quite well and handles Katy and her curiosity without any visible effect but Jordan is far more fragile and I worry more about her. And Rob. I worry about Rob. He is the rock. The spoke in the family wheel. Both for Shelley’s family and for his own. Not to mention for me and our girls. Too many people lean on him and expect him to fix things and be there and hold up. He will need me because I am the only one who sees that he is not superman.
It would be nice if people would stop dying, but as I reminded Rob when he brought this up, we know too many old people. My own reprieve from death on a family level has stretched out to two years now and I wonder how much longer the luck will hold given the age and physical infirmities of my parents, aunts and uncles. Still, I was reminded in a letter from my cousin yesterday just how fickle death is when she mentioned that our great-aunt will be 100 years old on March 5th. No rhyme or reason but yet rhyme and reason.
But the answer, when it came, was quite simple. What was being proposed in the workshop was purposeless digging. Like taking a butter knife to excise an scar. What would be the point? I understand that introspection is a useful tool in getting to the root of problems one might be having in their daily lives but when no problems exist than it is little more than emotional navel gazing. The topics that come up at Pilgrim house aren’t scripted really and they usually grow out of our conversations about our children. That we are there at all is to help our kids learn to cope with and integrate what has happened in their lives.
The subject came around to the genetic legacy that Katy was left by her dad. She is a carrier of what killed him and this will have to be addressed and dealt with at some point in her teens and then again when she decides to have children or not. It could even end up effecting her physical in middle-age if she happens to fall in the unlucky 10% or carriers who end up with dorsal nerve damage, so this is something she will have to plan for - the possibility of eventual physical disability. I try not to dwell to much on this. It is the future and who knows what that holds really, but they are things that sit in the corners of my mind, out of sight but never truly forgotten.
Talking about that last night was good for me in the moment. There was another couple there who have lost children to a genetic illness. Are carriers themselves. Have been through the diagnoses and the doctors and hospitals and long, slow declines to death. I seldom meet people who really know what that feels like firsthand. It was like finding my first widow board. The MerryWidow, and feeling for the first time that I was not a freak. Grief and worry are lonely enough without that sense of being only.
Not so ironically, anymore, our evening was book-ended by death. Rob’s father-in-law has not been well and went into the hospital Sunday complaining of heart trouble. He’d been in all week and the doctors hadn’t been able to pin point a root cause although he did have heart issues. I got the first call from one of Rob’s nieces in the late afternoon. She hadn’t been able to reach either of the girls and wanted to let us know that things were deteriorating. She sounded very small and lost when she told me that her grandfather reminded her of the way her grandmother had been at the end back in December. I remember from all those months Will was in hospice that you come to know the signs of impending death. The way it sounds and looks. There is a feeling in the air even. I felt badly for her. No one should have to watch a loved one die and she was bedside at her second such loss in just a few months. At one point in the conversation at group, a widow who’d lost her husband suddenly in a car accident remarked that she felt that her despair over not having had a chance to say good-bye was small compared to what I and the other couple had gone through watching the death process. I remarked that I had always been envious of those were widowed through sudden death because I would give much to be able to erase the memories and purge what I know. I sat and saw and still didn’t get to say good-bye. Not really.
Shelley’s brother, Jay, called shortly after we’d gotten home last night to let us know that Frazier had died a few hours earlier. The doctors still weren’t sure of the cause, but it’s not uncommon for elderly widowed people to follow shortly after their spouses and I suspect this was the real root issue.
I didn’t know Frazier but for a few visits to Grande Prairie and the first time I had met him in the city here after Leona’s surgery in August. He was nice and friendly and didn’t have to be and I still appreciate that. He was always after us to come and stay at the farm. We didn’t and I am sorry about that a bit now. Rob was asked to give the eulogy and he asked me what exactly goes into one. I only know Catholic funeral mass really, and eulogies are always given by priests. They usually talk about the person in general terms as they often didn’t really know the person, but if they did they would tell stories to try and paint a mental image for the congregation. They would recall the things about the deceased that brought home way he or she was loved. And they would try to comfort with images of heaven and God. We don’t believe in heaven though and my views anyway on what/who God is or may be are still evolving.
In all likelihood Rob and the girls will go to Grande Prairie without Katy and I. I have mixed feelings about this. I think that the family will expect to see us as we went up for Uncle Raymond’s funeral in September and again fro Leona's in December. We are family. On the other hand, I have problems taking Katy to yet another funeral. It is the only reason we have ever gone up north and seen everyone. She is just five. Too knowledgeable in my opinion and maybe in need of more sheltering than she has gotten in the past. She will also plague her sisters with questions about the situation and how they are feeling. Farron bares up quite well and handles Katy and her curiosity without any visible effect but Jordan is far more fragile and I worry more about her. And Rob. I worry about Rob. He is the rock. The spoke in the family wheel. Both for Shelley’s family and for his own. Not to mention for me and our girls. Too many people lean on him and expect him to fix things and be there and hold up. He will need me because I am the only one who sees that he is not superman.
It would be nice if people would stop dying, but as I reminded Rob when he brought this up, we know too many old people. My own reprieve from death on a family level has stretched out to two years now and I wonder how much longer the luck will hold given the age and physical infirmities of my parents, aunts and uncles. Still, I was reminded in a letter from my cousin yesterday just how fickle death is when she mentioned that our great-aunt will be 100 years old on March 5th. No rhyme or reason but yet rhyme and reason.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Paying it Forward
My blogging friend, Marsha, wrote a wonder piece yesterday about the idea of “paying it forward”. She feels, as I do, that one of the things that should come out of life’s challenges and tragedies is a sense that a person should put what they’ve learned from their experiences to use in helping others who are going through similar situations. It is something I did as a teacher. My life, and the lives of my family, friend and acquaintances, were examples from which my students could learn. Part of life is searching for the meaning and higher truths - enlightening one’s self, but the other part is taking that light and sharing it with others. The others are mainly family and friends and those you are in closest connection to on a daily basis, but some of us, I feel, are called upon to reach farther afield. For a while, I felt that the widow board was where I was supposed to be. I took note of those widows farther out than myself who talked about being called upon to be “widow-mentors”. I don’t think I am mentor material, but I had things to share. I tried to go back to the board recently. But I don’t feel overly inspired to read posts or reach out there anymore. Part of it is a left over resentment at the way I was driven from there. but more has to do with the fact that I am more interested in promoting growth and forward momentum than the idea that grief is a “do whatever feels best” and can “take as long as it takes” attitude. I do not believe either and much of what I have read in recent studies on bereavement is contrary to what is promoted at the site.
I turned to blogging for myself initially and then as a way to share with others who might be experiencing transitions and on journeys of self-discovery. And I still like the idea of using the blog, and myself in the process, as an example. But, I was a teacher for twenty years, and I miss the face to face interaction and being able to see and talk with people. Writing and reading is good but the human component is distanced. The parents group at Pilgrim’s Hospice has proved a tiny outlet, but the process is so scripted and the grief is a one-size fits all as though everything about loss is equal, and like so much of life - there is no such thing as equal. Losing a parent as a child is different from a teen/young adult and much different from the experience of an adult who has a family of their own. They are not comparable experiences. Losing a spouse to death is not the same as divorcing one or being divorced. Losing a sibling is not the same as losing a life partner. Losing a child is the most horrendous grief of all but the age of the child and the circumstances of the death are factors. We like to ignore the reality that apples and oranges really are different types of fruit because we are afraid of marginalizing and even more afraid that someone may not like us - but how helpful is that really? So, the parents group has widowed people predominantly, a couple of parents who have lost small children and someone who lost a parent. Rob and I are by far the most “experienced” grievers in the group in terms of time out from the loss. It’s a 12 steppy thing. Aren’t they all? And it works on the premise that there should be a group facilitator prompting with open-ended topics or questions and that emotions and experiences of everyone present are going to be very similar. Even among younger widowed people are emotional responses and experiences can be quite dissimilar so you can imagine what a group of mixed grievers is like in terms of having a discussion rather than just one person venting and the next person do the same. It’s like parallel lines. After the last meeting I sent a email to the director suggesting tactfully, as I am capable of that, that we might break into smaller groups at different points so we can share with those whose experiences are most like our own. It is difficult to really articulate your thoughts and feelings when you are weighing them constantly in an effort not to make anyone feel bad. For example, the person who lost their parent, both Rob and I have a shocking lack of empathy for her and Rob has even lost a parent himself. I think it stems from the fact that we accept that as we age, so do our parents and as a matter of course, they will age, get sick perhaps, and die. It is a loss. It will/does effect one and there is grief, but it is part of life. Losing one’s spouse at a young age - not so on the scale of what is expected. Same goes for the death of a child. I just can’t muster the empathy for this person or the situation and so I am trying to participate in the group knowing that I need to keep this to myself. The director liked my idea and will put it to the group to decide tonight. At the hospice group, I feel more like I am “paying forward” though perhaps it is more “paying up” in the sense that someone helped me along at different points in my journey and now I am called upon to repay the debt via others.
In the spirit of helping then, I went to a planning session sponsored by the city last evening. There is a need for grief services in our little town and I thought I could at least input a bit, if not volunteer at some point. It turned out that the model for the group was predetermined and it was more of a finite workshop than an actual support group. The group of women who attended last evening were the same type of mixed fruit bowl you get at most grief groups that are sponsored by social service agencies. The need to separate people in a more constructive way is not universally acknowledged. I left the meeting when it became clear to me that they were not soliciting ideas as much as participants. I was even a bit insulted by the leader of the group who made the comment to me, and another widow of my vintage, that perhaps the reason we didn’t want to participate was that we were in denial and were stuffing or blocking our feelings. Today I can chuckle a bit about that. Me? Stuffing? She needs to read my blog. But the thing that irked me the most was the fact that she was yet another one of those time-line people (four years to all better now) who believe that if one works hard and grieves according to the rules as laid down, they will one day be ready to resume life and live again. Nonsense. Life does not stop and wait for us to by ready and interested. If you wait for perfect or nearly so to live, you won’t. Live. Life happens all the time and whether we feel like it or not, we are living. We can choose to not participate and let moments/opportunities go by - and many people do this for may different reasons - but I believe we can live and grieve and that this is normal and healthy. And, I have to confess that her snide aside about my being married already colored my opinion of her and her ideas a bit.
My dilemma then is how to go about giving back/paying forward. If we stay here in this area (a possibility now as Texas has become an “if”), there is the possibility of becoming a hospice volunteer at the Pilgrim house. and there is also the idea of writing articles and freelancing a bit in the area of grief.
If you are still with me after all this rambling, perhaps you have ideas or suggestions. I rarely hear from any of you aside from Marsha and Sally and TGLB - and of course my darling Rob, and that’s okay, but I’d like to know what thoughts there might be out there.
Oh, and my 10,000 blog view is fast approaching. If you happen to be the one to log on here and notice that you have tipped the counter to that big ole number - let me know it was you. ‘K?
I turned to blogging for myself initially and then as a way to share with others who might be experiencing transitions and on journeys of self-discovery. And I still like the idea of using the blog, and myself in the process, as an example. But, I was a teacher for twenty years, and I miss the face to face interaction and being able to see and talk with people. Writing and reading is good but the human component is distanced. The parents group at Pilgrim’s Hospice has proved a tiny outlet, but the process is so scripted and the grief is a one-size fits all as though everything about loss is equal, and like so much of life - there is no such thing as equal. Losing a parent as a child is different from a teen/young adult and much different from the experience of an adult who has a family of their own. They are not comparable experiences. Losing a spouse to death is not the same as divorcing one or being divorced. Losing a sibling is not the same as losing a life partner. Losing a child is the most horrendous grief of all but the age of the child and the circumstances of the death are factors. We like to ignore the reality that apples and oranges really are different types of fruit because we are afraid of marginalizing and even more afraid that someone may not like us - but how helpful is that really? So, the parents group has widowed people predominantly, a couple of parents who have lost small children and someone who lost a parent. Rob and I are by far the most “experienced” grievers in the group in terms of time out from the loss. It’s a 12 steppy thing. Aren’t they all? And it works on the premise that there should be a group facilitator prompting with open-ended topics or questions and that emotions and experiences of everyone present are going to be very similar. Even among younger widowed people are emotional responses and experiences can be quite dissimilar so you can imagine what a group of mixed grievers is like in terms of having a discussion rather than just one person venting and the next person do the same. It’s like parallel lines. After the last meeting I sent a email to the director suggesting tactfully, as I am capable of that, that we might break into smaller groups at different points so we can share with those whose experiences are most like our own. It is difficult to really articulate your thoughts and feelings when you are weighing them constantly in an effort not to make anyone feel bad. For example, the person who lost their parent, both Rob and I have a shocking lack of empathy for her and Rob has even lost a parent himself. I think it stems from the fact that we accept that as we age, so do our parents and as a matter of course, they will age, get sick perhaps, and die. It is a loss. It will/does effect one and there is grief, but it is part of life. Losing one’s spouse at a young age - not so on the scale of what is expected. Same goes for the death of a child. I just can’t muster the empathy for this person or the situation and so I am trying to participate in the group knowing that I need to keep this to myself. The director liked my idea and will put it to the group to decide tonight. At the hospice group, I feel more like I am “paying forward” though perhaps it is more “paying up” in the sense that someone helped me along at different points in my journey and now I am called upon to repay the debt via others.
In the spirit of helping then, I went to a planning session sponsored by the city last evening. There is a need for grief services in our little town and I thought I could at least input a bit, if not volunteer at some point. It turned out that the model for the group was predetermined and it was more of a finite workshop than an actual support group. The group of women who attended last evening were the same type of mixed fruit bowl you get at most grief groups that are sponsored by social service agencies. The need to separate people in a more constructive way is not universally acknowledged. I left the meeting when it became clear to me that they were not soliciting ideas as much as participants. I was even a bit insulted by the leader of the group who made the comment to me, and another widow of my vintage, that perhaps the reason we didn’t want to participate was that we were in denial and were stuffing or blocking our feelings. Today I can chuckle a bit about that. Me? Stuffing? She needs to read my blog. But the thing that irked me the most was the fact that she was yet another one of those time-line people (four years to all better now) who believe that if one works hard and grieves according to the rules as laid down, they will one day be ready to resume life and live again. Nonsense. Life does not stop and wait for us to by ready and interested. If you wait for perfect or nearly so to live, you won’t. Live. Life happens all the time and whether we feel like it or not, we are living. We can choose to not participate and let moments/opportunities go by - and many people do this for may different reasons - but I believe we can live and grieve and that this is normal and healthy. And, I have to confess that her snide aside about my being married already colored my opinion of her and her ideas a bit.
My dilemma then is how to go about giving back/paying forward. If we stay here in this area (a possibility now as Texas has become an “if”), there is the possibility of becoming a hospice volunteer at the Pilgrim house. and there is also the idea of writing articles and freelancing a bit in the area of grief.
If you are still with me after all this rambling, perhaps you have ideas or suggestions. I rarely hear from any of you aside from Marsha and Sally and TGLB - and of course my darling Rob, and that’s okay, but I’d like to know what thoughts there might be out there.
Oh, and my 10,000 blog view is fast approaching. If you happen to be the one to log on here and notice that you have tipped the counter to that big ole number - let me know it was you. ‘K?
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Another Day, Another REJECTED Story
Strathcona writing group last night was a small turn out. There were just three of us, but we had a nice discussion about online literary magazines and submitting. The two women who were there talked about their submission process and how they keep track of things. They are both published authors and one of them is an illustrator as well. It makes me a tiny bit jealous, but also determined to push on. I WANT to SEE my writing in print. That’s one of the drawbacks, we all agreed, to the online literary magazines. The majority do not have a print equivalent and there is something about having a printed copy to hold and show your mother (especially if your mother is like mine and can’t even open her own email).
We read. They are mainly poets and very goods ones. My poetry always seems like a school assignment effort. I did take a poetry workshop one summer before I graduated from Iowa. I found the workshop technique a bit puzzling. I rarely thought about the meaning behind the things I wrote (I had done a writing workshop not long before the poetry) and was always amused by the things that the others would “read” into my work. Usually they were so far off in the left field that all I could do was say, “Right exactly. I was wondering if anyone would notice that.” Then I would go back to my apartment and reread my stuff and wonder if other writers just wrote and then co-opted the interpretations of others for future use. I remember the instructor was very impressed with my poetry. He encouraged me to submit them and sign up for more poetry classes. Another smile and nod moment. I am not a poet. I don’t like reading it. I don’t even really enjoy listening to it. When people at writing group read their poetry, I have to really force myself to listen and not wander off mentally. I just wasn’t born with a poetry gene.
I read my new work in progress. I think I wrote about it on my wordpress site. Both women thought it was a very good start. I am such a compliment junkie. I love to have people read and listen to my work and give me strokes. On the other hand, I don’t care much for the opposite. Rejection. Which is what I found waiting for me on the email when I got home. It was from the Matrix, a lit magazine out of Calgary. I had sent them the first story in my Sci-Fi series at the beginning for December and I already knew that they had rejected it because their new issue is out already. It was bland. Obviously what they sent to everyone but they did include the link to their submission call for the next issue.
Gallows humor. As a widow, I wouldn’t know anything about that.
Today there will not be much time for writing. I need to get to the gym and hustle home to clean up and get Katy ready for school. I am meeting Rob at our Subjoint to pick up veggies wraps before heading to a financial planning meeting that his company is sponsoring for employees and their partners (Canada recognizes common law unions and same sex marriages). It’s all about retirement, and Rob and I are all about getting plans in place for that. It is expected to go until 3PM and then it’s hustle home to meet Katy’s bus and get supper started. Tonight I am going into town to sit in on a planning session for a grief support group. I have always found the one size fits all approach to support groups of this nature a bit wanting and if I can input in the planning stages, perhaps I can alter that a bit. And perhaps not. My approach to grief is not, I have been vehemently told, a sound one. Whatever. Nothing ventured, as they say.
We read. They are mainly poets and very goods ones. My poetry always seems like a school assignment effort. I did take a poetry workshop one summer before I graduated from Iowa. I found the workshop technique a bit puzzling. I rarely thought about the meaning behind the things I wrote (I had done a writing workshop not long before the poetry) and was always amused by the things that the others would “read” into my work. Usually they were so far off in the left field that all I could do was say, “Right exactly. I was wondering if anyone would notice that.” Then I would go back to my apartment and reread my stuff and wonder if other writers just wrote and then co-opted the interpretations of others for future use. I remember the instructor was very impressed with my poetry. He encouraged me to submit them and sign up for more poetry classes. Another smile and nod moment. I am not a poet. I don’t like reading it. I don’t even really enjoy listening to it. When people at writing group read their poetry, I have to really force myself to listen and not wander off mentally. I just wasn’t born with a poetry gene.
I read my new work in progress. I think I wrote about it on my wordpress site. Both women thought it was a very good start. I am such a compliment junkie. I love to have people read and listen to my work and give me strokes. On the other hand, I don’t care much for the opposite. Rejection. Which is what I found waiting for me on the email when I got home. It was from the Matrix, a lit magazine out of Calgary. I had sent them the first story in my Sci-Fi series at the beginning for December and I already knew that they had rejected it because their new issue is out already. It was bland. Obviously what they sent to everyone but they did include the link to their submission call for the next issue.
Gallows humor. As a widow, I wouldn’t know anything about that.
Today there will not be much time for writing. I need to get to the gym and hustle home to clean up and get Katy ready for school. I am meeting Rob at our Subjoint to pick up veggies wraps before heading to a financial planning meeting that his company is sponsoring for employees and their partners (Canada recognizes common law unions and same sex marriages). It’s all about retirement, and Rob and I are all about getting plans in place for that. It is expected to go until 3PM and then it’s hustle home to meet Katy’s bus and get supper started. Tonight I am going into town to sit in on a planning session for a grief support group. I have always found the one size fits all approach to support groups of this nature a bit wanting and if I can input in the planning stages, perhaps I can alter that a bit. And perhaps not. My approach to grief is not, I have been vehemently told, a sound one. Whatever. Nothing ventured, as they say.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Family Day in Alberta
This last weekend was a holiday weekend here in Alberta as Monday was Family Day. Yes, they actually have a holiday devoted to spending time with one’s family. Last year Rob was in Grande Prairie with Farron and Jordan visiting with his in-law’s. Without Internet or reliable cell service, we spent most of that weekend out of contact for the first time since we’d started communicating with each other before Christmas of ’06. It was a very long weekend as I remember it. He did manage to sneak out to the truck and call me a couple times from the on-star phone, but it was nowhere near the marathon phone sessions we’d become accustomed to by then. It seems such a long time ago now.
This Family Day activities we attended were at the Dow Centennial Centre, which houses, among other things, the gym I workout at most days. The community sponsored events included stage demonstrations on the soccer field by local groups like the judo and gymnastics clubs. There were also booths set up around the edge of the field for churches and different volunteer organizations. Rob and I generally walked by the church stuff without making eye contact as neither of us is inclined to practice religion in an organized manner. Indeed, Rob isn’t inclined to practice it in the disorganized manner that I have chosen. In addition to these attractions there was also face painting , yoga, belly dancing, storytelling and of course there was someone making balloon animals. In the art gallery attached to the Shell Theatre lobby was a traveling exhibit from the Alberta Art Gallery and the Waiward Steel Pottery Studio held demonstrations and a sale in hopes of attracting people to sign up for classes. There was also free public skate and shinny skate and no Dow Center do would be complete without those inflatables that Katy so loves to jump around in and slide on.
Afterwards we stopped to pick up tomatoes for supper and hit the Staples for a copy of the tax program because it is really time to figure out what kind of cluster-fuck we’ve gotten ourselves into by shunning our own and marrying across an international border. Rob suggested that I run into the Safeway and he would hit Staples and thus save time.
“But I wanted to go to Staples too.”
“Why?”
“.....because....I like to go to Staples....”
(Laughing) “I forgot what a Staples addict you are.”
“I’m not. I just love office supplies.”
“You are so weird.” (Big grin)
It’s true though. I am weird. I love pens, pencils, notebooks, folders. If it is paper or has something to do with paper - I love it. I have no sense of organization at all, but I love wandering office supply stores.
After we had late lunch and tea, I spent some time out in the yard building a snow fort with Katy and Rob worked on finishing up the north side of the basement. When we moved in, a person couldn’t even access the basement for the stuff piled high, but soon it will be Katy’s play area and an exercise area for Rob and I. Progress.
I love long weekends.
This Family Day activities we attended were at the Dow Centennial Centre, which houses, among other things, the gym I workout at most days. The community sponsored events included stage demonstrations on the soccer field by local groups like the judo and gymnastics clubs. There were also booths set up around the edge of the field for churches and different volunteer organizations. Rob and I generally walked by the church stuff without making eye contact as neither of us is inclined to practice religion in an organized manner. Indeed, Rob isn’t inclined to practice it in the disorganized manner that I have chosen. In addition to these attractions there was also face painting , yoga, belly dancing, storytelling and of course there was someone making balloon animals. In the art gallery attached to the Shell Theatre lobby was a traveling exhibit from the Alberta Art Gallery and the Waiward Steel Pottery Studio held demonstrations and a sale in hopes of attracting people to sign up for classes. There was also free public skate and shinny skate and no Dow Center do would be complete without those inflatables that Katy so loves to jump around in and slide on.
Afterwards we stopped to pick up tomatoes for supper and hit the Staples for a copy of the tax program because it is really time to figure out what kind of cluster-fuck we’ve gotten ourselves into by shunning our own and marrying across an international border. Rob suggested that I run into the Safeway and he would hit Staples and thus save time.
“But I wanted to go to Staples too.”
“Why?”
“.....because....I like to go to Staples....”
(Laughing) “I forgot what a Staples addict you are.”
“I’m not. I just love office supplies.”
“You are so weird.” (Big grin)
It’s true though. I am weird. I love pens, pencils, notebooks, folders. If it is paper or has something to do with paper - I love it. I have no sense of organization at all, but I love wandering office supply stores.
After we had late lunch and tea, I spent some time out in the yard building a snow fort with Katy and Rob worked on finishing up the north side of the basement. When we moved in, a person couldn’t even access the basement for the stuff piled high, but soon it will be Katy’s play area and an exercise area for Rob and I. Progress.
I love long weekends.
Monday, February 18, 2008
A Picnic in Elk Island Park
We have been promising Katy a hike and a picnic lunch in the nearby Elk Island Park for some time, but until this week, it has been far too cold. Friday the weather turned and though not as warm as some of you in the southern 48 might think it should be to hearld the coming of spring, it has felt mighty good up here. Today we decided to skip our usually Sunday afternoon skating at the Moyer Ice Arena here in Josephburg and head over to Elk Island for a short hike and lunch. We fortified well with tuna wraps, grapes and baby carrots not to mention a thermos of Earl Grey and another with water for hot chocolate. Bundled and with Katy’s little green toboggan packed in the back of the Equinox, we felt ready to tackle the snow-covered trails.
We made one stop on the way and that was in the tiny town of Lamont which is just north of the Fort. We needed to pick up the Edmonton Journal because even if it is light on news beyond its own borders - we are newspaper addicts and have to have at least one paper coming into the house daily and well, the Globe doesn’t run a Sunday edition. In fact neither paper runs its big edition on Sunday. The biggest paper of the week is the Saturday edition for both. Lamont though is not much of a town. Rob remembers the ice rink there as being a vandalism target for the bored teens trapped by a lack of transportation, probably, and somewhere to go, likely. There is a grain elevator and railway tracks. A main street with a donut shop, a bank and a grocery. Very small. Not picturesque. It bills itself as the “Gateway to Elk Island Park”. And with that, enough has been said.
The park is a forested preserve for elk and bison herds. It’s mainly Aspen as this area is the transition land between Aspen parkland and boreal forest. There are plains and woodland bison here and they are kept in separate areas. They have flourished here to the point that this park has repatriated some of both herds to other areas that are trying to reestablish them. It’s part of the national park system and so there is a toll station at the entrance/exit areas. Trails are maintained and some of them are groomed specifically for cross country skiing. It’s snow up here a fair amount in the last few weeks so the snow we encountered was too deep for Katy to walk and we’d suspected she wouldn’t do much hiking anyway - thus her green toboggan.
Rob is always teaching Katy about something whether it is about drywalling or painting or the fact that there was a squirrel living in the area we were hiking through. He pointed out the food leavings and the collapsed tunnel the squirrel had been using to travel.
We picnicked at a spot that would overlook the lake in warmer weather but right now unless you knew it was out there, you’d have a hard time picturing it at all. It was a quick lunch. Just the wraps and hot drinks and grapes, and then back to the vehicle to tour the rest of the park from the warmth of the car. Katy and I are not quite so Canadian as we need to be for winter hikes yet.
As we trudged back to the main trail and then to the parking lot, a story came to me. It amazes me how this happens. How I can be doing something completely normal, like pulling Katy in a toboggan, and suddenly a story comes. Like a gift. A gift with a lot of work attached to it, but still a present from the universe just the same. I think it will be a creepy story. I just finished Stephen King's The Mist. A very quick read - day and a half at most as it is only a bit over 200 pages. Sadly it is something I could have started and finished in an afternoon or evening back in the day but I don't have the stamina - or the time - for such a quick turnaround these days. Anyway, I think some of the inspiration came from my reading too. I have always loved apocalyptic survival stories. Mine is not an end of days thing, but it is about survival and I hope it will be a little suspenseful anyway.
On the way back to the car, Rob stopped us to show Katy a picture of a bison and then a moose. There are stations on the trail in that give the history of Alberta and pioneers and some of the wildlife in the area. Katy really loves moments like these although Rob doesn't think she is always paying attention to him, she is. She is becoming quite a daddy's girl. Recently she has been telling Rob that she loves him. Spontaneously and not merely as a response. They say it takes several years to blend families. I wonder what they mean by that because I know so few "real" families that are "blended". Perhaps what they mean is that it takes time for people to get to know how everyone reacts in situations - what they are likely to do or say. Still, even though I can predict my siblings and parents, I wouldn't say that I knew any one of them very well, except maybe my mother, and I know they don't know or understand me at all.
As we were driving out of the park, we stopped to watch a moose grazing. Katy was quite fascinated and equally horrified when she was told that she'd had moose for supper the other night. The drive home was quick. We don't live far from the park. It was another splendid day.
We made one stop on the way and that was in the tiny town of Lamont which is just north of the Fort. We needed to pick up the Edmonton Journal because even if it is light on news beyond its own borders - we are newspaper addicts and have to have at least one paper coming into the house daily and well, the Globe doesn’t run a Sunday edition. In fact neither paper runs its big edition on Sunday. The biggest paper of the week is the Saturday edition for both. Lamont though is not much of a town. Rob remembers the ice rink there as being a vandalism target for the bored teens trapped by a lack of transportation, probably, and somewhere to go, likely. There is a grain elevator and railway tracks. A main street with a donut shop, a bank and a grocery. Very small. Not picturesque. It bills itself as the “Gateway to Elk Island Park”. And with that, enough has been said.
The park is a forested preserve for elk and bison herds. It’s mainly Aspen as this area is the transition land between Aspen parkland and boreal forest. There are plains and woodland bison here and they are kept in separate areas. They have flourished here to the point that this park has repatriated some of both herds to other areas that are trying to reestablish them. It’s part of the national park system and so there is a toll station at the entrance/exit areas. Trails are maintained and some of them are groomed specifically for cross country skiing. It’s snow up here a fair amount in the last few weeks so the snow we encountered was too deep for Katy to walk and we’d suspected she wouldn’t do much hiking anyway - thus her green toboggan.
Rob is always teaching Katy about something whether it is about drywalling or painting or the fact that there was a squirrel living in the area we were hiking through. He pointed out the food leavings and the collapsed tunnel the squirrel had been using to travel.
We picnicked at a spot that would overlook the lake in warmer weather but right now unless you knew it was out there, you’d have a hard time picturing it at all. It was a quick lunch. Just the wraps and hot drinks and grapes, and then back to the vehicle to tour the rest of the park from the warmth of the car. Katy and I are not quite so Canadian as we need to be for winter hikes yet.
As we trudged back to the main trail and then to the parking lot, a story came to me. It amazes me how this happens. How I can be doing something completely normal, like pulling Katy in a toboggan, and suddenly a story comes. Like a gift. A gift with a lot of work attached to it, but still a present from the universe just the same. I think it will be a creepy story. I just finished Stephen King's The Mist. A very quick read - day and a half at most as it is only a bit over 200 pages. Sadly it is something I could have started and finished in an afternoon or evening back in the day but I don't have the stamina - or the time - for such a quick turnaround these days. Anyway, I think some of the inspiration came from my reading too. I have always loved apocalyptic survival stories. Mine is not an end of days thing, but it is about survival and I hope it will be a little suspenseful anyway.
On the way back to the car, Rob stopped us to show Katy a picture of a bison and then a moose. There are stations on the trail in that give the history of Alberta and pioneers and some of the wildlife in the area. Katy really loves moments like these although Rob doesn't think she is always paying attention to him, she is. She is becoming quite a daddy's girl. Recently she has been telling Rob that she loves him. Spontaneously and not merely as a response. They say it takes several years to blend families. I wonder what they mean by that because I know so few "real" families that are "blended". Perhaps what they mean is that it takes time for people to get to know how everyone reacts in situations - what they are likely to do or say. Still, even though I can predict my siblings and parents, I wouldn't say that I knew any one of them very well, except maybe my mother, and I know they don't know or understand me at all.
As we were driving out of the park, we stopped to watch a moose grazing. Katy was quite fascinated and equally horrified when she was told that she'd had moose for supper the other night. The drive home was quick. We don't live far from the park. It was another splendid day.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Writing and Submitting
One of the things that I find hard right now about writing is finding an audience. I could simply publish my fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry on one of my blogs. Not here, perhaps my Wordpress site, but somehow that just feels like when I was in school and my stories would be passed around among my friends and classmates. It’s like this blog too or even my writing groups. Just not enough.
There are writing contests aplenty. Between my two writing groups and a few magazines I have looked through, I have found more than enough contest opportunities. Currently I believe I am waiting on four contests and have three more I can enter. Good. But still not enough. I want to see something with my name on it in a newspaper or magazine. I am plaguing the Globe with one Fact and Argument piece a week now. I submitted one of the stories from my Sci-Fi series of shorts to a Sci-Fi/Fantasy magazine based out of Edmonton. Literary magazines of any genre are hard to find though and many will not take submissions from unpublished writers. So, what’s a frustrated writer to do?
Submit online.
Yes, apparently there is quite the sizable and respected community of literary magazines on line. I discovered this through an article in Writer’s magazine. The editor of failbetter.com wrote a piece about his and others’ online collection of tomes. Quite a list and one that goes back into the late to mid-90’s in terms of longevity. There are even literary awards for online lit mags. Cool.
I made my first submission to a site called Our Stories which looks for emerging writers and promises feedback for submissions within 3 weeks. More than cool. I sent a story I wrote for Rob called The White Boots. I based it on an anecdote he told that was first told to him by Shelley, his late wife. Seems that when she was in high school, there was a boy a bit older than she was whose pick up line was stealing girls’ shoes at parties and leaving his white cowboy boots in their place. Rob said it had happened to Shelley once but that he didn’t know the outcome. I found the whole idea intriguing enough to get out of bed in the middle of the night and jot down the basics of what became a pretty decent short story. When I let Rob read it, he thought it was strange to see personal details of his high school days and meeting Shelley fictionalized but he liked the story a lot. My Fort writing group liked it too though none of the women got the reference to “Aunt Flo” and I came to find out that it is apparently an American slang term for one’s period and not a universal one. Our Stories accepts submissions year round, as do many of the other lit sites do, and like them it will take only one submission per category a quarter. I am working on a few other things that I will look at sending in after March 31st.
Failbetter.com will take novel excerpts, so I was looking through my novel last night while I sat with Katy in the living room. She wanted to watch Quest for Camelot, an old feature length cartoon that proved a bit too scary. The main character’s father is murdered within the first five minutes or so and it really doesn’t get any better from there, so we switched to Curious George and I went back to surfing through my novel. Now that time has passed since the first draft, I am able to be a bit more objective. It’s pretty good in places but there is revising to be done.
I was telling Rob this morning that I had yet another dream where my wallet (sometimes purse) was stolen and when I found it again, the contents were gone. An obvious loss of identity theme and he wanted to know why I felt that I had lost my identity. Too much cooking, cleaning and laundry? Well, there is that. My mini-inner feminist is disgusted by the extent to which I am really finding joy and fulfillment in making a home for my family, but there is also the issue of teaching. Less and less do I miss the actual job but more and more I realize that I am in between having been a teacher and being an actual writer - partly because of the whole getting published issue. And of course this is just an issue of patience but there is a sense of fibbing when I tell people I am a writer because I am not published and my two biggest works are incomplete.
There are writing contests aplenty. Between my two writing groups and a few magazines I have looked through, I have found more than enough contest opportunities. Currently I believe I am waiting on four contests and have three more I can enter. Good. But still not enough. I want to see something with my name on it in a newspaper or magazine. I am plaguing the Globe with one Fact and Argument piece a week now. I submitted one of the stories from my Sci-Fi series of shorts to a Sci-Fi/Fantasy magazine based out of Edmonton. Literary magazines of any genre are hard to find though and many will not take submissions from unpublished writers. So, what’s a frustrated writer to do?
Submit online.
Yes, apparently there is quite the sizable and respected community of literary magazines on line. I discovered this through an article in Writer’s magazine. The editor of failbetter.com wrote a piece about his and others’ online collection of tomes. Quite a list and one that goes back into the late to mid-90’s in terms of longevity. There are even literary awards for online lit mags. Cool.
I made my first submission to a site called Our Stories which looks for emerging writers and promises feedback for submissions within 3 weeks. More than cool. I sent a story I wrote for Rob called The White Boots. I based it on an anecdote he told that was first told to him by Shelley, his late wife. Seems that when she was in high school, there was a boy a bit older than she was whose pick up line was stealing girls’ shoes at parties and leaving his white cowboy boots in their place. Rob said it had happened to Shelley once but that he didn’t know the outcome. I found the whole idea intriguing enough to get out of bed in the middle of the night and jot down the basics of what became a pretty decent short story. When I let Rob read it, he thought it was strange to see personal details of his high school days and meeting Shelley fictionalized but he liked the story a lot. My Fort writing group liked it too though none of the women got the reference to “Aunt Flo” and I came to find out that it is apparently an American slang term for one’s period and not a universal one. Our Stories accepts submissions year round, as do many of the other lit sites do, and like them it will take only one submission per category a quarter. I am working on a few other things that I will look at sending in after March 31st.
Failbetter.com will take novel excerpts, so I was looking through my novel last night while I sat with Katy in the living room. She wanted to watch Quest for Camelot, an old feature length cartoon that proved a bit too scary. The main character’s father is murdered within the first five minutes or so and it really doesn’t get any better from there, so we switched to Curious George and I went back to surfing through my novel. Now that time has passed since the first draft, I am able to be a bit more objective. It’s pretty good in places but there is revising to be done.
I was telling Rob this morning that I had yet another dream where my wallet (sometimes purse) was stolen and when I found it again, the contents were gone. An obvious loss of identity theme and he wanted to know why I felt that I had lost my identity. Too much cooking, cleaning and laundry? Well, there is that. My mini-inner feminist is disgusted by the extent to which I am really finding joy and fulfillment in making a home for my family, but there is also the issue of teaching. Less and less do I miss the actual job but more and more I realize that I am in between having been a teacher and being an actual writer - partly because of the whole getting published issue. And of course this is just an issue of patience but there is a sense of fibbing when I tell people I am a writer because I am not published and my two biggest works are incomplete.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Simply Saturday
A beautiful day in Josephburg follows hard on the heals of a warm, melty spring day yesterday. There is no mistaking the smell or feel of spring when it begins to arm wrestle with winter. It’s a bit like watching my daughter arm wrestle with my husband however. She hanging with both hands onto his wrist and dangling a few inches off the ground in a futile attempt to subdue him. Spring will not suffer the same loss that Katy did to Rob. Spring always wins out in the end simply because she is patient and persistent. Certainly more-so than we who want wearily for her victory at this point in the winter season. It’s a thrill to see the shingles on the roof and the asphalt of the road reappear for the first time since early December. The constant dripping from the eaves stops and the sun pulls away enough moisten from the roads that one can ease up on the wiper fluid. The wind carries a hint of warmer days and the branches of the trees and bushes seem to know it as they dance, sway or bounce, depending.
The sky looks warmer. And the sun? The sun! It was quarter to six and just dust the other night when we were leaving dance. Another month and daylight savings returns with its plethora of light to cheer Spring on in her quest for reclamation.
The day began with Katy and breakfast as most weekend mornings do. Sometimes I get up and sometimes it’s Rob. Pour the Fruity Cheerios, get the half-full juice box and rice milk from the fridge, and make sure the TV is on and set to Treehouse. Back to bed then for a bit more shut eye or snuggling or whatever. Around nine there is the long leisurely breakfast - today’s menu was Cream of Wheat and half a Starbucks scone each. Did you know that they are a whopping 470 calories and 23 grams of fat - with or without frosting? Pure evil carb. After there is showering, dressing and readying for errands. Today I went right to the Safeway and groceries and Rob took Katy along with him to Canadian Tire on the left for paint and supplies.
The afternoon was laundry. Painting. And Katy spent time in her winter wonderland that is our front yard, scaling the melting drifts, sliding down on her seal-skin like bum and digging. Oh, the digging.
At the moment, Rob is hard at work on the NYTimes crossword and I am writing while simultaneously making a poor attempt to bake a banana bread. It will be edible, just, but not photo-worthy.
A simple Saturday. Something to savour.
The sky looks warmer. And the sun? The sun! It was quarter to six and just dust the other night when we were leaving dance. Another month and daylight savings returns with its plethora of light to cheer Spring on in her quest for reclamation.
The day began with Katy and breakfast as most weekend mornings do. Sometimes I get up and sometimes it’s Rob. Pour the Fruity Cheerios, get the half-full juice box and rice milk from the fridge, and make sure the TV is on and set to Treehouse. Back to bed then for a bit more shut eye or snuggling or whatever. Around nine there is the long leisurely breakfast - today’s menu was Cream of Wheat and half a Starbucks scone each. Did you know that they are a whopping 470 calories and 23 grams of fat - with or without frosting? Pure evil carb. After there is showering, dressing and readying for errands. Today I went right to the Safeway and groceries and Rob took Katy along with him to Canadian Tire on the left for paint and supplies.
The afternoon was laundry. Painting. And Katy spent time in her winter wonderland that is our front yard, scaling the melting drifts, sliding down on her seal-skin like bum and digging. Oh, the digging.
At the moment, Rob is hard at work on the NYTimes crossword and I am writing while simultaneously making a poor attempt to bake a banana bread. It will be edible, just, but not photo-worthy.
A simple Saturday. Something to savour.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Inner Cleansing
Katy’s catch-all for all upsets is a tummy ache. Her tummy hurts when she is frustrated, tired, bored, not interested in following directions and when she is stalling for time at bed (although sometimes she has growing pains to forestall her nightly tuck-in). An aching tummy can mean she is experiencing a grief wave or that she ate too many grapes. This has been such a standard of hers that I almost pay no attention anymore to the physical and skip immediately to Nancy Drew mode to ascertain the true problem. So, it should come as no surprise that occasionally, the kid really is sick. Like the time she complained of a tummy upset before bed and awoke us later at 3 or so in the morning announcing she had “pukey tummy”. She made it as far as the top of the landing outside our door before spewing on and off the rest of the two flights to the bathroom on the main floor (god, I miss my en suite). Last week, her aching tummy turned out to be a bladder infection which I would have missed entirely had she not inadvertently mentioned that it hurt to pee. You would think she’d have brought this up in addition to the tummy ache, but her gut overrides all things most of the time.
Wednesday, she played the tummy card again when I picked her up at the child-minding after my workout. I had to carry her to the car after she did her dramatic belly clutch and walked bent over a few staggering steps as we headed down the hallway for the parking lot. And before you waste too much concern, she wasn’t that sick or in that much pain - she just didn’t want to walk. After I had her buckled into her booster, the interrogation began and by the time I was near the four way by the shopping centre, I had made up my mind to take her back to the walk-in clinic. Her tummy - interestingly - suddenly hurt a lot less.
We have been remarkably healthy since coming to Canada. Given that an average winter had me floored with sinus and bronchitis most of the last several years and that Katy was averaging one whooping cold and an ear infection as well, I would say we have stumbled upon some sort of health Shangri-La up here. This is a good thing because like just about everything else service wise up here, doctors are in short supply, and those who are practicing seem to be able to do so on a part-time basis. Rob’s doctor - who I am seeing now - is a kindly old Chinese man who probably should be retired and works a greatly diminished schedule in an office next to a pizza place in a strip mall (I kid you not when I say you find doctors and dentists in the oddest places up here). I would have taken Katy to see him but the wait can be hours and there are, curiously, no nurses working in his office - just receptionists. It’s a little weird. I took Katy back to the Walk-In Clinic which can be quick or long depending on the staffing, which varies without rhyme or reason, and the various viruses going around. Fortunately, our flu season seems to have abated up here, so we were able to get in quickly.
Last week Katy saw one of the younger doctors. There are two, a man and a woman. My younger step-daughter Jordan looks older than both of them and Jordan could pass for a high schooler without much trouble. Wednesday though we saw the older gentleman who is easily older than Rob’s rather old Chinese doctor. He was fairly certain that Katy was suffering from constipation and wanted to do a quick rectal to confirm. And no, that didn’t happen. There is one thing I never need worry about and that is that my daughter will ever unwillingly have sex. That girl can clamp her two little legs together in a death-like vise. So, off we were sent to the local hospital across the way for a tummy x-ray.
Katy has had x-rays before. Last spring when Rob and I were in Arkansas, she was staying with my folks and caught Influenza-B from my nephew and it turned into pneumonia. That was a long 12-hr drive back I can tell you. Katy had not forgotten what an ordeal the x-rays were. She had been crying and of course for a chest x-ray you have to hold still and hold your breath. A crying four year old, sick and wanting her mommy, is not the best direction follower. She started crying before we even had her up on the x-ray table and she cried all the way through (I am hopeful that the days of using her tummy as a catch-all are over with this experience). Needless to say, I peeked at the x-ray as we were leaving to go back to the clinic and I even could tell she was - as Rob said, chuckling when he heard the news - “full of shit”.
Ironically, Rob and I have been planning to do one of those “cleansing kits” and after the last two of days of fruits, smoothies (laced with prune juice) and pretty much nothing but veggies, I am wondering what might be left in us to “cleanse”. Kate is not cleansing as easily. She balked at the Sennekot after day one to the point that she willing drank a half a glass of prune juice to avoid another dose, but her Valentine’s party at school was nothing but a sugar feast and it probably will come out a wash.
Just when you thought I couldn’t be more TMI.
Wednesday, she played the tummy card again when I picked her up at the child-minding after my workout. I had to carry her to the car after she did her dramatic belly clutch and walked bent over a few staggering steps as we headed down the hallway for the parking lot. And before you waste too much concern, she wasn’t that sick or in that much pain - she just didn’t want to walk. After I had her buckled into her booster, the interrogation began and by the time I was near the four way by the shopping centre, I had made up my mind to take her back to the walk-in clinic. Her tummy - interestingly - suddenly hurt a lot less.
We have been remarkably healthy since coming to Canada. Given that an average winter had me floored with sinus and bronchitis most of the last several years and that Katy was averaging one whooping cold and an ear infection as well, I would say we have stumbled upon some sort of health Shangri-La up here. This is a good thing because like just about everything else service wise up here, doctors are in short supply, and those who are practicing seem to be able to do so on a part-time basis. Rob’s doctor - who I am seeing now - is a kindly old Chinese man who probably should be retired and works a greatly diminished schedule in an office next to a pizza place in a strip mall (I kid you not when I say you find doctors and dentists in the oddest places up here). I would have taken Katy to see him but the wait can be hours and there are, curiously, no nurses working in his office - just receptionists. It’s a little weird. I took Katy back to the Walk-In Clinic which can be quick or long depending on the staffing, which varies without rhyme or reason, and the various viruses going around. Fortunately, our flu season seems to have abated up here, so we were able to get in quickly.
Last week Katy saw one of the younger doctors. There are two, a man and a woman. My younger step-daughter Jordan looks older than both of them and Jordan could pass for a high schooler without much trouble. Wednesday though we saw the older gentleman who is easily older than Rob’s rather old Chinese doctor. He was fairly certain that Katy was suffering from constipation and wanted to do a quick rectal to confirm. And no, that didn’t happen. There is one thing I never need worry about and that is that my daughter will ever unwillingly have sex. That girl can clamp her two little legs together in a death-like vise. So, off we were sent to the local hospital across the way for a tummy x-ray.
Katy has had x-rays before. Last spring when Rob and I were in Arkansas, she was staying with my folks and caught Influenza-B from my nephew and it turned into pneumonia. That was a long 12-hr drive back I can tell you. Katy had not forgotten what an ordeal the x-rays were. She had been crying and of course for a chest x-ray you have to hold still and hold your breath. A crying four year old, sick and wanting her mommy, is not the best direction follower. She started crying before we even had her up on the x-ray table and she cried all the way through (I am hopeful that the days of using her tummy as a catch-all are over with this experience). Needless to say, I peeked at the x-ray as we were leaving to go back to the clinic and I even could tell she was - as Rob said, chuckling when he heard the news - “full of shit”.
Ironically, Rob and I have been planning to do one of those “cleansing kits” and after the last two of days of fruits, smoothies (laced with prune juice) and pretty much nothing but veggies, I am wondering what might be left in us to “cleanse”. Kate is not cleansing as easily. She balked at the Sennekot after day one to the point that she willing drank a half a glass of prune juice to avoid another dose, but her Valentine’s party at school was nothing but a sugar feast and it probably will come out a wash.
Just when you thought I couldn’t be more TMI.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Valentine's Day
When I would arrive at school last year, one of the first things that I did was to check my email for a missive from Rob. This was before our first face to face meeting in Idaho Falls. After that I rarely waited until I got to work and checking my mail was the first thing I did upon rising. I even kept the computer by my bed for mornings when I was bleary eyed from having been up well past midnight on the phone with Rob the previous night. Our calls usually didn’t start until Katy was bathed and in bed though that ritual evolved over time to the point where we would talk before dinner and then during bath and again after until we were both so tired we had to hang up. Those were the LDR days, and I am glad they are behind us.
Today’s photo is the one that greeted me on Valentine’s last year. It is the view from the dining room window that I see now every morning. Today’s view is overcast with light snow. Jordan’s car is sitting in front of the condo where she lives in Lancombe now rather than out front. I still don’t know the renters across the street. I remember watching them put up one of those giant inflatable pools in their front yard shortly after we moved in. It was up about a day and then their landlord, who lives next door, told them to take it down. The tiny bit of white in the left had corner is the old van. It hadn’t run in a while but Rob got it going and he drove that while I drove his Avalanche last summer. That was before we got the Equinox.
I was reading our valentine emails last night. And no, I won’t be sharing them. They are love letters. The kind you write when you are still fresh in the lust and amazement stage. We still lust awful lot and I find myself amazed now and again, but it is different. It changes even over the short run, becoming more solid and precious and wonderful.
A lot has changed and there will be changes to come because that is life, but change is good when you are with the person you love most and who loves you equally in return.
A Valentine for My Husband, Rob
Every woman needs a Sasquatch of her own
Life being incomplete without one
Earth signs are best
but at least born in an Oxen year
Able to shoulder all manner of burden
Physical and Emotional
Soft
but with firm and unyielding flesh
and principles
Impish, teasing,
able to giggle and explain (nearly) everything
Confident of being able to do (nearly) anything
Beacon bright blue eyes,
furry all over
and with very warm feet
Every woman needs a Sasquatch of her own
Life being incomplete without one
Today’s photo is the one that greeted me on Valentine’s last year. It is the view from the dining room window that I see now every morning. Today’s view is overcast with light snow. Jordan’s car is sitting in front of the condo where she lives in Lancombe now rather than out front. I still don’t know the renters across the street. I remember watching them put up one of those giant inflatable pools in their front yard shortly after we moved in. It was up about a day and then their landlord, who lives next door, told them to take it down. The tiny bit of white in the left had corner is the old van. It hadn’t run in a while but Rob got it going and he drove that while I drove his Avalanche last summer. That was before we got the Equinox.
I was reading our valentine emails last night. And no, I won’t be sharing them. They are love letters. The kind you write when you are still fresh in the lust and amazement stage. We still lust awful lot and I find myself amazed now and again, but it is different. It changes even over the short run, becoming more solid and precious and wonderful.
A lot has changed and there will be changes to come because that is life, but change is good when you are with the person you love most and who loves you equally in return.
A Valentine for My Husband, Rob
Every woman needs a Sasquatch of her own
Life being incomplete without one
Earth signs are best
but at least born in an Oxen year
Able to shoulder all manner of burden
Physical and Emotional
Soft
but with firm and unyielding flesh
and principles
Impish, teasing,
able to giggle and explain (nearly) everything
Confident of being able to do (nearly) anything
Beacon bright blue eyes,
furry all over
and with very warm feet
Every woman needs a Sasquatch of her own
Life being incomplete without one
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Perimenopause
I have never been a fan of my plumbing. From the day my mother handed me a little booklet with characters out of a John, Jean and Judy book explaining the “exciting and wondrous miracle puberty”, I pretty much knew that girls got more than their fair share of the short end of God’s stick. It starts with not being able to be an altar-boy and just goes down hill from there. I think I was in sixth grade. Not quite twelve. And big for my age. So, my mother assumed, incorrectly I might add, that it was time to bring me up to speed on the whole menstruating thing. As it turned out, I didn’t start having a regular cycle until the beginning of eighth grade and that my greatest source of information about getting my period was not my mother, who’d had a hysterectomy before I was even born and hadn’t ever had what one could call a “normal” cycle, or the charming pamphlet or even the 1960-ish filmstrip presentation the sisters at my school inflicted on all the girls when they reached a “certain age”. No, like most things to do with the nether regions of my body - I learned what I needed to know from my peers. A dubious source of information to be sure but one that has stood the test of generations of young people everywhere. That is to say - the near-blind leading the legally so.
Now that I have once again reacher “a certain age”, I am finding that my peers are once again the leading edge of information as I wander, sometimes willingly and sometimes resentfully, into the valley of the shadow of menopause.
Ironically, it is my husband who has supplied me with much of my current information as he as been down this path, so to speak, before with his late wife. All manner of natural supplements have been suggested for my own good and his comfort. Black Cohosh and red clover for hot flashes, he thinks. The hot flashes are mainly a night time thing right now and only around that time of the month. Too much information? The change is like any other phase in a woman’s reproductive and sexual existence. When it is in season, it is fair game for conversation. That’s why preteens obsess about their breasts and when they will get their firs period and teens and twenty somethings can think and talk of little else but sex. It’s why married women suffer, loudly, about baby hungry and pregnant women will divulge the most intimate (and disgusting) information to anyone without even being asked for it. Labor and Delivery stories, breast-feeding adventures, and the big C of life - we are arguably more fascinated with our bodies than any man could ever be.
I am technically not menopausal. I know this because I was having issues last spring and my wonderful doctor did blood tests and had an ultra-sound done just to make sure that nothing more sinister was afoot (which caused a fair degree of worry for both Rob and I because we are now firmly in the camp of “it can happen to us” because it has). As it turned out I am just experiencing that long and winding down part of the reproductive years. From my reading, I know that it can take up to a decade to wind down to the point of actual menopause and that your best predictor for a time frame is the age at which your mother and grandmother stopped unwinding and ground to a halt. Being adopted, I don’t have that information. But, given that I was about 42ish when I first noticed things starting to change, then 52ish is a good guess. That’s eight years. Good God. That is a heck of a long time to wait for the demise of something I have never been all that fond of in the first place, and the list of symptoms that I am/could experience just bring up the short stick thing I mentioned earlier. One of the symptoms I noticed on the list was memory and concentration problems. Oh great. First it is PG brain, then mommy brain, followed by caregiver brain and then widow-brain. Top these last six years off with the hormonal (or lack thereof) induced thinking blips caused by peri and definitely menopause and by the time I am in my “right” mind again I will be too far gone in senior “moments” to notice.
Until recently, the whole aging thing hadn’t been a big deal to me. I look a tad younger than most of my peers - which I attribute to good genes and a near shunning of the sun when I was a teen and in my youngest adult years (fat girls don’t wear bathing suits). But, the white hair is getting harder to hide with just highlights and the physical things I once did without thinking need to be thought about it, and I am not sure that when you throw hormonal imbalance on top of this that I am as indifferent to getting old as I have been in the past. Rob is always talking about having this finite number of “good” old age years. As he sees it, one can still be okay - as in fit and healthy - enough to do as they would like during the 50’s and into the 60’s but that one gets maybe about 15 years max once you reach the top of the hill and round over. That is so depressing and what is worse is that I appear to be under the elder Boomer delusion that I will still be functional as a 70+ year old. Of course, perhaps I will. I read an article in the Globe yesterday about a couple of studies down with centenarians that determined it is not simply good genes that help people live into their 90’s and hit the 100 mark. Lifestyle is key as well and that they really can’t say when it is too late to improve one’s lifestyle.
It is not easy. Undoing the damage of caregiving and the stresses of the last years. Going on six now since Will’s first troubling symptoms began. I have started Yoga and I find that if I ignore the Mahareshi side of it I enjoy it quite a bit. I walk. I even have Rob walking. I can run again but try not to overdo it as it is hard on my knees. I lift weights. Heavy ones. I am Zena. I am a near total vegan but I need to work on the fruit thing. I hate out of season fruit. It’s squishy during the winter. How can anyone think about putting squishy fruit in her mouth without gagging?
Perhaps I will do okay. 102 is a good age to shoot for, don’t you think. One can’t set too lofty a goal where living is concerned, in my opinion.
Now that I have once again reacher “a certain age”, I am finding that my peers are once again the leading edge of information as I wander, sometimes willingly and sometimes resentfully, into the valley of the shadow of menopause.
Ironically, it is my husband who has supplied me with much of my current information as he as been down this path, so to speak, before with his late wife. All manner of natural supplements have been suggested for my own good and his comfort. Black Cohosh and red clover for hot flashes, he thinks. The hot flashes are mainly a night time thing right now and only around that time of the month. Too much information? The change is like any other phase in a woman’s reproductive and sexual existence. When it is in season, it is fair game for conversation. That’s why preteens obsess about their breasts and when they will get their firs period and teens and twenty somethings can think and talk of little else but sex. It’s why married women suffer, loudly, about baby hungry and pregnant women will divulge the most intimate (and disgusting) information to anyone without even being asked for it. Labor and Delivery stories, breast-feeding adventures, and the big C of life - we are arguably more fascinated with our bodies than any man could ever be.
I am technically not menopausal. I know this because I was having issues last spring and my wonderful doctor did blood tests and had an ultra-sound done just to make sure that nothing more sinister was afoot (which caused a fair degree of worry for both Rob and I because we are now firmly in the camp of “it can happen to us” because it has). As it turned out I am just experiencing that long and winding down part of the reproductive years. From my reading, I know that it can take up to a decade to wind down to the point of actual menopause and that your best predictor for a time frame is the age at which your mother and grandmother stopped unwinding and ground to a halt. Being adopted, I don’t have that information. But, given that I was about 42ish when I first noticed things starting to change, then 52ish is a good guess. That’s eight years. Good God. That is a heck of a long time to wait for the demise of something I have never been all that fond of in the first place, and the list of symptoms that I am/could experience just bring up the short stick thing I mentioned earlier. One of the symptoms I noticed on the list was memory and concentration problems. Oh great. First it is PG brain, then mommy brain, followed by caregiver brain and then widow-brain. Top these last six years off with the hormonal (or lack thereof) induced thinking blips caused by peri and definitely menopause and by the time I am in my “right” mind again I will be too far gone in senior “moments” to notice.
Until recently, the whole aging thing hadn’t been a big deal to me. I look a tad younger than most of my peers - which I attribute to good genes and a near shunning of the sun when I was a teen and in my youngest adult years (fat girls don’t wear bathing suits). But, the white hair is getting harder to hide with just highlights and the physical things I once did without thinking need to be thought about it, and I am not sure that when you throw hormonal imbalance on top of this that I am as indifferent to getting old as I have been in the past. Rob is always talking about having this finite number of “good” old age years. As he sees it, one can still be okay - as in fit and healthy - enough to do as they would like during the 50’s and into the 60’s but that one gets maybe about 15 years max once you reach the top of the hill and round over. That is so depressing and what is worse is that I appear to be under the elder Boomer delusion that I will still be functional as a 70+ year old. Of course, perhaps I will. I read an article in the Globe yesterday about a couple of studies down with centenarians that determined it is not simply good genes that help people live into their 90’s and hit the 100 mark. Lifestyle is key as well and that they really can’t say when it is too late to improve one’s lifestyle.
It is not easy. Undoing the damage of caregiving and the stresses of the last years. Going on six now since Will’s first troubling symptoms began. I have started Yoga and I find that if I ignore the Mahareshi side of it I enjoy it quite a bit. I walk. I even have Rob walking. I can run again but try not to overdo it as it is hard on my knees. I lift weights. Heavy ones. I am Zena. I am a near total vegan but I need to work on the fruit thing. I hate out of season fruit. It’s squishy during the winter. How can anyone think about putting squishy fruit in her mouth without gagging?
Perhaps I will do okay. 102 is a good age to shoot for, don’t you think. One can’t set too lofty a goal where living is concerned, in my opinion.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Another Service Issue and an Internet Update
The Equinox’s driver side airbag indicator light has been indicating a need for service since October. We bought the vehicle in September, so we assumed it was simply a matter of scheduling an appointment at the dealership and the problem would be remedied. But, it is now February and the problem remains unchanged. It’s not that we couldn’t get an appointment. I think we’ve had it in twice between then and now but the first time, they didn’t have the part that was needed, and the second time the part that was ordered was the wrong part for the type and make of the vehicle. Rob tried phoning the service department yesterday to see if the part was in since we haven’t heard from anyone is over a month but he was shuffled through “can you hold, please?” hell for 25 minutes and then gave up.
It’s like everywhere else up here in Alberta these days. The “service” part is lacking and mainly because there are more jobs than people. When it’s just as easy to quit and walk across the street (or even relocate half a province away) without penalty, you find that those who do have jobs aren’t working as much as the job requires and those who aren’t working are simply waiting for their funds to deplete to the point where working is necessary again. The Chevy dealership in Fort Saskatchewan is having a hard time finding mechanics and hanging on to them. They are having a hard time finding people to answer the phones and man the service counter too. After Rob’s wasted phone effort, I decided just to go there in person today. It’s a bit harder to “can you hold, please?” to a customer hovering around your desk - though not as impossible as you might think.
When I arrived at the dealership, I found a basically deserted service area. The glass cubicle offices were empty. There weren’t even names on the doors because currently they have no service department manager or receptionist. A middle-aged Middle Eastern with understandable diction but a limited (it seemed) ability to comprehend English was manning the counter. I told him what I needed. And then I told him again, but more slowly. After a bit more confusion, I ended up in the garage speaking with a harried young man whose hair style reminded me of Will’s. Too much hair gel and combed back. Will had curly hair and hated it. He was always trying to subdue it. I wondered if the young man had the same problem. Hair gel on men with fine hair gives them a scalpy look, but still reminds me a bit of Al Pacino in The Godfather (either part).
As soon as I managed to ascertain that the part my vehicle needed had indeed arrived, I called Rob to make sure the appointment date would work. He then asked me to inquire after the on order parts for the Avalanche as well (same saga really just shorter time frame, though not by much).
So, I left the Southfort Chevy dealership with one service appointment, Shawn (the young man with the wet look) hot on the trail of the parts for the Avalanche, and the realization that service is a do-it-yourself thing in this neck of the prairie.
*Internet update: Our provider called back last evening! (I wonder if he read my blog?) He finally admitted that there does indeed appear to be something wrong with the receiver on our roof and will be out to look at this weekend but only if Rob clears the snow from the roof. (We have a VERY steep roof and this scares me - and him a little too.) He also has decided not to charge us for the repair. Hurray.
It’s like everywhere else up here in Alberta these days. The “service” part is lacking and mainly because there are more jobs than people. When it’s just as easy to quit and walk across the street (or even relocate half a province away) without penalty, you find that those who do have jobs aren’t working as much as the job requires and those who aren’t working are simply waiting for their funds to deplete to the point where working is necessary again. The Chevy dealership in Fort Saskatchewan is having a hard time finding mechanics and hanging on to them. They are having a hard time finding people to answer the phones and man the service counter too. After Rob’s wasted phone effort, I decided just to go there in person today. It’s a bit harder to “can you hold, please?” to a customer hovering around your desk - though not as impossible as you might think.
When I arrived at the dealership, I found a basically deserted service area. The glass cubicle offices were empty. There weren’t even names on the doors because currently they have no service department manager or receptionist. A middle-aged Middle Eastern with understandable diction but a limited (it seemed) ability to comprehend English was manning the counter. I told him what I needed. And then I told him again, but more slowly. After a bit more confusion, I ended up in the garage speaking with a harried young man whose hair style reminded me of Will’s. Too much hair gel and combed back. Will had curly hair and hated it. He was always trying to subdue it. I wondered if the young man had the same problem. Hair gel on men with fine hair gives them a scalpy look, but still reminds me a bit of Al Pacino in The Godfather (either part).
As soon as I managed to ascertain that the part my vehicle needed had indeed arrived, I called Rob to make sure the appointment date would work. He then asked me to inquire after the on order parts for the Avalanche as well (same saga really just shorter time frame, though not by much).
So, I left the Southfort Chevy dealership with one service appointment, Shawn (the young man with the wet look) hot on the trail of the parts for the Avalanche, and the realization that service is a do-it-yourself thing in this neck of the prairie.
*Internet update: Our provider called back last evening! (I wonder if he read my blog?) He finally admitted that there does indeed appear to be something wrong with the receiver on our roof and will be out to look at this weekend but only if Rob clears the snow from the roof. (We have a VERY steep roof and this scares me - and him a little too.) He also has decided not to charge us for the repair. Hurray.
Monday, February 11, 2008
I Hate My Internet Provider
I will probably end up publishing this from the library today because our Internet has been more off than on for the last while. One of the downsides to living out in the country is that you have two options for Internet: dial-up or satellite. The ironic thing is that we live in a probably one of the wealthiest counties in the province and many people choose to live outside the city on acreage's and such but there isn’t any company interested in providing decent amenities to match people’s choices. Of course it comes down again to the peculiar Canadian mindset about service. The attitude is prevailingly “as long as I am still getting paid - no one can make me work any harder than I feel like working”.
Our provider, Albertacom, is a dinky two guy operation located in Edmonton. One of the guy’s has his wife answering the phone and taking messages. That’s the extent of staff. I imagine that the two fellows spend most of their time doing installations, which might explain why they loathe to perform service calls to check on the equipment when something isn’t working properly. Their standard line has been that we need a new router and Rob resisted for a while but haven’t the recent upgrade to the system to make it faster, we went from slow to no internet nearly half the time or better. So, Rob got a new router. It worked for about a day. Then the same old problem - it would go down and stay down. He moved the router from the basement into our office upstairs. Same result. We switched to my old Airport. Same result. In desperation, Rob searched out some programming updates and updated the old router. Nothing.
What we need is for someone to come out and do a service call, but after dozens of calls and emails - they won’t even reply to a message from us anymore.
My advice to anyone in the Edmonton/Fort Saskatchewan area of Alberta is to totally avoid Albertcom as an Internet provider. They are only in it to collect a monthly charge. You won’t get service from them.
Our provider, Albertacom, is a dinky two guy operation located in Edmonton. One of the guy’s has his wife answering the phone and taking messages. That’s the extent of staff. I imagine that the two fellows spend most of their time doing installations, which might explain why they loathe to perform service calls to check on the equipment when something isn’t working properly. Their standard line has been that we need a new router and Rob resisted for a while but haven’t the recent upgrade to the system to make it faster, we went from slow to no internet nearly half the time or better. So, Rob got a new router. It worked for about a day. Then the same old problem - it would go down and stay down. He moved the router from the basement into our office upstairs. Same result. We switched to my old Airport. Same result. In desperation, Rob searched out some programming updates and updated the old router. Nothing.
What we need is for someone to come out and do a service call, but after dozens of calls and emails - they won’t even reply to a message from us anymore.
My advice to anyone in the Edmonton/Fort Saskatchewan area of Alberta is to totally avoid Albertcom as an Internet provider. They are only in it to collect a monthly charge. You won’t get service from them.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Starbucks at the Safeway
Olivia and Wendy are usually the baristas on duty at the Starbucks when I am in Safeway during the week. Because I see them more than any of the others who work there, I asked them to pose for the photo I took when I decided to write about Starbucks. You might wonder, why write about Starbucks? It’s a completely commercial coffee house that is as responsible for the decline of civilization as Wal-mart, strip-malls and mega-plex theatre chains. They sit in nearly every grocery chain and mall and sometimes on multiple street-corners on the same city block. Starbucks is not the real deal but a pretense and so is not unique or special. But that is precisely why I want to write about it. Because they are everywhere. And for that reason, to me, they are special.
My step-daughter, Jordan, refuses to step foot in Starbucks (or its Canadian equivalent Second Cup) because she believe that the company is immoral and exploits poor coffee growers in the third world countries, although this isn’t true of Starbucks - according to what I have read (I don’t know about Second Cup) - I acknowledge that a cup of just about anything at Starbucks’ is priced well over it’s actual value and that what one is really paying for when one does stop and go with the logo cup in had is the stamp of privilege because only those with the time to burn and the cash as well, run into the nearest Starbucks for their morning latte fix. People who are press for time and money, or are too sensible to pay too much money for hot flavored water, stop at the corner gas-mart for the paper (those who are sensible because they read) and a cup of whatever is brewing. I began my chai days with occasional trips to a mom and pop coffee house at the Valley West Mall in West Des Moines. Will loved the mochas and he could talk football with the owner who was a Bears fan but that was okay with Will, at least the guy was devoted and knew his NFL. The little trips made shopping and running errands more palatable for Will and I can’t remember when he got me the first chai latte but I don’t remember taking an instant liking to it. It was too hot. I have never been a fan of anything I had to swallow quickly in order to avoid burning my tongue. I am like that about most foods and beverages really and Will’s standard question during a meal would be “Is that cold enough for you yet, babe?”
The coffee shop eventually moved out of the mall to a strip mall not far from where we lived and it became a Sunday ritual for us that continued until Will went into the nursing home in October of ’04. After that Katy and I would stop there to pick up a mocha to take to him when we went to visit and eventually help with feeding him on weekend mornings and whenever I was on vacation from school. After Will died, I couldn’t bring myself to go there anymore. The couple that ran the place had been so kind to Will when he was still able to go there himself which was a rarity. So many people would pretend he wasn’t present because the didn’t realize he had dementia and his behavior was so odd, or they would give him rude looks and when he failed to notice they would direct them at me. I stopped trying to explain early on. It did no good. I can remember a police officer who overreacted to Will’s agitation once and when I explained what the real matter was, he told me that he didn’t care - just keep my husband back. Will could barely see or walk without assistance at the time.
So, when I moved up to Fort Saskatchewan, I was quite happy to discover that the local grocery, Safeway, had a Starbucks. Just like the Hy-Vee grocery back in Iowa. It was comforting because despite the Canadian version of service (slow) it was the same. The same menu. The same baked goods. The same tastes and smells. The same rotating holiday items for sale. And, if you went often enough, the people would start to know your usual order and eventually ask after you as though they knew you. Amid all the unfamiliar, here was Starbucks - predictable and known. Kind of like the Catholic mass. You go anywhere in the world, walk into a Catholic church and the mass will be pretty much the same everywhere. The same holds true with a non-fat chai latte.
My step-daughter, Jordan, refuses to step foot in Starbucks (or its Canadian equivalent Second Cup) because she believe that the company is immoral and exploits poor coffee growers in the third world countries, although this isn’t true of Starbucks - according to what I have read (I don’t know about Second Cup) - I acknowledge that a cup of just about anything at Starbucks’ is priced well over it’s actual value and that what one is really paying for when one does stop and go with the logo cup in had is the stamp of privilege because only those with the time to burn and the cash as well, run into the nearest Starbucks for their morning latte fix. People who are press for time and money, or are too sensible to pay too much money for hot flavored water, stop at the corner gas-mart for the paper (those who are sensible because they read) and a cup of whatever is brewing. I began my chai days with occasional trips to a mom and pop coffee house at the Valley West Mall in West Des Moines. Will loved the mochas and he could talk football with the owner who was a Bears fan but that was okay with Will, at least the guy was devoted and knew his NFL. The little trips made shopping and running errands more palatable for Will and I can’t remember when he got me the first chai latte but I don’t remember taking an instant liking to it. It was too hot. I have never been a fan of anything I had to swallow quickly in order to avoid burning my tongue. I am like that about most foods and beverages really and Will’s standard question during a meal would be “Is that cold enough for you yet, babe?”
The coffee shop eventually moved out of the mall to a strip mall not far from where we lived and it became a Sunday ritual for us that continued until Will went into the nursing home in October of ’04. After that Katy and I would stop there to pick up a mocha to take to him when we went to visit and eventually help with feeding him on weekend mornings and whenever I was on vacation from school. After Will died, I couldn’t bring myself to go there anymore. The couple that ran the place had been so kind to Will when he was still able to go there himself which was a rarity. So many people would pretend he wasn’t present because the didn’t realize he had dementia and his behavior was so odd, or they would give him rude looks and when he failed to notice they would direct them at me. I stopped trying to explain early on. It did no good. I can remember a police officer who overreacted to Will’s agitation once and when I explained what the real matter was, he told me that he didn’t care - just keep my husband back. Will could barely see or walk without assistance at the time.
So, when I moved up to Fort Saskatchewan, I was quite happy to discover that the local grocery, Safeway, had a Starbucks. Just like the Hy-Vee grocery back in Iowa. It was comforting because despite the Canadian version of service (slow) it was the same. The same menu. The same baked goods. The same tastes and smells. The same rotating holiday items for sale. And, if you went often enough, the people would start to know your usual order and eventually ask after you as though they knew you. Amid all the unfamiliar, here was Starbucks - predictable and known. Kind of like the Catholic mass. You go anywhere in the world, walk into a Catholic church and the mass will be pretty much the same everywhere. The same holds true with a non-fat chai latte.
Rejection
I received my first rejection email the other night. It was from an online poetry magazine called Blue Skies. I believe that it is run by a member or former member of the Fort writing group. I had gotten word of an open call for submissions from the leader of the Fort group and submitted three poems before the first of the year. They were about Alberta places: the Fort, Edmonton and a range road near our home. The rejection was short and to the point, which was “sorry, but I don’t like your poems”. At least that is how I read it.
Poetry, in my own opinion, is one of the most subjective forms of written expression, and for the most part I don’t enjoy reading others poetry or even listening to them read it. I think that is because many poets are pretty ordinary writers and it shows in their choice of topic, theme, word choice, comparisons and structure. By far the most common has to do with emotional upset, particularly of the romantic variety, and consequently it reads like the bad poetry of a heartbroken 15 year old. Plaintive and cliche. Of course there are those poets who write about things - like their cats - or are “landscape” artists who drone on about flowers and meadows and the brilliant blue sky.
I didn’t really love the poems I submitted because I was tied to writing about Alberta as a place. That was the theme. The work was a forced and I guess it showed too much. Oh well, I am not a poet by nature though I can write it and an ever inspired to do so spontaneously on occasion, but I really just consider poetry a writing exercise more than something to do on purpose day in and day out.
Since I haven’t much invested in these poems, I am going to publish them myself here and on my Anniegirl1138 site.
Prairie Canopy
Sitting atop the earth like a crown
A canopy covering
Cloudy or crisply stark
Close enough to touch
Where far off rains occasionally drape its horizon
And the moon might hold a mid-day chat with the sun
A clean blue awning over all I can see
That darkens gradually from the prairie to become a backdrop for the clouds
Range Road 213
East past the tracks in Josephburg
Right at the gymkhana field
Forest lined but for acreage drives, canola fields and ponies grazing
Rolling and narrow it leads to the Yellowhead
From there, anywhere
Edmonton Skyline
Just past the Camrose exit
Heading west on Yellowhead Trail
And nearer than it looks
Sits Edmonton
So much like a cutout,
A child’s toy,
Waiting to be reached for
Scooped and carried
Away from refineries
Hazy obscurity
That the problem with writing to order. It’s soulless.
Poetry, in my own opinion, is one of the most subjective forms of written expression, and for the most part I don’t enjoy reading others poetry or even listening to them read it. I think that is because many poets are pretty ordinary writers and it shows in their choice of topic, theme, word choice, comparisons and structure. By far the most common has to do with emotional upset, particularly of the romantic variety, and consequently it reads like the bad poetry of a heartbroken 15 year old. Plaintive and cliche. Of course there are those poets who write about things - like their cats - or are “landscape” artists who drone on about flowers and meadows and the brilliant blue sky.
I didn’t really love the poems I submitted because I was tied to writing about Alberta as a place. That was the theme. The work was a forced and I guess it showed too much. Oh well, I am not a poet by nature though I can write it and an ever inspired to do so spontaneously on occasion, but I really just consider poetry a writing exercise more than something to do on purpose day in and day out.
Since I haven’t much invested in these poems, I am going to publish them myself here and on my Anniegirl1138 site.
Prairie Canopy
Sitting atop the earth like a crown
A canopy covering
Cloudy or crisply stark
Close enough to touch
Where far off rains occasionally drape its horizon
And the moon might hold a mid-day chat with the sun
A clean blue awning over all I can see
That darkens gradually from the prairie to become a backdrop for the clouds
Range Road 213
East past the tracks in Josephburg
Right at the gymkhana field
Forest lined but for acreage drives, canola fields and ponies grazing
Rolling and narrow it leads to the Yellowhead
From there, anywhere
Edmonton Skyline
Just past the Camrose exit
Heading west on Yellowhead Trail
And nearer than it looks
Sits Edmonton
So much like a cutout,
A child’s toy,
Waiting to be reached for
Scooped and carried
Away from refineries
Hazy obscurity
That the problem with writing to order. It’s soulless.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Subjoint
Rob and I frequently meet for lunch at a little place on 100Ave called Subjoint. A woman named Tara who is one of those impossibly thin beautiful women that I always wanted to be when I was young runs it. When I asked her today if she would mind if I took a photo of her at work for this blog article, she assented readily, but I could see in her eyes she was far to practical a person to think being featured on a blog was any kind of big deal. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I hadn’t confirmed my middle-aged geekiness to her for sure today.
Tara is usually the only person behind the counter at lunch though I have seen another employee there on occasion. Rob and I frequent often enough now that she nearly knows our order by rote. Today as she confirmed that I do not take tomatoes or onions, I admitted that I am allergic to them. Another customer, a friend of Tara’s it seemed, was nearby still collecting her order and chatting a bit overheard and was horrified. How could one live one’s life without tomatoes? Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds. More foodstuffs than most people realize contain tomato in one from or another. So I explained that while I loved tomatoes, I suffered from Oral Allergy Syndrome (totally self-diagnosed by the way because I couldn’t get even my usually open-minded doctor to take my symptoms seriously – but when you mouth feels as though it is burned all the time and your lips are tingling – anyone will be motivated to sleuth.) I explained that while it wasn’t life-threatening (that I have been able to find out). It could/did make eating very painful. So, I avoid tomatoes and all citrus and peanuts – don’t know what to do about freshly mowed lawns – and amazingly my chronic heartburn, gastic upsets and sore mouth are gone. The friend continued to be horror-struck as she as she exited.
Subjoint is just a block over from the library where I meet with the Fort writing group on the first Wednesday of every month and just two doors down from Soulitude Spa where I get my hair done while discussing American politics and world events with the Canadian/Lebanese stylist, Fredrique, who despite what Rob thinks isn’t the tiniest bit gay. The café is really just a sandwich only place though they offer a limited chip selection at times, and there is an assortment of drinks. Rob and I usually have the veggie wraps anymore, but you can have any manner of sub and of course the ever popular donairs, which as nearly as I can figure out consists of shaved lamb on bread with the diner’s choice of accoutrements.
There are only four tiny tables, the kind you might find in a Starbucks, upfront for dining in. Now that it is winter, we dine in, but back in the fall we would take our sandwiches and drinks down to the picnic area by the river. From there you can see the trail that runs the length of the Fort and a tiny white church across the river that I found quite picturesque when the colors were turning from the summer greens to the mulit-coloreds of autumn.
I was the one who was early that doesn’t happen often. I dropped Katy off at school just before and her teacher was letting the kids into the classroom about five minutes earlier than usual. Probably on account of the weather. You just don’t appreciate the gift of five minutes until it’s just handed to you out of the blue when you least expect it. I had been thinking for a while that I wanted to shift the focus of my blog just a bit and start writing about the things, places and people I am finding here in Alberta and in Canada. After all, I have been given this great gift of another country to explore and take note of and what I have done with it really? So from now on I am going to include entries on the many things and people around me, starting with Subjoint.
If you are ever in the neighborhood of Fort Saskatchewan and in need of a quick and tasty lunch, I heartily recommend that you look up Tara and her café. It’s cozy and smells wonderful and is the perfect place for a mid-day break from the hustle. Not that life moves swiftly in the Fort. Around it perhaps would be more accurate. This is Canada remember, where my own dad noted that “the dogs even move slowly”, but I think you might find this place and the food a nice alternative to the fast and the processed of say a McDonald’s or a Tim Horton’s.
Tara is usually the only person behind the counter at lunch though I have seen another employee there on occasion. Rob and I frequent often enough now that she nearly knows our order by rote. Today as she confirmed that I do not take tomatoes or onions, I admitted that I am allergic to them. Another customer, a friend of Tara’s it seemed, was nearby still collecting her order and chatting a bit overheard and was horrified. How could one live one’s life without tomatoes? Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds. More foodstuffs than most people realize contain tomato in one from or another. So I explained that while I loved tomatoes, I suffered from Oral Allergy Syndrome (totally self-diagnosed by the way because I couldn’t get even my usually open-minded doctor to take my symptoms seriously – but when you mouth feels as though it is burned all the time and your lips are tingling – anyone will be motivated to sleuth.) I explained that while it wasn’t life-threatening (that I have been able to find out). It could/did make eating very painful. So, I avoid tomatoes and all citrus and peanuts – don’t know what to do about freshly mowed lawns – and amazingly my chronic heartburn, gastic upsets and sore mouth are gone. The friend continued to be horror-struck as she as she exited.
Subjoint is just a block over from the library where I meet with the Fort writing group on the first Wednesday of every month and just two doors down from Soulitude Spa where I get my hair done while discussing American politics and world events with the Canadian/Lebanese stylist, Fredrique, who despite what Rob thinks isn’t the tiniest bit gay. The café is really just a sandwich only place though they offer a limited chip selection at times, and there is an assortment of drinks. Rob and I usually have the veggie wraps anymore, but you can have any manner of sub and of course the ever popular donairs, which as nearly as I can figure out consists of shaved lamb on bread with the diner’s choice of accoutrements.
There are only four tiny tables, the kind you might find in a Starbucks, upfront for dining in. Now that it is winter, we dine in, but back in the fall we would take our sandwiches and drinks down to the picnic area by the river. From there you can see the trail that runs the length of the Fort and a tiny white church across the river that I found quite picturesque when the colors were turning from the summer greens to the mulit-coloreds of autumn.
I was the one who was early that doesn’t happen often. I dropped Katy off at school just before and her teacher was letting the kids into the classroom about five minutes earlier than usual. Probably on account of the weather. You just don’t appreciate the gift of five minutes until it’s just handed to you out of the blue when you least expect it. I had been thinking for a while that I wanted to shift the focus of my blog just a bit and start writing about the things, places and people I am finding here in Alberta and in Canada. After all, I have been given this great gift of another country to explore and take note of and what I have done with it really? So from now on I am going to include entries on the many things and people around me, starting with Subjoint.
If you are ever in the neighborhood of Fort Saskatchewan and in need of a quick and tasty lunch, I heartily recommend that you look up Tara and her café. It’s cozy and smells wonderful and is the perfect place for a mid-day break from the hustle. Not that life moves swiftly in the Fort. Around it perhaps would be more accurate. This is Canada remember, where my own dad noted that “the dogs even move slowly”, but I think you might find this place and the food a nice alternative to the fast and the processed of say a McDonald’s or a Tim Horton’s.
Friday, February 8, 2008
What I did on My Vacation (from blogging)
I wrote. Mostly that is what I did. Poetry for the Poetry Federation of Canada’s all call for submissions for nine new anthologies. The titles of these anthologies have me a bit stumped because they came with no content direction what so ever. The poetry of birth. The poetry of seasons. The poetry of relationships. A wide berth for interpretation could mean just about anything. I chose the pedestrian path and took the titles literally, but alas, it turned out that I had missed the deadline (I think I got the email informing me about it a couple of days prior), so I ended up just picking the best three and sending them to the magazine sponsoring the anthologies.
I also polished another piece for The Daily Globe and Mail on the recent lice saga (which we appear to have recovered from – thank the lord/universe). I am struggling with a piece for Canadian Living magazine. 500 words on My Canada. I am not sure that any part of Canada is “mine” yet, but I don’t know that I can call any place I have ever been “mine” in the way that some people refer to homes or favorite haunts. I feel that the place I will call mine I have yet to step foot on.
I found out that one of my short stories didn’t make the cut for a rather avante garde literary magazine out of Calgary, so I turned around and submitted it to a Sci-fi/Fantasy mag here in Edmonton. Probably a better fit.
And finally, I began scouring my blog for a piece that I might enter in a memoir-writing contest. This in addition to attending a writer’s group meeting where another member supplied me with three more contests that are possibilities.
Oh, and I wrote my first cover letter. Next is the query.
And you know what I discovered about this? That it is fun. More fun than blogging and reading blogs and mindless message board voyeurism. Hmmmm. Rob started a blog the other day on his “net” history and conclusions he has come to concerning it. I still like blogging. It’s not the same as my writing for contests and submissions. It fulfills something different but I suspect that I will not be an everyday blogger once I start to get the hang of how this getting published thing really works. I still like reading blogs but I am down to a certain select few that I read consistently. I really need to start using the RSS.
One thing I did not do was return to my novel. By the rules, I should have begun my read through and second draft about a month ago, but the topic matter is so depressing. I find that even a fictional account of my widowhood too heavy for my soul at the moment. I also did not finish my cat lover story because I want to make it a part of my sci-fi short story series and haven’t found the bridge between what I started and where I want it to come out. Patience. Patience.
I did work on the links to my wordpress blog. I did finally get the ball rolling on getting all the beneficiary stuff changed on my existing pensions. I did find and semi-organize (they are all in one folder) my tax info for 2007.
And…..drum roll……..I got Rob to help me purge and organize the cabinets in the kitchen.
What?! That sounds like a non-important agenda item to you, dear readers? Au contraire, mes amis. The cabinets (like the refrigerator) have been harboring out of date (by years) foodstuffs and all manner of non-used and non-essential items that, if not taken care of now, will simply demand attention when the move to Texas is glaring us in the face or worse, will be waiting for us next summer when we are back to finish getting the house ready for sale.
I have been wanting to do this for a while, believe it or not, but the problem is that I am not always certain when my cleaning and purging help is needed, wanted and/or helpful because much of what there is doesn’t belong to me.
I tread a very delicate line when it comes to rearranging or packing away or pitching. I don’t want to push. I don’t want to dredge up memories or be the cause of hurt feelings where Shelley’s things are concerned. It’s hard for the girls to visit and see so much change. It’s hard for Rob to go through things all the time. And it’s hard for me because I am torn between wanting to help, protect and at the same time start carving out areas that reflect me. Shelley had a distinct décor style that is evident in the plants and wall hangings and color scheme and the way that all space is occupied by something. But for me, plants get dusty and the die when not watered and aren’t all that great for an asthmatic to have around. I like my walls sparse to totally bare. My favorite colors change too often to slap them on a wall, so I usually go with light colors that are barely colors at all. And I like room. I love room. Room to walk around or dance around or sit on the floor with newspapers or writing papers or books spread out all around me. It could just be my lazy Sagittarian side but stuff just invites dirt to settle on it and then it needs to be cleaned. Not much stuff equals way less cleaning. And, I like the freedom that space provides.
Rob and I talked about the cleaning and the impact of Shelley’s things on us both. He had worried about how I felt and honestly aside from one small teary breakdown this last summer, I haven’t been bothered. I worry more about the impact of change and paring down and giving away and tossing on him and the girls than I think about the impact on me. He reminded thought that what I see is a reflection of a lifestyle that he and Shelley were transitioning away from around the time she became ill and that had that not occurred at that time, things would be much different.
It was nice though to clean out spaces. I am beginning to like the downsizing and the lack of stuff. I think now about what I truly need in terms of the material to feel satisfied once we get to Houston, and I realize that it is not an extensive list.
So now it is Friday again. Katy has the day off because of the teacher convention and we are heading into Sherwood Park for the morning. First stop is Beaners, a hair salon for little girls. She was promised a visit during the lice escapade (of which the saga is far from over as a new lice alert pamphlet came home with her from school the other night). Then it’s off to the mall because she is growing like a weed and needs new tights and has Christmas money to spend. I need to browse the magazine rack at the Chapters and perhaps grab a chai at the Starbucks (okay, not perhaps – definitely). Afterwards I need to hit the gym and there is ballet today too.
Whew. A lot done and a bunch still do to do
I also polished another piece for The Daily Globe and Mail on the recent lice saga (which we appear to have recovered from – thank the lord/universe). I am struggling with a piece for Canadian Living magazine. 500 words on My Canada. I am not sure that any part of Canada is “mine” yet, but I don’t know that I can call any place I have ever been “mine” in the way that some people refer to homes or favorite haunts. I feel that the place I will call mine I have yet to step foot on.
I found out that one of my short stories didn’t make the cut for a rather avante garde literary magazine out of Calgary, so I turned around and submitted it to a Sci-fi/Fantasy mag here in Edmonton. Probably a better fit.
And finally, I began scouring my blog for a piece that I might enter in a memoir-writing contest. This in addition to attending a writer’s group meeting where another member supplied me with three more contests that are possibilities.
Oh, and I wrote my first cover letter. Next is the query.
And you know what I discovered about this? That it is fun. More fun than blogging and reading blogs and mindless message board voyeurism. Hmmmm. Rob started a blog the other day on his “net” history and conclusions he has come to concerning it. I still like blogging. It’s not the same as my writing for contests and submissions. It fulfills something different but I suspect that I will not be an everyday blogger once I start to get the hang of how this getting published thing really works. I still like reading blogs but I am down to a certain select few that I read consistently. I really need to start using the RSS.
One thing I did not do was return to my novel. By the rules, I should have begun my read through and second draft about a month ago, but the topic matter is so depressing. I find that even a fictional account of my widowhood too heavy for my soul at the moment. I also did not finish my cat lover story because I want to make it a part of my sci-fi short story series and haven’t found the bridge between what I started and where I want it to come out. Patience. Patience.
I did work on the links to my wordpress blog. I did finally get the ball rolling on getting all the beneficiary stuff changed on my existing pensions. I did find and semi-organize (they are all in one folder) my tax info for 2007.
And…..drum roll……..I got Rob to help me purge and organize the cabinets in the kitchen.
What?! That sounds like a non-important agenda item to you, dear readers? Au contraire, mes amis. The cabinets (like the refrigerator) have been harboring out of date (by years) foodstuffs and all manner of non-used and non-essential items that, if not taken care of now, will simply demand attention when the move to Texas is glaring us in the face or worse, will be waiting for us next summer when we are back to finish getting the house ready for sale.
I have been wanting to do this for a while, believe it or not, but the problem is that I am not always certain when my cleaning and purging help is needed, wanted and/or helpful because much of what there is doesn’t belong to me.
I tread a very delicate line when it comes to rearranging or packing away or pitching. I don’t want to push. I don’t want to dredge up memories or be the cause of hurt feelings where Shelley’s things are concerned. It’s hard for the girls to visit and see so much change. It’s hard for Rob to go through things all the time. And it’s hard for me because I am torn between wanting to help, protect and at the same time start carving out areas that reflect me. Shelley had a distinct décor style that is evident in the plants and wall hangings and color scheme and the way that all space is occupied by something. But for me, plants get dusty and the die when not watered and aren’t all that great for an asthmatic to have around. I like my walls sparse to totally bare. My favorite colors change too often to slap them on a wall, so I usually go with light colors that are barely colors at all. And I like room. I love room. Room to walk around or dance around or sit on the floor with newspapers or writing papers or books spread out all around me. It could just be my lazy Sagittarian side but stuff just invites dirt to settle on it and then it needs to be cleaned. Not much stuff equals way less cleaning. And, I like the freedom that space provides.
Rob and I talked about the cleaning and the impact of Shelley’s things on us both. He had worried about how I felt and honestly aside from one small teary breakdown this last summer, I haven’t been bothered. I worry more about the impact of change and paring down and giving away and tossing on him and the girls than I think about the impact on me. He reminded thought that what I see is a reflection of a lifestyle that he and Shelley were transitioning away from around the time she became ill and that had that not occurred at that time, things would be much different.
It was nice though to clean out spaces. I am beginning to like the downsizing and the lack of stuff. I think now about what I truly need in terms of the material to feel satisfied once we get to Houston, and I realize that it is not an extensive list.
So now it is Friday again. Katy has the day off because of the teacher convention and we are heading into Sherwood Park for the morning. First stop is Beaners, a hair salon for little girls. She was promised a visit during the lice escapade (of which the saga is far from over as a new lice alert pamphlet came home with her from school the other night). Then it’s off to the mall because she is growing like a weed and needs new tights and has Christmas money to spend. I need to browse the magazine rack at the Chapters and perhaps grab a chai at the Starbucks (okay, not perhaps – definitely). Afterwards I need to hit the gym and there is ballet today too.
Whew. A lot done and a bunch still do to do
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Internet, Message Boards and Pattern Breaking
I had heard about the “internet” from Jim, a long time friend of mine. We were staying over with Jim and Nancy in Calgary one time when we were up from Kansas visiting friends and family. Jim, whom I view as a bit of a technology buff, was eager to show me this wonderful new thing called the “internet”. We sat for an hour or two in his basement looking at a screen full of nonsensical text (at least it was to me). Remember this was back in the mid-90’s before the advent of the “world wide web” and “internet browsers”.
I remember Jim, after typing string after string of more nonsensical text, excitedly announcing that we were “on” another computer – a “server” - somewhere else in the world. I sighed. I didn’t really get the point of this. Or understand the attraction. I do remember the first thing I ever viewed from the “internet” were actual crime scene photos from the “Black Dahlia” murder. Gruesome stuff, really. Sort of like the black and white crime scene photos I found one time in my dad’s desk when I was a kid, from his time in the RCMP. I also remember Jim remarking that about 75% of the “traffic” on the “internet” was pornography. My eyebrows must have arched at that; I must have thought that this “internet” thing would never last. Little did I know.
Although I purchased our first home PC in 1988, at the start of my fourth and final year in the Chemical Engineering program at the University of Calgary, we didn’t get our first “internet” ready computer until 1997. It was our third home PC, a lower level product of AST, purchased at “The Brick” and was internet ready by virtue of being equipped with a 33.6 Kbps modem. Part of the rationale for the purchase was to do research on a medical issue I experienced in 1997, but part of the rationale was to be able to do “e-mail” and keep in better touch with family and friends. Ha ha, you say, yeah right. Well, it’s a better reason than earlier justifications for PC’s, like digitizing all of one’s cookbooks and recipes and having a wealth of cooking instructions available at the press of a keyboard key. But, I digress.
Even at the stunningly slow speed of a 33.6 dial-up connection we discovered the “world wide web”. And became a bit addicted. It didn’t take long, though, to become a bit disenchanted with slow dial-up and interest and use gradually waned. In setting up various e-mail clients, I was reminded of the existence of “newsgroups”. This was a topic that Jim would go on about from time to time. And I recalled from my University days the existence of “forums” on the University mainframe where one could go and post and have “discussions’ with others about a wide range of topics. So, I made use of my ISP’s newsgroup host gateway and subscribed to a few. I can’t recall how many newsgroups were available back then. Seems like it was around 3,000 or 30,000. More likely the former – it’s almost inconceivable to even want to scroll through 30,000 newsgroup titles. With cryptic names like alt.something.this or alt.something.binary that one had to use a little savvy to find something of interest. I subscribed to a few groups about cars and a few other general interest or curiosity categories. As a sidebar, there were things one could find on the internet – usually photographic – that were really better left unseen and unknown. It quickly became apparent that keeping up with these newsgroups could run into a serious amount of time. And ultimately, after a few comments and complaints from my wife, I rationalized that the time invested/benefit ratio was really too low to continue this sort of activity. There were many, many other things in Real Life that could be, and needed to be, done to allow time to be sucked up by newsgroup reading – and a little posting – on-line. Internet usage dropped off to a once a month session to pay bills on-line and occasional sign-ons to check e-mail. The world wide web held little to no attraction for me. (The same was not true for my kids, however, but that’s another story.)
To be continued…
I remember Jim, after typing string after string of more nonsensical text, excitedly announcing that we were “on” another computer – a “server” - somewhere else in the world. I sighed. I didn’t really get the point of this. Or understand the attraction. I do remember the first thing I ever viewed from the “internet” were actual crime scene photos from the “Black Dahlia” murder. Gruesome stuff, really. Sort of like the black and white crime scene photos I found one time in my dad’s desk when I was a kid, from his time in the RCMP. I also remember Jim remarking that about 75% of the “traffic” on the “internet” was pornography. My eyebrows must have arched at that; I must have thought that this “internet” thing would never last. Little did I know.
Although I purchased our first home PC in 1988, at the start of my fourth and final year in the Chemical Engineering program at the University of Calgary, we didn’t get our first “internet” ready computer until 1997. It was our third home PC, a lower level product of AST, purchased at “The Brick” and was internet ready by virtue of being equipped with a 33.6 Kbps modem. Part of the rationale for the purchase was to do research on a medical issue I experienced in 1997, but part of the rationale was to be able to do “e-mail” and keep in better touch with family and friends. Ha ha, you say, yeah right. Well, it’s a better reason than earlier justifications for PC’s, like digitizing all of one’s cookbooks and recipes and having a wealth of cooking instructions available at the press of a keyboard key. But, I digress.
Even at the stunningly slow speed of a 33.6 dial-up connection we discovered the “world wide web”. And became a bit addicted. It didn’t take long, though, to become a bit disenchanted with slow dial-up and interest and use gradually waned. In setting up various e-mail clients, I was reminded of the existence of “newsgroups”. This was a topic that Jim would go on about from time to time. And I recalled from my University days the existence of “forums” on the University mainframe where one could go and post and have “discussions’ with others about a wide range of topics. So, I made use of my ISP’s newsgroup host gateway and subscribed to a few. I can’t recall how many newsgroups were available back then. Seems like it was around 3,000 or 30,000. More likely the former – it’s almost inconceivable to even want to scroll through 30,000 newsgroup titles. With cryptic names like alt.something.this or alt.something.binary that one had to use a little savvy to find something of interest. I subscribed to a few groups about cars and a few other general interest or curiosity categories. As a sidebar, there were things one could find on the internet – usually photographic – that were really better left unseen and unknown. It quickly became apparent that keeping up with these newsgroups could run into a serious amount of time. And ultimately, after a few comments and complaints from my wife, I rationalized that the time invested/benefit ratio was really too low to continue this sort of activity. There were many, many other things in Real Life that could be, and needed to be, done to allow time to be sucked up by newsgroup reading – and a little posting – on-line. Internet usage dropped off to a once a month session to pay bills on-line and occasional sign-ons to check e-mail. The world wide web held little to no attraction for me. (The same was not true for my kids, however, but that’s another story.)
To be continued…
Friday, February 1, 2008
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