Commentary

Is That A Snake In Your Pocket Or…?

/ Diane Henders / 25 Comments

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:

  1. Two guys walk into a Tim Horton’s in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. (Yes, this IS the beginning of a joke.)
  2. They order a sandwich (unclear whether that was one sandwich between the two of them, or one sandwich each). They want their onions diced.
  3. The employee objects to dicing the onions.
  4. An argument ensues.
  5. The argument escalates.
  6. One guy gets thoroughly pissed off, reaches into his buddy’s pocket, pulls out a non-venomous snake, and throws it at the employee.
  7. Chaos ensues and the police are called.
  8. The guys get arrested and charged with public mischief. The snake gets a temporary home until it can be released into the wild. I get a belly laugh or three. No word on what the employee got.

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:

  • All double entendres aside, why would a guy carry a snake in his pocket?
  • Why did the snake stay in his pocket? In my experience, snakes tend to prefer stillness and solitude, and they tend to seek them out fairly determinedly.
  • If, for some unfathomable reason, you were walking around with a snake in your pocket (yes, I’m still talking about the reptilian variety), why would you go into a Tim Horton’s? Presumably you’re transporting the snake somewhere for a reason, so why not use the drive-through and carry on to the intended conclusion of your snake-toting?
  • If the “unfathomable reason” was a pleasant outing for the snake, there are lots of better places to take it. As far as I know, snakes don’t like coffee or sandwiches. Not even Tim Horton’s coffee.
  • If you’re carrying around a snake with the intent to fling it, why not just fling it and be done? Get in, fling the snake, get out, go get your sandwich at a different Timmie’s.
  • Why was it so important that the Tim Horton’s employee dice the onions? Why wouldn’t the guy pull out a jackknife and chop the onions himself? Or if he didn’t have a tool in his pocket, (hence his need for the snake, perhaps…?), why not just break the onions into pieces with his fingers? They should have been clean – his momma must have told him to always wash his hands after handling his snake.
  • Who, in the extremities of irritation, decides to reach into somebody else’s pocket for what was clearly an inoffensive critter (at least to the snake-toter, who theoretically must have been sanguine about his reptilian pocket pet)?

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.)

* * *

Book 9 draft is at 90% and we have a title!  SPY HIGH will be coming out in January… cover art coming soon!

Virtual Cookie Exchange

/ Diane Henders / 6 Comments

cookie exchange

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog to bring you… cookies!  And fudge!  And snackables!

My blogging buddy Linda Grimes invited me to participate in a virtual cookie exchange, and being the foodie I am, I couldn’t resist.  I promised her my simplest no-cook 3-ingredient fudge and a couple of other super-quick recipes that make you look like a holiday hero for making goodies from scratch.

Author Linda Poitevin is hosting this festival of yumminess.  Here’s a  list of all the recipes so far, and she’ll be posting another update today and again next week.

Here you go – happy snacking!

Simple Chocolate* Fudge

1 – 300ml can of sweetened condensed milk (about 1-1/4 cups – it doesn’t have to be perfect)

2-1/4 cups chocolate* chips

3 tablespoons butter

Instructions:  Melt everything together, stir well, and pour into greased 9×9 pan.  Chill.  Eat.

(Note:  If you’re using the microwave, only nuke in short bursts until the milk gets hot and then stir until the chips melt.  If you over-nuke it the chocolate chips turn to cardboard instead of melting.)

*Tip for holiday heroes:  You can make this into any kind of fudge you want – just use a different kind of chips.  White chocolate, milk chocolate, butterscotch, whatever.  If you want to be fancy, throw in some chopped nuts, crushed candy canes, dried cranberries, chopped-up candy bars, or whatever else moves you. If you want to go all Martha Stewart and give homemade fudge as a gift, make a double batch and chill it in a parchment-lined loaf pan, then slice it into slabs the way the fudge shops do.

Simple Peanut Butter Fudge*

1 cup butter

1 cup peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

3-1/2 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar)

Instructions:  Melt the first 3 ingredients together, stir in the icing sugar, and press into greased 9×9 pan.  Chill.  Eat.

*Tip for holiday heroes:  Make the peanut butter fudge first, then make a batch of chocolate fudge and spread it over top.  Choco-peanut-butter fudge, hello.  This almost fills the 9×9 pan, so if you like your fudge a little thinner, put it in a 9×13 pan instead.

Ranch Crispix Snack*

1 box Crispix cereal

1 box mini-Ritz crackers

1 bag cheddar Fishie crackers

1 bag pretzel twists

1-1/2 cups roasted almonds/pecans/macadamias, whatever

1/3 cup canola/sunflower/corn oil

2 envelopes Hidden Valley Original Ranch Dressing mix

2 or 3 tablespoons dried dill

Instructions: Throw everything in a paper bag* and shake well.  Pour out.  Eat.

*This recipe might sound kinda gross to those who don’t like ranch flavour, but it’s irresistible if you like tangy, crunchy, salty snacks. And you can shake it up in anything you have handy – a turkey roaster or covered pail or whatever.

—

And now…

Since this is actually supposed to be a cookie exchange, here are my favourite molasses spice cookies.  They do require baking so they’re not quite as fast and simple as the first three recipes, but they’re soooo worth it!

Chewy Molasses Spice Cookies

3/4 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

4 tablespoons dark molasses

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

Instructions: Mix the first 4 ingredients together, then add the rest and mix well.  Roll into teaspoon-sized balls*, dunk in sugar, and place on a greased baking sheet.  Flatten with a fork* and bake at 350 degrees approximately 12 – 14 minutes or until lightly browned.

*Note to Linda Grimes – I know this one has more ingredients than you want to deal with, but you gotta give me credit – continuing in your fine tradition, I said “balls” and “fork”.

Prickly Neighbours

/ Diane Henders / 33 Comments

I’m not a talented travel writer like my blogging buddy Sue Slaght, but here’s what we’re doing this week:

That’s Hubby mugging with our new neighbours, the saguaro cacti (also prickly pears in the foreground)

That’s Hubby mugging with our new neighbours, the saguaro cacti (also prickly pears in the foreground)

Yes, we’re on vacation this week, and it’s made me realize I don’t get out much.  It’s not that I don’t know what the outside world is like; it’s just that I kinda… forgot.

I had to laugh at myself when we got off the plane in Phoenix, Arizona.  I was harbouring a mental image and expectation of barren desert.  Which it is… outside the city.

And I was thinking Phoenix wasn’t actually much larger than Calgary… which it isn’t, until you add in the urban sprawl that includes about fourteen cities, all of them around the size of Phoenix.

So as a result of these comforting delusions I was semi-expecting an airport approximately the size of Calgary International, which, while not tiny, has lots of wide open spaces and is relatively easy to navigate.

When I got off the plane I nearly turned tail and ran back to beg them to take me somewhere less crowded.  Holy shit, there were a lot of people!

I know you seasoned travellers are laughing at me now, because Phoenix Sky Harbour is small compared to lots of other airports.  But my regular comfort zone is about two people per thousand square feet and I really prefer two people per square mile, so two people per square yard was a bit of a shock.

But I comforted myself with the knowledge that we’d be getting on the interstate freeway and heading out into the desert on our way to Tucson, so I’d soon be on the wide-open road.

Or not.

I10 from Phoenix to Tucson is not ‘the wide-open road’.  Just sayin’.  That’s what rush-hour city traffic looks like where I come from.

And I’m not really an ‘interstate’ kind of person.  I like the back roads, where I can get close to the fields and untouched places and see the indigenous plants and birds and critters.  You don’t see much of that from the interstate.  I glimpsed some big areas of saguaro cactus, but they whisked by in a blur at 75 mph.  I spotted some cotton fields, but they were blurry with speed and distance, too.

Fortunately I’ve had a chance to go out and poke around in the desert for the last couple of days.  I’ve bought my obligatory field guide, and I’ve been having fun trying to identify all the native vegetation.  I recognize the prickly pear cactus from home (it does actually grow in some areas of Alberta), but around here it looks as though it’s on steroids.

We’ve been doing the tourist thing around Tucson, seeing the Pima Air and Space Museum and the Desert Museum and the Colossal Cave so far.  The Biosphere 2 is still on a tentative list, and I’m sure there are lots of other fascinating things to see and do around here.

And my life is complete because I’ve now met a saguaro up close and personal (but not too close – I’m not crazy about cactus spines).

What’s new and exciting in your world this week?

Dear Truckers…

/ Diane Henders / 25 Comments

Dear Truckers,

I just got back from driving another 2,400 km trip across the Canadian prairies, and now I’m sad.

I always looked up to you as professional drivers. I admired your skill and courage as you pushed through summer storms and winter blizzards. I respected the personal sacrifices demanded by an exhausting job that kept you far from your friends and family.

I loved to watch a semi starting up from a dead stop: the cab of the tractor torquing with sheer brute power; the big diesel engine growling and snorting. I always enjoyed the sight of your big rigs gobbling up the miles. I liked the thought that in each of those cabs was someone who loved the open road as much as I do.

But my last couple of trips have ended all that.

Maybe some of you are still dedicated professionals, but too many of you are downright dangerous. I spent my drive in dread of having to pass you. Five different truck drivers nearly wiped me off the road; veering into my lane and weaving back and forth. One even drove down the centreline for several miles at a time. If I’d had any safe place to pull over, I’d have called 911 and reported that guy, but I didn’t dare stop in case he caught up and actually succeeded in killing me on his next try. 

I always give you lots of space and make sure I’m driving consistently so you don’t get any surprises.  I know cars can be hard to see from where you sit so I always make sure I’m visible in your mirrors, but that didn’t matter because these guys weren’t watching their mirrors.  Or the road.

Years ago we rarely saw a wrecked semi unless the road conditions were truly fearsome, but I saw three fresh wrecks during this trip. There was bright sunshine and unlimited visibility. A long straight four-lane divided highway on flat prairie. Perfect driving conditions. I don’t know what you’re doing up there in that cab, but you’re not paying attention to driving. Maybe you’re texting or talking on the phone or, like one guy I saw, reading a book propped against the steering wheel.

Why would you do that?

You know you can’t stop an 80,000-pound vehicle on a dime. You know what happens if you run into a smaller vehicle.

When I was young, we called you Knights of the Road. You looked out for us little folk, and you were heroes to stranded motorists. In a blizzard, we knew if we could find a semi and follow its taillights we’d be okay. Now you’re just as likely to lead us over the edge of a cliff.

I’m so disappointed. I feel as though the big brother or sister I’ve idolized all my life has turned out to be a fraud.

I know the days of stopping to help other motorists are long gone, made impossible by your ridiculously tight schedules and the added dangers of armed nutcases and heavy traffic. But do you really care so little about your professional pride and the safety of other motorists that you won’t even bother to drive a straight line?

Come back, Knights of the Road. I miss you. I miss the joy of driving and the sense of safety you used to give me.

And I don’t want to become a grease spot under your wheels.

With sincere sadness,

Diane

* * *

Sorry it’s not my regular foolishness today. I usually love driving that trip, but those drivers really spoiled it for me.  I guess I’m lucky they didn’t spoil it permanently.

Just to show I haven’t completely lost my sense of humour, though, I’d like to share a little personal revelation I had somewhere around the middle of Saskatchewan.  I was singing along with my music as usual when I suddenly realized that I am incapable of screeching out high notes without simultaneously clenching the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip and contorting my face in a horrible grimace.

Between my awful caterwauling and my scary expression, it’s no wonder the truckers try to run me off the road.

P.S. Something weird is going on with either WordPress or my domain today.  I’m sorry if the blog won’t behave – I’m trying to figure out the problem.  In the mean time, as they say:  “Call me if you don’t get this message”.

Wait, Wha…?!?

/ Diane Henders / 33 Comments

I’ve had one of those weeks where it seems as though the rest of the world is conspiring to make me say, “Wait, wha…?!?”

The first thing was the fortune cookie I got on the weekend. I was expecting the usual sort of fortune; you know, ‘You will soon go on a long trip’ or ‘Your persistence will be rewarded’ or something.

Instead, I got this:

fortune - goal

Wha…?!?

I’m somebody’s goal? That’s… really… kinda creepy. I’d be pleased to be someone’s role model… or no, wait, scratch that. I’d be seriously concerned if anyone selected me as a role model. I’d be unsurprised by being held up as a bad example; or perhaps as an object lesson. But to be the goal of many individuals? Suddenly I feel as though I’m the prize in a game of Capture The Flag.

The next two things that boggled my mind happened in quick succession at a shopping mall. Here’s what confronted me when I walked in the door of Hudson’s Bay Company (a Canadian department store):

Check the sign: "2015 RED MITTENS".

Check the sign: “2015 RED MITTENS”.

I read the sign on my way by, stopped, backed up, and read it again. Then I squinted at the sign and the big display of mittens beside it. Wha…?!? In what world are those mittens red?

Granted, they’ve got some red on them. But The Bay has carried a new design of red mittens every winter for years, and they’ve always been, well… red.  See?

These red mittens all have one thing in common: They’re, um… red.

These red mittens all have one thing in common: They’re, um… red.

I guess nobody bothered to inform me that blue is the new red.

Then a few minutes later, in the same store, this:

Yes, that is a giant hairball.

Yes, that is a giant hairball.

A big ball of human hair. Right in the middle of the clean white floor, not far from a service desk.

Something like that doesn’t just drop unnoticed off somebody’s head. A hairball of that magnitude has to be gathered from a hairbrush, rolled up, and deliberately dropped. Gross. But that wasn’t what made me say, “Wait, wha…?!?”

No; I put the defunct dreadlock out of my mind and carried on with my shopping. My ‘wha…?!?’ moment occurred two hours later when it I came back and it was still there.

So this big gross hairball, visible from 50 yards away in a main traffic aisle, close to a service desk… was cheerfully ignored by every staff member for two hours.  That might not be surprising if it was a dollar store or some other place that doesn’t worry too much about their image. But in a department store that pretends to be moderately upscale? Wha…?!?

And finally, I’ll leave you with this arrival in yesterday’s mailbox:

Tell me, does this colour scheme say ‘Glow’ to you?

Tell me, does this colour scheme say ‘Glow’ to you?

I don’t know why they persist in sending me this free magazine. It’s all about fashion and makeup, which everyone knows is a lost cause with me. But at least I got a laugh out of this issue’s cover. A murky green background and a model with deeply shadowed eyes, pale lips, and a greenish cast to her skin just doesn’t say ‘Glow’ to me. ‘Reanimated Corpse’, maybe.

But I guess that title would be too long to fit on the cover.

Did anything make you go “Wait, wha…?!?” this week?

…In Which I Go Soak My Head

/ Diane Henders / 21 Comments

I didn’t even know the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a ‘thing’ until my sister nominated me (read ‘bullied me into it’).

But it’s for a good cause – I had a friend whose mother died of ALS, so I’d love to see some progress in the fight against this degenerative and 100% fatal disease. If you haven’t heard of ALS or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (also known as ‘Lou Gehrig’s Disease’ in North America and ‘Motor Neuron Disease’ in the UK), there’s more info at the ALS Association’s website:  http://www.alsa.org.

I was slightly distracted by the thought of dousing myself with ice water on video, so I wasn’t quite as coherent as I had hoped when I reeled off my little blurb.  I forgot to mention that I’ll donate as well because, while it may give some folks great satisfaction to watch me make a fool of myself, my brain freeze won’t benefit the ALS Association directly.

I’m not sure how good the audio will be, so here’s a short summary of what I was babbling about:

The rules of the challenge are that after you take your ice shower, you get to nominate some other deserving folks.  (Apparently my sister is harbouring some unresolved hostilities that we should probably address.)  If your victims friends choose to accept the challenge, they have to do it within 24 hours and post a video as proof.

I didn’t name names since I’m posting here on my blog, but if you’re just spoiling for an excuse to tell your friends to go soak their heads, consider this your official challenge… and don’t forget you have to do it yourself before you get to nominate anybody else!  (If you do, post a link to your video in the comments – I’d love to see it.)

But first you’ll need to stop laughing at me…

P.S. I’ve read a lot of criticism about this challenge.  People decry it because ALS is not a common disease so we should give to other charities that will benefit more of the population/it’s a fad and the people who participate are somehow morally and intellectually inferior to those who sit back and criticize/the ALS society doesn’t allocate a large enough portion of donations to research and patient support so the money isn’t being used efficiently/millions of people are dying of war and starvation and disease in other countries and it’s our fault because we should have donated there instead/yadda, yadda. 

I agree that it’s preferable to channel our donations to causes where the funds will benefit the most people and be used most effectively, but I don’t believe this challenge is somehow taking donations away from other charitable causes.  It’s a one-time thing, and people are impulsively donating.  That won’t prevent them from donating to the causes they regularly support, but it may get some people who don’t regularly donate to do so… and if it builds a culture of giving, that seems like a good thing.  I donate to a bunch of charities regularly, so I doubt I’ll bring about the apocalypse by dumping a bucket of ice water over my head and sending a few bucks to ALSA.  And yes, it’s a silly challenge, but how often do grown-ups get to be silly in public?  (Well, unless they’re me.  I’m silly most of the time.)  Anyway, I figured it’s good fun for a good cause.

The ABC of Me

/ Diane Henders / 22 Comments

ABC proportionalMany thanks to Shree over The Heartsongs Blog for nominating me for the Awesome Blog Content award a few weeks ago!  If you haven’t visited Shree yet, you should – when she’s not writing thought-provoking posts, she’s doing beautiful artwork and mandalas like the one she drew for the ABC award above.

Due to time constraints and my innate laziness, when I receive a blog award I generally link back to a couple of my earlier posts here and here.  After all, I figure there’s only so much anybody really wants to know about me, and I think we’re all grateful if I don’t veer off into “too much information”.

But this is a format I haven’t done before and I thought it was fun.  And I couldn’t resist Shree’s beautiful hand-drawn award!

So here goes:

A – Animals.  Love ‘em all!  Yes, even snakes.  And especially cats, frogs, and salamanders.

B – Books.  I’m an addict.  I start to get the shakes if I don’t have at least three books waiting to be read.

C – Cars.  I like driving them and working on them.  Someday I’ll finish restoring my ’53 Chevy…

D – Dresses.  All forms of dressing up are to be avoided whenever possible.

E – Eh.  Yep, I’m Canadian.

F – Food.  At any hour of the day or night!

G – Gardening.  I’m incapable of leaving a patch of soil undisturbed.

H – Home.  My favourite place.

I – Infantile.  My sense of humour.

J – Jokes.  I love any kind of wordplay, even puns.  Okay, I’ll admit it.  Especially puns.

K – Keystone.  I grew up in Canada’s “Keystone Province”:  Manitoba.

L – Laugh.  I do that a lot.  Frequently when I shouldn’t.

M – Milk.  My favourite beverage.  Yes, I like it even better than beer.  Shocking, I know.

N – Nudity.  Just checking to see if you’re still reading…

O – Onomatopoeia.  A mostly-useless word that refuses to leave my brain, taking up valuable memory space along with my grandparents’ phone number from 1970 and my very first credit card number.   You’d think there would be a way to purge that stuff and fill the space with something more useful.  Like maybe some current phone numbers.

P – Popular.  What I wasn’t in school.

Q – Queen… and Quantum.  I love a huge variety of music, and Bohemian Rhapsody is one of my favourites.  Plus I’m a science geek, so I’m giving you a twofer!  Click here for “Bohemian Gravity”

R – Restaurant.  I love eating in restaurants, particularly ones that serve food I can’t (or won’t) make myself.

S – Silence.  Ahhhh…

T – Tools.  I love tools.  Automotive tools, carpentry tools, cooking tools, you name it.  Tools, books, and food are the three types of purchase that never need justification in our house.

U – Urban.  The opposite of where I like to live.

V – Vivere.  My favourite Andrea Bocelli album.  Here’s my favourite track from the album, coincidentally also a “V” – Vivo Per Lei:

W – Wild.  My imagination.

X – Xenophobic, I ain’t.

Y – Yellow.  My favourite colour.

Z – Zoo.  What it’s like inside my brain…

And now for the obligations of the award:

The rules for receiving the ABC award are:

1) Thank and link back to who nominated you: Done!

2) Say something about yourself with a word or a phrase beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Done!

3) And of course nominate some other bloggers for the award.

It seems as though a lot of the bloggers I’ve enjoyed in the past have vanished.  I always find new ones to enjoy, but today I thought it would be nice to recognize and compliment my favourite long-time bloggers.  Here they are:

The Big Sheep Blog

Carrie Rubin

CM Stewart

Fear No Weebles

Longshot’s Blog

Within The Sphere (The Blogger Formerly Known As AquaTom)

Mostly Bright Ideas

Murrmurrs

Not Quite Old

Visiting Reality

whatimeant2say

I know a lot of these bloggers don’t generally accept/participate in blog awards, and that’s perfectly fine – I mean this as a compliment, not an obligation.

If you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very merry one!

merry christmas

* * *

Update:  Winners have been drawn for the Spy, Spy Away book giveaway contest – click here to check ’em out!

Airport Deja Vu

/ Diane Henders / 36 Comments

I actually wrote this in the airport on Saturday but I’m flying home today, so who knows…?

The sun is coming up and I’m sitting in the airport waiting to board my flight.  While I sit here with my carry-on baggage tucked close to my feet so no evil person can tamper with it, I’m reflecting on the changes in air travel since I flew for the first time thirty-some years ago.

After several decades, you’d think things would have changed more than they have.  I still feel unaccountably guilty every time I go through security.  The boarding lounges are still the same boring rows of uncomfortable seating. In fact, judging by the numbness of my butt, these may even be the very same seats as thirty years ago.

They still ask us to get to the airport an hour or two before our flight, apparently for the sole purpose of clogging the boarding lounge with cranky people.

The aircraft are basically the same.  The same cramped seats, the same seatbelts, the same impossibly tiny washrooms.  I never cease to marvel at the fact that some people actually have sex in those washrooms.  Hell, there’s barely room for me in there.  Then again, I guess if you did actually manage to cram two people in there, they’d pretty well have to be having sex.

It’s funny, but the only major improvements are to the airport terminal washrooms and the public-address systems – the two things that aren’t directly related to flying.

I like the automatic flush toilets, except when they flush before I’m done.  There’s nothing like a splash of icy water on your ass and a sudden loud noise to get the old adrenaline pumping.  But it’s nice to see they haven’t eliminated (sorry) the most critical function of airport toilets:  they still project a spray of contaminated water up to three feet when you flush, and it’s impossible to vacate the cubicle fast enough to avoid it.  You haven’t truly travelled until you have splatters of toilet water on your pants.

I have a love/hate relationship with the motion-activated water taps and soap dispensers, too.  When they work, they’re wonderful.  When they don’t (which is most of the time), I feel like an idiot waving my hands up, down, and sideways under an unresponsive spigot.  But, whatever.  I look like an idiot on a semi-regular basis anyway, so there’s really no added humiliation there.

The change I appreciate most is the improved public-address system.  I used to hate those old PA systems that sounded like a garburator attacking a table-setting for twelve.  You never knew whether they were saying your departure gate had changed and you had ten seconds to get to the opposite end of the airport; or that your flight had been cancelled altogether; or possibly that a fireball of death was speeding directly toward the terminal and everybody should flee.  It’s wonderful to be able to effortlessly interpret the announcements now.

But I’ve just discovered that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The public address system just came on and delivered a lovely, crystal clear message:  my flight has been delayed for nearly two hours.

Sigh.

* * *

Since “that new-fangled internet” can be unreliable in airports, I’ll be responding to comments sporadically today… unless that fireball catches up with me.  If that happens, all bets are off. 

Calgary Flood 2013

/ Diane Henders / 43 Comments

Well, it’s been an interesting week.

In case you haven’t heard, Calgary and most of southern Alberta suffered a major flood.  For those who got in touch to check up on us, thank you for your concern.

Fortunately, Hubby and I are high and dry, and the whole experience has been surreal.  If not for the TV and internet coverage, we’d never know there was anything wrong if we didn’t leave our neighbourhood.  It rained, yes, a little more than usual, but we’ve had times when the storm drains on our street couldn’t keep up with the rainfall, and that didn’t happen this time.

Then the sun came out, our streets dried, and there was no hint of the devastation happening all around us.  Our power stayed on, and although the water tastes like mud, the City assures us it’s safe to drink.

But entire towns have been destroyed.  The town of High River (population 13,000) is about an hour south of Calgary.  It was evacuated on a moment’s notice and parts are still completely submerged.  It happened unbelievably fast.  Here’s a timeline of the flooding: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Timeline+Alberta+flooding/8556187/story.html

Here in Calgary, about 25 neighbourhoods were evacuated, including the main downtown business district.  They’re saying approximately 200,000 people have been displaced across southern Alberta.  This video gives an idea of the flooding in Calgary: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152915137815526.  To put it in perspective, the flow rate of Niagara Falls is about 1834 cubic metres per second.  The Bow River (one of two rivers that run through the downtown area) peaked at about 1700 cubic metres per second this past weekend.

So far, about 75,000 Calgarians have been allowed to return to their homes.  The cleanup is beginning, but the damage to homes and businesses and infrastructure is staggering.  Downtown, our major business district was completely shut down, and it may take months to restore service to some areas.  Streets have been swept away, and our light rail transit tracks look like an accordion in places.

But the good news about all this is the way our city has pulled together.  Within hours, Kijiji.ca (an online buy/sell forum) was crowded with ads from people offering food, clothes, lodging, child care, pet care, volunteer labour, heavy equipment; you name it, people were offering it to total strangers for free.

Home builders are offering their show homes for habitation.  Management companies are offering temporary office space.  Despite one highly-publicized instance of price-gouging ($20 for a bag of ice), most businesses are behaving themselves, and many are offering free supplies to those who need them.  And there have only been a few isolated instances of looting.

I was impressed with the way the City and emergency response teams dealt with the crisis.  Of course, in a time of extreme emergency not everything will go perfectly, but in general people were well-informed and given as much notice as possible.  Emergency centres were set up quickly and efficiently, and communication was clear.

I don’t have enough good things to say about the dedication and professionalism of our police, fire, and other emergency personnel.  Our mayor, Naheed Nenshi, has distinguished himself.  He’s been tireless in keeping us up to date, and his plain-spoken style has been very popular.

Just to give you an idea of his personality, here’s what he had to say when he found people had been canoeing on the incredibly dangerous Bow River:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_GrKpdEgM.

You’ve gotta love a guy that puts it out there like that.  Now it’s a Calgary meme:  “Don’t be a Nenshi noun”.  (And in happier times, here’s a little video of Mayor Nenshi reading “Pete the Cat” for the Calgary Children’s Festival before all this blew up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJTZ719my3g.)

The best part is, out of all this damage and destruction, the death toll so far is still in the single digits.  That may change as crews get access to areas that are still submerged, but so far it’s hopeful.

It has been a difficult time, and it’s not going to get better fast.  I feel lucky that we’ve been unaffected personally, but I’m heartsick for those who have lost loved ones, homes, and belongings.

But we’re a bunch of tough, big-hearted people here in Calgary, and we’ll get through it together.  Here’s the proof: https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=607082619316759&set=a.580614995296855.1073741828.580215498670138&type=1&theater.

CEMA put out a request for 1,000 volunteers; the only requirement was that they be 18 or older and able to meet at McMahon Stadium at 10 AM.  They hoped for five or six hundred.  Instead, the stadium was thronged with over 2,500 eager volunteers.  Our food banks are overflowing with donations and our volunteer sites are inundated with people wanting to help.  Bands of volunteers are roving the communities, helping total strangers.  One man even drove his hydro-vac truck all the way down from Prince Albert and is going door to door pumping out people’s basements for free.

The flood was and is a disaster, but it has made me proud to be a Calgarian.

we are calgary

* * *

For anyone who’s interested in more background information, here’s link to a Wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Alberta_floods and a map of the affected areas:

Play Nicely, Kids… Please.

/ Diane Henders / 30 Comments

I’m climbing up on my soapbox today, so if you’re looking for funnies you’ll probably want to skip back to Sometimes Words Fail Me.  I’ll return to my regularly scheduled silliness on the 29th.

 

I just finished reading a blogger’s vitriolic review of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight. I don’t know Ms. Meyer and I’m not a Twilight fan, but…

The blogger eviscerated Twilight with razor-like precision. And then she got out her chainsaw and her hobnailed boots and waded into the remains, leaving a bloodbath in her wake. It was brutal and ugly.

It made me sad.

I believe negative reviews are valuable. They help create realistic expectations for our potential readers while steering away the people who aren’t likely to enjoy our work. We learn from criticism and become better writers because of it.

That said, even an objectively-stated negative review rips out little pieces of an author’s guts and cauterizes the wounds with a small, fierce flame. We accept that as the price of admission. We put on our big-kid underwear in the morning, and we go out knowing that getting knocked down is part of the game.

But a blistering, hate-filled attack drains the lifeblood from our hearts and the joy from our souls. And it’s pointless, except maybe to provide some twisted satisfaction for the attacker. Abusive screaming isn’t an effective teaching method.  It doesn’t make us better; it just makes us bleed.

I wonder if this blogger stopped to consider Stephanie Meyer while she was writing her rant. Not ‘Stephanie-Meyer-The-Bestselling-Author’; just Stephanie Meyer, a human being with same desire for respect and acceptance as everyone else.

Imagine what it’s like to be told that the product of your heart and soul; the result of your weeks/months/years of effort and sacrifice and self-doubt and triumph… is worse than garbage. Should never have been allowed to exist. Deserves to be ridiculed and held up as a shameful example.

Ms. Meyer has thousands of glowing reviews to soften the sting, but I can’t help thinking about a debut author receiving that venomous review on the day she lost her ‘real’ job and the car died and her teenager screamed “I hate you!”

Maybe that blogger is a reasonably nice person who got carried away and simply didn’t stop to think about the author (and fans) who might be hurt by her words.

Or maybe she’s a bully making a pathetic and cowardly attempt to elevate herself by trampling another human being beneath her feet.

I hope it’s the former.

I don’t expect to like everything I read, and I don’t expect everyone to like what I write. Poisonous reviews have been a reality since the first caveman daubed some mud on a rock wall and his neighbour yelled, “What the hell is that crap?” (Or maybe it sounded more like ‘Ug poo-poo!’.  I’m guessing here.)

I’m certainly not suggesting we should suppress negative reviews to protect authors’ poor, fragile egos. That would harm both readers and writers.

But it makes me sad when I read such deliberate cruelty.

Why inject more ugliness into the world? Isn’t there enough already?

*Sigh*  😦