So, I’m going to be away for a few days and will miss some of your posts, but I will be neglecting them for a good reason – M and I are tying the knot!
We will be staying at Lake Louise in Banff National Park with our boys (read adult men) where we will be enjoying great food, great scenery and, and, and.
See you all when I get back!
The dreams of adventure consumed her every night before sleep claimed her. Wrapped in the thick comforter as the heat from the downstairs fireplace lent the last vestiges of warmth before cooling, the ticking of the contracting timbers further lulled her entry.
The hero charging the menace and saving the town. The crowd cheering in grateful abandon.
The rescue of hundreds from a dense jungle.
The rush to save the boy trapped on an ice floe.
She had done it all.
And always, the gratitude, the beaming congratulations, the modest thanks.
Hard work in the morning. Helping her father with the hay, the sheep, the cows, running, hauling, pulling, sweating in the sun.
And, staying out of her mother’s grasp. The tight, hot kitchen with its endless jobs repulsed her. The real work was outside. But somehow, her mother’s company appealed to her, even as she hated it and fought it and forced herself to help her father.
Outside was important. There were many possibilities there. But you had to prove yourself. Prove your strength. Prove your mettle. Prove your unemotional goodness.
Inside was different and to be avoided at all costs. It wasn’t important. It was … it was … it was less.
But there anyway. Forced into it. Dragged into it. Her father ordering her back to the kitchen and telling her that her mother needed her.
Listening to her mother’s stories of long-ago dances when she was pretty and admired, the dream shifted. She became concerned about what she might wear to the jungle. How would she look? What would she do about her hair?
And later … she was the one being rescued from the jungle.
But still … but still. The desire for more!
To be able to choose. To choose to accept.
No. You’re a girl.
But working outside … yes.
No. You’re a girl.
She didn’t know when the crying started. Why are you crying, her father asked.
She couldn’t answer. Inarticulacy choked her. Shut off the air. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Women, her father muttered before stomping off.
Later, she dreamed that she was trapped on an ice floe.
There was no one to rescue her.
Being raised as she was it all seemed normal. No one around her hankered after more and she pretended not to, either.
She made do with the undercurrents of desire that at times made her jaw clench in frustration. A tiny square of soap from Barcelona. A coyote pin covered in rabbit fur, rubbed almost naked. A rock containing small, gold-coloured flecks that were pronounced as “real” and left in permanent idle uselessness on a mantel-shelf.
On her knees scrubbing the kitchen floor and hanging out the newly washed denims and shirts in the sun to dry, the barely controlled dreams charged each other in a mind-jumble. Her bed with its rough-smooth sheets and the extra pillows sometimes clenched between her legs and the hot water bottle against the cramps. The closet with many work clothes and one Sunday dress.
To leave. To get away.
To love. To experience a passion that could inspire novels.
To eat mysterious foods and drink from green bottles.
To wear silk. Even though she had only read about it and had never touched it in her life.
But.
How to get there.
Already her mother was eyeing the environment. Sizing, evaluating, casting off, considering.
The boy with the crooked leg. The screaming widower who already had four small ones. A friend from school – a brother, really. The men with the muscles and grins of youth who fished and hauled lumber. There were many of them.
She could envision all of them in her dreams, encoiled.
And not happening, nothing at all. Except scrubbing floors. And hanging fresh laundry in the sun. And killing chickens. And remembering when anything was possible.
Even staying.
Two weeks ago, Calgary, home of the Stampede, the world’s biggest rodeo, was inundated by flood waters. If you saw any of the coverage on television or Youtube or if you live there, then you know what it was like. Other nearby communities were also flooded, especially High River, which was hit particularly hard. Four people died and the property damage has been astronomical.
Mayor Neheed Nenshi’s skills as a leader were tested in a big way, and he succeeded in a big way. His calm, common sense approach to all the work that needed to be done established a calm, common sense method for dealing with the situation. As a result, there was very little crime or idiocy and people helped each other wherever and whenever they could. All the first responders and City of Calgary employees knocked themselves out.
Today, Calgary begins its 127th Stampede. The last two weeks have been a hard slog to get ready for it. Some of it had to be scaled back because of water damage, but the show is going ahead, as usual.
Calgary has managed to pull through this disaster with grit, determination, dignity and respect.
Happy Stampede, Calgary! You’re a class act.
Today is Canada Day – our national holiday. Canada is officially 146 years old.
It’s time for fun, food and fireworks.
I am a very proud, patriotic Canadian and am grateful to have been born in this country. Many, many others are not so lucky and are stuck in some awful place where they have little or no control over their lives, especially the girls and women.
Today I give thanks for the privilege of an accident of birth.
Happy Birthday, Canada!
Right now, Calgary is enduring a very serious flood, as are a number of smaller communities near Calgary, such as High River, Canmore and Banff. Southern Alberta is also being flooded – the South Saskatchewan river through Medicine Hat will peak some time tomorrow morning.
There has been loss of life and the damage to property has been monumental.
Calgary and the other communities are hanging in there, though. Calgary is still planning to go ahead with the Stampede which is due to start two weeks from now.
Makes me feel petty for having whined about my wet basement and also reminds me to be grateful for what I have.
I’m thinking of all of you and wishing you the best.
I was/am a fan of the HBO series The Sopranos, so it was with sadness that I heard of the passing of James Gandolfini, who played Tony Soprano, at the age of 51. He was on holidays in Rome and apparently died of a heart attack.
I enjoyed his acting and the series. He employed a deft hand in creating a truly screwed up character; a mass of psychopathic contradictions who could kill with his bare hands one minute and tenderly kiss his daughter on the cheek the next. Tony Soprano transcended the stereotype of the typical mob boss with his fainting spells and his trips to a shrink.
Gandolfini played many other parts, however. He had been on Broadway and most recently had been in Zero Dark Thirty. He was also preparing for a new HBO series.
We have lost a talented actor.
Good-bye, James.
To M, and to all you other great dads out there – Happy Father’s Day!
Why is it that the morning people dominate the world??? Discriminatory, I say! My rights are being trampled on!!
Night owls of the world arise! You have nothing to lose but your sack time, and that’s already happening! We need respect! We need understanding! We need coffee!
I hate mornings.
I really hate mornings when you’re with someone who’s all perky and bright and chirpy.
They sing at you: La da ti da dahh di da doe mi so la fa dahhh …
That’s what it sounds like to me. Then, because you don’t respond because you can’t understand them, they sing at you again, more loudly this time. It’s like having a gong go off in your head.
And because you aren’t like them, they can get all huffy and defensive and even start viewing you as a lesser species.
A word of advice: it ain’t about you, morning lark.
If you think that there’s no such thing as life after death, you haven’t been to my house and seen me get up in the morning.
M. is the same way. Only worse. He looks the way I feel. Slow. Lumbering. Somambulant.
If you really poke at me, I can start acting like a pissed off velociraptor. A confused one.
Nothing looks right. It’s all so briiiight, and faaast, and loooud. And I hear and see it all in slow motion, no kidding. The lights are on but nobody’s home.
Coffee is my saviour. Without coffee, I wouldn’t wake up until four o’clock in the afternoon. I wouldn’t be able to deal with plumbers, meter readers, letter carriers, work, or breathing.
If life operated the way it should, I would go to bed at one o’clock and get up at nine. I would be functioning and contented, if still not fully awake. But our 24/7 world doesn’t allow for this. We have millions of years of evolution screaming at us to go back to bed, especially while that storm is raging outside, but we have to shoehorn ourselves into a work life that our biology hates.
I really sometimes wonder what we’re doing to ourselves. Do you?
So, I’ve been really busy and haven’t had a chance to post for a while. I realized just how busy when I took a look at my last post and saw that I was supposed to give eleven random facts about myself but didn’t. Why eleven? I have no idea, but that didn’t even register when I was doing the post…
All right. I’m digressing again. To finish the last post properly, here are eleven random facts about me:
1. I am fourth-generation former military. My son makes five.
2. I once met George Bush Jr. before he was president and had a chance to talk to him. His wife was nice. He was an idiot.
3. I am “double-jointed,” especially in my hands, elbows and shoulders. My legs used to be the same way but aren’t any more because I’m two seconds away from officially becoming ancient.
4. Every time I have the gall to think that I’ve figured something out, God or the prophets or Murphy (you know, the Murphy’s Law guy) smites me (smotes me?) to make sure that I don’t get above my raisin’.
5. Water follows me everywhere, especially into my basement where it keeps finding new places to drip.
6. I’ve eaten prairie oysters and enjoyed them. For those of you who don’t know, prairie oysters are bulls’ balls.
7. I have a small extra rib on one side, colloquially known as “Adam’s rib.”
8. I like to eat Swiss cheese and pickled beets. Together. I know. It’s weird.
9. I’m half English and half French. This should make me the perfect little Canadian but what it really means is that I can shrug and have a stiff upper lip at the same time.
10. My favourite colour is red. I like lots of other colours, too, but red rules!
11. I am NOT a morning person. I could do a whole post on this one. I hate mornings. They’re just so, so bright, and, and, bright. And I don’t like it when people around me leap out of bed and act all perky … see, there’s a rant coming.
Dadahhh! Done!
In the Net! - Pictures and Stories of Life 