Trying

My daughter’s favorite thing to say last year when she was in preschool and hadn’t succeeded at some task or other was “Try, try again. That’s what Mrs. Wright says.” An interesting motto for someone who was just four years old. She would often exhort me with the same saying and she still brings it up from time to time. So, as you might have guessed, I did not win the fiction contest last week with my chapter two entry, but as I mentioned I have numerous opportunities to try. I spent last night and most of today (in between SAHM things) working on my chapter three attempt. I think is is a bit better than my previous work and I may get the hang of this mystery writing thing yet.

Chapter Three – The Art of the Bid

Emmy wanted to storm in and confront both men. But cooler, decidedly more detective-like instincts kicked in. She waited in her van. Jack first, and minutes later Gombrick, emerged. To the casual observer they were unrelated customers from the throngs who waited daily in long lines for icedcapps and Timbit. Gombrick's stiff gait reminded Emmy of a peg-legged pirate. Jack was carrying his usual cup of coffee. After they were gone, Emmy pulled out but didn't follow either man. She knew where to find them when she needed them. What she needed now was information that neither was likely to give her.

Ixion Construction was located just off Yellowhead Trail near 82nd Street. Emmy called to let them know she was bringing a preliminary report. In truth, she had nothing to report that would help Ixion discredit Gombrick’s claims. She hoped they would have information for her. There was only one reason for Jack and Gombrick to be together and it meant bigger issues were at stake. But what did that have to do with Fulton?

"Ms. Budge, it’s good to see you so soon."

Emmy smiled wryly as she shook the proffered hand of the company's vice-president, Elizabeth Farron. Not the type Emmy pictured when she thought of construction workers, Ms. Farron had assured her on their initial meeting that she had come up through the ranks. Not tall, but sturdy and with the strongest grip Emmy had ever encountered in any female, she was inclined to believe that the pretty blond with a sunburst tattoo peeking above the neckline of an Oilers’ shirt was more capable than your average heir of an oil sands tycoon.

Ms. Farron led Emmy into a conference room strewn with evidence indicating a meeting had taken place not long ago and motioned for Emmy to sit down, "Sorry about the mess. Just finished up a progress meeting on the microbrewery project."

"Brian Fulton’s?" Emmy inquired. "That’s still on?"

The young woman hesitated slightly before nodding. "There were other investors."

"Of course. Was that part of Gombrick's job? Bidding?"

Ms. Farron gave her a quizzical look. "No, but he was
aware of company bids. Why do you ask?"

Emmy shrugged, "Curious. I really stopped in to say I’m dropping the investigation." Before she could be interrupted, Emmy raised her hand and continued, "I followed Gombrick for four days, and aside an inexplicable visit to the Edmonton Queen last night, he did nothing to indicate he’s anything other than a middle-aged man with a bad back. My advice: pay him the money."

"I'm paying you money to prove he’s defrauding my company," Farron retorted angrily before the whole of Emmy's statement sunk in. Slowly anger drained from her sky blue eyes. "Did you say he went to see Brian Fulton last night?"

"No," Emmy replied, "I said he visited the Edmonton Queen. Why would you think he saw Fulton?"

Flustered, she replied. " Well, I just assumed. Bert was on the James MacDonald project when the accident occurred and Brian was one of the backers.”

"But isn’t that a city contract?" Emmy asked.

“Yes, but even the city needs to borrow funding for large projects.

“So you knew Fulton?”

"Not really. My partner, Vic Wild, handles funding.” Her tone was flat, but the absent way she twirled long straight strands of hair around her fingers told Emmy there was more to her involvement with “funding”, Brian Fulton and his microbrewery.

"I know you think there’s nothing more to this case, but I would appreciate it if you would continue out the week. Just to make sure, and with a closing bonus for your wasted time."

That evening Emmy mulled the events of the day over a glass of ale at the Black Dog on Whyte Ave. She had been sure Gombrick was working with Jack on some case, but her conversation with Ms. Farron left her thinking Gombrick was guilty of more than trying to arrange an early retirement. She flipped through some clippings in a folder on the table.

"Not your usual reading fare, Em. Actually, I can't remember the last time you read anything longer than the back of a DVD," a tall dark bespectacled man remarked as he slid into the seat across from her. "Isn't reading what you supposedly pay me to do?”

Emmy glanced up from the news clippings. "I love that about you too. Your ability to read while biting the hand that feeds you."

"You haven't fed me yet. Or offered to buy me a drink," he pointed out cheerfully, rifling through her papers. "The Edmonton Journal? Hope you’re not looking for information about the world at large."

"All people, places and things Alberta are chronicled in the Journal, Cam," she replied.

"Newsflash. The world isn't flat," he whispered back in a mockingly conspiratorial tone.

"Nice," she replied, "but I need to connect Gombrick and Fulton. I can’t do that on the Internet, Facebook boy. Didn’t I ask for information on Farron?"
"Did better," he told her placing a printout of Farron's Facebook profile between them.

"One hundred forty-two friends. Good to know," Before she could tell Cam to go home and be useful, she spied two familiar faces. Bert Gombrick and another she couldn't put a name on.

"Gombrick? Odd friend choice. He could be her father and is suing her. Who’s this guy?"

Cam put the day's Journal on the table, pointing to the front-page photo. His finger traveled from a blurry Gombrick to a woman who was clearly Farron to a barely visible man in the back. Before Emmy could ask, Cam opened the Life section to a picture of the same man smiling in an advertisement.

"Jeff Bates? The yoga school guy?”

“Interesting group of friends, eh Em?”

HayFever

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

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

Egg Shitter

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

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

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

Internet Sites and the Small World

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

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

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


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

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

Katie

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

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