We’ve had a difficult and emotionally draining week relocating Hubby’s elderly mom, who has early dementia. My sense of humour suffered a slight sprain in the process, so I didn’t feel up to spewing my usual nonsense this week.
I created this video instead – I hope you enjoy it.
The Wisdom of Trees
We have puddles! *does happy dance*
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’re undoubtedly studying that first sentence and trying to figure out where to find the double entendre. That’s a valid and downright laudable reaction. If you find one, I hope you’ll share it – I do love a good double entendre! But that wasn’t actually my intention (for a change).
No; this post is in celebration of spring. It’s my favourite time of year – crocuses and tulips and daffodils peek out, the grass turns green, the birds come home, it snows two feet… you know; the usual stuff.
Back in arid Calgary, spring puddles are fleeting – the snow seems to evaporate instead of melting. But here on the coast we have good old-fashioned puddles that bring back delightful childhood memories.
I grew up on a prairie farm where the terrain was dead-flat for miles. That and our heavy clay/gumbo soil made it prime puddle territory. Venice had nothing on us. I remember riding the school bus along our country road and looking out at water as far as the eye could see, neatly divided into a one-mile grid by the raised road allowances that were the highest point on the prairies (and only a foot or two higher than the water level).
Every kid had a pair of rubber boots: the taller the boots, the better. Puddle-wading was both art and science. We learned about refraction early – the place you thought you were stepping wasn’t always where your foot ended up. The penalty for that was a boot full of icy water, which didn’t dampen our enthusiasm at all. It was a sport to see how far we could wade into a puddle before we filled our boots.
We also had a small inflatable dinghy that we could row across our puddles (we had serious puddles on the farm). And there were always ditches full of water that required all sorts of digging in the mud to produce complex drainage trenches and dams.
Sometimes it turned cold enough to freeze the puddles hard. That was prime ice-skating: glassy-smooth, with grass and fallen leaves locked below the surface as if cast in crystal. But it was always tricky to determine whether the ice was strong enough to bear our weight… which brings to mind another favourite sound: a slow ominous creak followed by the buzzing crack of ice failing, usually accompanied by squeals and splashing.
I still love going out in the early morning when temperatures are below freezing. Overnight some of the puddle-water seeps into the ground, leaving a white fragile ice shell floating over empty air. There’s nothing like the sharp hollow sound it makes when stepped on – it’s almost as addictive as popping bubble wrap!
At 52 years old, you’d think I’d have developed enough dignity to leave the puddles alone; but nope. Not even close. I’m still incapable of walking by a shell of ice without breaking it, and last week I went out and bought myself a pair of tall rubber boots that’ll make me the envy of every kid in town.
I’m going out to play in the puddles now… how about you?
P.S. Here on the coast I’ve discovered a ‘new-to-me’ type of spring ice: long silky filaments that form as water is pushed up out of sodden soil into freezing temperatures. How cool is that? (Literally.) 😉
I was sitting at the breakfast table idly watching the garbage truck make its rounds when I felt suddenly wistful. (That’s not quite as weird as it sounds – please let me explain.)
Here in Calgary we have bins that can be picked up, dumped, and replaced at the curb by trucks with mechanical arms. Occasionally the operators have to pick up extra garbage bags by hand, but usually they just drive down the street and let the truck do the work.
It’s a far cry from the way they did it even a few years ago. Each garbage truck used to have a ‘swamper’ who rode along on the rear bumper, jumping off to pick up garbage bags and sling them into the back, then hopping on again to ride to the next stop a few yards away.
Years ago one of my friends did that job, and his co-workers joked that you weren’t a true swamper until you’d vomited at least once at the sight and/or smell of the garbage. It was a brutal job full of heavy repetitive lifting and vile stenches.
And here comes the ‘wistful’ part, because that made me think of my dad.
Not that he was a sanitation worker; although that was part of his job before we got flush toilets. In the summer we used an outhouse, but in the winter there was a pail in the basement. When it got full, he’d carry it out across the snowbanks and dump it far away from the house. He said he only slipped and fell with it once, but that was more than enough.
No; what reminded me of him was the thought of tireless physical labour.
I remember him slinging sixty-pound bales up to the loft of the barn with a single jerk of his powerful arms. Lift-toss, lift-toss; over and over like a machine in the oppressive heat and humidity of a Manitoba summer. The only sign of his effort was the sweat soaking his shirt and dripping off the end of his nose.
He mucked out the barn with a shovel and his own muscle. He worked the fields for endless days in the blazing sun on an old steel-seated FarmAll tractor, without a sunshade or even a backrest.
And when the machines broke down he got out the giant tools. Two-inch sockets. Wrenches as long as my arm and twice as heavy. His days were a punishing round of physical chores.
Looking out at the automated garbage truck, I realized those days are mostly gone. Farming, garbage collection, you name it; it’s machine power instead of manpower now. Chores are accomplished with the press of a button from a comfortable seat in an air-conditioned cab.
I doubt if anybody mourns the change. Those weren’t ‘the good old days’. They were hard and dangerous; heartbreaking and backbreaking. Many men were killed or terribly injured, and bent backs and swollen joints and missing fingers are the visible legacy of their labour.
But I have to wonder: If the work of the future consists of pressing buttons, will the men of tomorrow feel the same fierce pride and sheer primeval triumph my dad’s generation experienced when they fell into bed at the end of a successful day?
And will I be able to give them the same respect and admiration?
I don’t think so. Do you?
We did it! We got the property I mentioned last week, and we’re moving to Vancouver Island! Woohoo!
…Let the freak-out begin.
Okay, that’s not quite accurate – the freak-out is already well under way. Apparently I’m an overachiever, because I started the process as soon as we got serious about the property:
…And on and on, all of it leading to, “OMG, we’re gonna lose everything and die homeless, penniless, and starving!”
In my saner moments (and let’s not quibble about my definition of sanity), I realize this may be a teeny exaggeration. But hey, at least if my book sales go flat there’s a promising career for me as one of those wild-eyed doomsayers waving a “World Is Ending” sign on a street corner.
I don’t mean to give the impression that I’m all gloom and tragedy – I’m actually euphoric about moving out of the city and designing my dream kitchen in my dream house. It’s just that I’ve been cursed with both a logical brain and an overactive imagination.
My logical mind wants to make sure all bases are covered, so it maps out worst-case scenarios and their corresponding safeguards and action plans. Meanwhile, my crazy imagination seizes those worst-case scenarios and spins them into all sorts of cataclysmic potential outcomes. It’s a little tiring; but on the upside, I’m rarely shocked by even the most bizarre twists of fate.
Laid-back Hubby just goes with the flow. While we were running around looking at properties and talking to realtors and planners and builders and bankers and lawyers, I turned to him, totally frazzled, and asked, “Isn’t this stressing you out?”
He just smiled and shrugged. “Nope.”
Some days I wish I could live inside his head instead of my own.
But now it’s his turn to stress out because he has to clean up and consolidate his packrat-jumble of tools and toys and ‘treasures’; while my stuff is permanently organized and ready to go at a moment’s notice. So maybe I don’t want to be him after all.
I guess as long as we’re not freaking out simultaneously, it’ll all work out. But if you ever see a wild-eyed pair waving “The World Is Ending” signs, and if the female half of the couple has long red hair, you might want to detour to the other side of the street.
Just sayin’…
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The Virtual Backyard Book Club is four months old – how are we doing, and what would you like to discuss? Click here to have your say!
Every twenty years or so, I subject myself to a painful and annoying ordeal. It’s that time of the vicennium again, and yes, I’m navigating the perilous waters of car shopping. So far I’ve battled new car dealers sharks, used car salesmen morays, and private sellers bottom-feeders.
I’ve done a ton of research and narrowed my choices down to a shortlist based on my analysis, and now I’m in the process of looking at actual cars. The research was interesting and enjoyable, but the actual car-shopping is inefficient and irritating as hell.
The problem is that any sort of pressure tactic annoys me to the point where I’ll walk away and go to a different dealership just to look at an identical car. Salespeople who know less than I do irritate me. Liars irritate me. And a large proportion of the salespeople I’ve encountered so far have been ignorant, high-pressure, liars, or some combination thereof.
I’ve only been shopping for two days, and already I’ve encountered these pieces of work:
So I don’t have a new car yet. And I’m afraid to even speak the words “new car” within earshot of my good old reliable beater, just in case its feelings are hurt and it decides to break down and dump me in the middle of nowhere.
But I’m still trolling the car-sales waters. I’m not the chum they think I am.
Anybody else suffered through buying a new vehicle lately?
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New discussion at the Virtual Backyard Book Club: Sacrifice Or Selfishness? Considering what John has given up in the name of duty, is he being selfish now? Click here to have your say!
A couple of days ago I discovered an article about how and when a self-driving car should be programmed to injure or kill its passengers. It’s an alarming proposition, but it’s actually a valid point: if the car has to choose between wiping out ten pedestrians or only its driver, simple logic says it should choose the lesser number of casualties.
But the realization that my future vehicle may be plotting to kill me makes me just a wee bit mistrustful of technology.
Or, in my case, more mistrustful of technology. I’ve never been good at leaving my safety in the hands (circuits?) of inanimate objects. (Or even animate objects, for that matter. I’m a lousy passenger even with a human driver – I spend as much time watching the road as the driver does. But that’s another story.)
My point is, I’m suspicious of any electronic device that wants to make decisions for me.
Take my GPS, for instance. The lady inside my GPS can usually get me where I want to go, but she’s not always good at it. When we’re in unfamiliar territory, Hubby usually drives while I navigate. Theoretically the GPS should be all we need, but I never go anywhere without a paper map; partly because my GPS has a tendency to announce “Low battery!” and/or lose its satellite connection at critical moments, but mostly because I don’t trust it to choose the best route.
I can set it to ‘faster time’ (which is usually dog-slow) or ‘shortest distance’ (synonymous for ‘via goat-paths and dodgy neighbourhoods’), but there’s no setting for ‘common sense’. So, after a few forays through dense forest on steep roads no wider than our car (though, as the GPS insisted, that road was technically ‘paved’) our trips have become a power struggle between the GPS and me.
The GPS lady says, “In… two hundred metres… turn left.”
And I say, “Ignore that. It doesn’t know what it’s doing. Keep going straight.”
Hubby, like all husbands with a modicum of self-preservation, silently follows my directions while the GPS says in snotty tones, “Recalculating. In… one hundred metres… make a U-turn.”
Me: “Ignore that. Keep going.”
GPS (getting cranky): “Recalculating. In… three kilometres… TURN LEFT, IDIOT!”
Me: “Ignore that…”
Given the choice, I’d rather have an up-to-date paper map and only use the GPS to pinpoint the location of the nearest Dairy Queen. (And don’t get me wrong; that’s a critical function. I need frequent ice cream breaks when I’m on the road.)
But antagonizing my GPS is probably a bad idea, because the new cars will have them built in. And if a hostile GPS triggers the ‘kill-the-driver’ algorithm, I could be in serious trouble.
On the surface, the self-driving car seems utopian: I could be snoozing or reading or snacking while my car takes me safely and efficiently to my destination. But in reality I’d probably end up sitting in the driver’s seat with both hands on the wheel, simultaneously watching the road and keeping a wary eye on the car in case it tries to kill me.
But maybe I’m just paranoid.
Or maybe that’s not a ‘maybe’…
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And speaking of technology… there’s a new discussion over at the Virtual Backyard Book Club: Aydan’s Tech Gadgets – Love ‘Em Or Hate ‘Em? Click here to have your say!
(Don’t worry, this is a temporary aberration. I promise I’ll be back to my usual foolishness next week.)
I try to avoid being serious whenever possible, but my father-in-law lost his battle with cancer last Thursday so I’m not quite myself this week. We knew his time was getting short so we were able to say our goodbyes, but many people aren’t so lucky.
The following is a post I wrote ‘way back in 2013. I didn’t share it at the time because it was more solemn than I generally like to be, but today it seems fitting.
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I’m at the age where mortality starts to get up in my face a little more each year. One of our friends just died of a heart attack at age 47, another at 50. Other friends are being diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, you name it. “Catching up with the news” used to mean hearing about happy things like weddings and babies. Now it’s diseases and funerals.
You just never know when your time is going to run out.
I drive the highways quite a bit, and I see lots of memorials beside the road. One I pass frequently is a white cross with a hard hat and safety vest hanging from it. There are bouquets of flowers beside it in the ditch, along with hand-lettered signs that say, “Miss you, Dad”, and “We love you, Dave”.
The little roadside shrines always make me sad. Sad that somebody lost a loved one in an accident, but sadder still that Dave’s buddies probably never said, “We love you, Dave” while he was alive.
Why is it so hard to tell people what they really mean to us? Imagine how Dave would have felt if one his buddies slapped him on the back and said, “Man, I love working with you. Your sense of humour makes my day.” Or whatever they loved Dave for.
Maybe he made up rude song lyrics and sang them off-key and it made everybody laugh. Maybe he bought a round for the guys every Friday night. Maybe he was always willing to swap a shift so a co-worker could go to his kid’s hockey game. Or maybe he was the sympathetic ear everybody turned to when they needed to blow off steam. Whatever it was that made him special, I’ll bet Dave never knew how much they appreciated him.
And now it’s too late to tell him.
We’ve got so many commercialized occasions for “heartfelt” cards and gifts. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day are fine, but they’ve become obligations and you’re in trouble if you miss them. So you stuff a card in an envelope; buy some flowers; go out for a nice dinner; bang-boom-done-for-another-year. All the “heartfelt” your money can buy.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we created a new occasion? No cards or gifts allowed. Just one day out of the year where our only obligation is to say something nice that we’ve thought to ourselves but never said.
And not just to parents or spouses. How about to co-workers, doctors, baristas, teachers, or cleaning staff? No big embarrassing fanfare, just a quiet, sincere “You make my life better”. Or “We love you, Dave”.
Nobody else even needs to know we said it. Only the person who truly needs to hear it.
Maybe we could do it more than once a year, too.
It’s just a thought.
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And on that note, thank you to all my readers. I don’t blog because I like flapping my virtual gums; I do it because you wonderful folks brighten my day with your comments. Thanks for taking the time – you’re the best!
One of my hobbies is shopping for land. It’s a bit of a pipe dream since it’s so expensive around Calgary, but I keep looking just in case there’s a bargain out there. Hey, if it made sense, it wouldn’t be a hobby, right?
Over the years I’ve gradually learned the language of real estate listings, so I’ve decided to share some of my hard-earned knowledge. Here are translations for some common phrases:
“Pristine recreational quarter”: It’s swamp.
“Beautiful creekside property”: It’s swamp.
“Perfect for hunters and sportsmen”: It’s swamp, with scrubby black spruce and gnarly undergrowth.
“Enjoy the beauty of nature and watch the wildlife from your window”: It’s mostly swamp. And if you try to grow a garden on the part that’s not swamp, a herd of ravenous deer will devour it.
“All the space you need”: It’s bald-ass prairie.
“Stunning views”: It’s bald-ass prairie.
“Perfect for your horses”: It’s bald-ass prairie.
“Seasonal creek”: It’s bald-ass prairie, but there’s a low spot where the runoff collects in the spring.
“Over 500 trees planted around the building site”: It’s bald-ass prairie, and the ‘trees’ are six-inch twigs. They might be taller than you by the time you die, but only if you have really severe osteoporosis and you shrink to under five feet.
“Spectacular mountain view”: You can see the very tips of the mountains if you stand on a ladder in the far northwest corner of the property next to the neighbour’s barn.
“Oil lease revenue”: There’s a sour-gas well smack in the middle of the only habitable part of the land. The rest is swamp.
“Ideal location to build the walkout of your dreams”: It’s a 45-degree grade with a ten-foot strip of level land at the top.
“Owner is motivated to sell”: There’s a feedlot and slaughterhouse on the next quarter and the stench of concentrated cow shit and rotting innards will slag your sinuses from two miles away.
“Wonderfully secluded property”: There’s no road access. To get to the property you have to build half a mile of road, or else dodge an evil-tempered bull while you four-wheel through the neighbour’s pasture.
“A half-mile of beautiful river frontage”: It’s a flood plain.
“It’s been handed down from generation to generation but now the owners must regretfully pass it on to someone who’ll enjoy it as much as they did”: A giant sawmill has been built on the property to the south and a bunch of nutjobs have established a ‘sporting society’ on the property to the north. The owners are fleeing like rats deserting a sinking ship.
“There’s a sign on the property”: No, there isn’t.
“No, really, there’s a sign on the property”: Okay, there is; but it’s invisible unless you approach from the correct direction and glance over at exactly the right moment. You will only discover this after driving a systematic grid pattern for at least an hour.
“Fenced and cross-fenced”: …sometime in the 1930s. Now it’s a gap-toothed line of drunken-looking fenceposts with a couple of strands of rusty barbed wire concealed in the grass, just waiting to wrap around your ankle and trip you face-first into the nearest cow patty.
…But I have to admit that after hundreds of disappointments, I’ve developed my own double-speak. It’s only one phrase, but I use it over and over:
“It’s not quite what we’re looking for.”
I’m sure you can guess the translation. (Hint: If your guess includes an f-bomb or two, you’re probably pretty close.)
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P.S. Book 10 is sailing along! It’ll definitely be released early, probably in late summer. Woohoo!
It’s hard to believe we’ll be starting a new year tomorrow – this one has flown by so fast! I had originally planned to write some of my usual foolishness today, but instead I’d rather use this final post of 2014 to say thank you to all of you.
When I first started blogging I didn’t think I’d enjoy it, but it has been far more fun than I could have imagined. And you, my wonderful visitors, make it worthwhile.
You give life to my blog and motivation to me. You make me laugh, encourage me, and sometimes make me think in new ways.
And in the busy-ness of today’s crazy world, I’m honoured beyond measure that you allot some of your precious time to read my silliness and share your wit and wisdom. Your comments are the best part of my blog!
So thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I wish you love, laughter, health, and prosperity in the coming year and always.
Happy 2015!
Last week in the news this headline confronted me: “A Sandwich, A Snake, And A SNAFU: How Things Went Wrong At A Saskatoon Tim Horton’s”. And I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to put it into a blog post. (Thanks to Chris Robinson for inspiring the title of this post with his comment on my Facebook page.)
In case the link expires, here are the salient points of the event:
Naturally, my first reaction on reading this article was to post it on Facebook and Twitter for everyone to enjoy. After all, as I noted there, how often do you find a guy secure enough in his manhood to publicly reach into his buddy’s pocket and grab his snake?
But on further reflection, there was just so much in this article to boggle my mind. To wit:
So many questions… just one answer: Only in Saskatchewan.
(If you don’t believe me, I offer this YouTube clip as evidence. This is part of the half-time show from the 2013 Grey Cup, played in Regina, Saskatchewan. Check out the maniac on the snowmobile behind the band. Yep, I rest my case.)
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Book 9 draft is at 90% and we have a title! SPY HIGH will be coming out in January… cover art coming soon!
Author Diane Henders 