Away From My Computer

I’m off to Ontario for a week and a bit, just in case anyone out there checks this blog and wonders what became of me.

It will be an out-of-blog experience.  Very weird, but sometimes you can’t avoid doing weird stuff.   I’ve checked in and printed my boarding passes, so it looks like there’s no turning back.

Maybe I’ll come back with a new and brilliant attitude and interesting stuff to say!!  Big emphasis on the maybe. 

Silly Shows

My kids did some weird things growing up.  I know that’s not peculiar to them of couse.  Every kid does weird things.  If I recall correctly, most of the time they don’t share much of that willingly with their parents.  So if I noticed a lot of werid stuff going on, chances are there was a whole lot more of it going on behind my back.  That’s kind of a scary thought, isn’t it?

One of their most favourite games ever was called “Silly Shows”.  I’m sure the idea came from watching just enough tv to come up with some basic entertainment schemes.  It involved putting on bizarre and whacky performances for eachother, accompanied by an incredible amount of giggling, banging, singing, thumping and yelling.   I always figured if it was behind closed doors, no furniture was being willfully destroyed and nobody was getting hurt, then I was being a good mom.  Hey, we all have our different standards.  One thing I truly regret not saving is their cassette tapes that they made together,  where they “interviewed” eachother.  There was some pretty funny shit on those.

This was some kind of kung fu demonstration that I was allowed to observe because they thought it would be extremely cool to have pictures of it.  It took a few practice runs to get in sync. Okay.  Ready?  and ACTION!

Just look at those thrilling poses!  They’re even in costume.  PJ’s and a robe, looks like to me.  Left leg forward, slightly bent at the knee;  hands crossed at the wrists, eyes wide,  smug grins.  Why aren’t these kids on tv and billboards everywhere??

I missed getting shots of a lot of the moves because they were lightning quick and I only had a little kodak instamatic.  But I captured the final threatening fist/karate chop thing.  After that the performers took off to work on something else leaving me dazed and confused.  I mean, entertained.  Yeah, that’s more like what I meant to say there.  Imagine if I’d had a movie camera for the Silly Shows starring the AMAZING DUO…..although, on second thought, maybe the above is more than enough. 

Not Much Ado About Nothing

OMG, not another coffee blog.  Well, no, it’s not actually.  I just have all these interesting pictures saved, hoping that one day I’ll think of something intelligent to say about them.  (Huge exasperated sigh.) I’m TIRED of waiting for that day.  Just look at the pictures.

There’s just something about this one that I really like.  I’ve never understood exactly how or why I got to be the one that did 98% of the cooking.  God knows I’m not very good at it.  At least that’s what I believe, and I learned that by example.  Everything my mom ever made she would appologize profusely for, telling us how awful it was. She’d put a perfect meal on the table, and then tell everyone dish by dish why it just hadn’t turned out the way it was supposed to. 

I taught my kids how to make jello.  It was their own idea to stir the dry ingredients.  Then they stirred with the hot water, and finally they stirred with the ice cubes until there were none left.  All in all, a very stirring experience.  Sorry – but I did warn you about the lack of intelligent commentary.

And that brings me (somehow…mysteriously….) to this final picture which I love and could stare at for a long time while drinking coffee and not even thinking about dinner or who’s preparing it.  The colors are rich, the sidewalk is wet, I can almost smell the fresh air.  I want to stroll down this sidewalk in yellow rubber boots, carrying a red umbrella, listening to the muted sounds of the city.  While I’m doing that, if you could just make your own damn dinner, that would be wonderful.  Thanks.

Flipside

It always amazes me how kids with the same parents, raised in the same environment, can be so completely different.  Doesn’t always happen, of course.  Sometimes you can pick siblings out of a crowd.  But my kids never looked like they were even related to eachother.  And their dispositions from day one were at opposite ends of the personality spectrum.  Kind of like Garfield and Odie.  I’m sure they’d be delighted to hear their mother say that.

            

If you look closely, you’ll notice a recurring theme here. 

Little Miss Moody is not amused by the giggle machine.

Smile!  (I already am!  vs. what the hell for?)

Now how do you suppose she came by that icy stare?  Not much of a mystery really.  W. and his daughter have always had a rocky relationship, although deep down I’m sure they love eachother.  (And they get along much better now that they don’t have to live under the same roof.)  They’ve always been way too much alike in the ‘yell first, think later’ department.   And that leads me to believe that I had something to do with K.’s sunny disposition and warped sense of humor.  Our family dynamics help to prove that opposites attract all around.  Plus I’ve always been a big believer in blaming negative traits on W.’s side of the family.  But no one disputes the fact that while they were growing up,  our kids got along with eachother better than most siblings.  Although there was that time when K. started junior high and D. told him not to even think about telling anyone he was her brother;   and he just said ‘are you kidding??  You think I want anybody to know YOU’RE my sister??’  But it all came out, and by high school it got to be kind of fun to tell their respective friends that the football star and the crazy banger chick lived in the same house. 

If they don’t exactly admire eachother’s choices in life, at least they respect them.  And they still make eachother laugh. I hope it’s a bond that lasts a lifetime.    

Birthday Flashbacks

Ever been asked how you celebrate your birthday? I hate that question.  This year I’m going to be at an optical convention.   It’s just not that important an event for me.  The birthday OR the convention.  Maybe because I’ve had so damned many birthdays already and the novelty wore off a very long time ago.  Except maybe for the milestone birthdays, like turning 30, or 40, or 50, I’d just like to ignore them all, thanks anyway.

I also hate being asked how old I am.  I don’t mean out loud to my face, because most people find that verging on rude when it’s really nobody’s business.  I mean on forms.  Because most of the time I don’t know the answer.  I know what year I was born and I can figure it out, but it’s just not a number I keep in my head on a day to day basis.   

When W. was growing up they never really celebrated birthdays at all - isn’t that weird?   I still don’t know the exact dates of his dad’s or his brother’s birthdays and I don’t think he does either, although they are (were) sometime this month.  I remember his sister’s because she was a leap year baby, and I remember his mom’s because it’s the same day as my dad’s.  W. and I never exchange gifts or cards.  The only reason he thinks of mine at all is because it’s always close to Mother’s Day and the opening day of fishing season.  Come to think of it, every one of us growing up shared our birthdays with someone or something else.  With all those aunts and uncles and cousins, the cake was never just for one person.  The only birthdays I really remember vividly are the ones where I turned SIX and felt very grown up, and then when I became a teenager and felt completely overwhelmed.  But special birthday parties with friends and games and goody bags were not something we did.  So, having missed out on all that, we of course tried to make their early birthdays a very big deal for our kids. 

Here are some random birthday pictures in reverse chronological order (because that’s just how they popped up and I’m too lazy to rearrange them.) This is our darling daughter and one of her cousins, at grandma’s farm one hot July.  Having a birthday in the summer means celebrating it in whatever place your family is holidaying at the time.  When I was asked what D. would like for her birthday I guess this was the first time I said, oh – just give her some money – we don’t want to be carting a bunch of extra stuff home with us.  The money was obviously a huge hit. 

So much so that it became her favourite thing to ask for from then on.  It’s a tradition we still honor to this day.

This picture, besides showing a cute kid on his second birthday, gives you some indication of my cake decorating skills.  There’s been no improvement, in case you’re wondering.  I made him a spaceship cake once.  He loved it, and was the only one who recognized right away what it was supposed to be.  That’s why I love him the best. 

Here’s our two sun-soaked kids at camp at the other grandma’s another hot July.  Birthday number three. 

And then we zip back to birthday number one, the most important birthday in everyone’s life.   You just never ever are this important again, no matter what your future accomplishments. 

She goes from mild curiosity, to baby version of WTF? to okay, this stuff is not too bad.  I’ll wash it down with the dregs from the beer bottles later, and we’ll call it a successful day. 

Another birthday tradition in my family is to never celebrate anything on the right day.   That’s why, when I go to Ontario next week we will be celebrating my mom’s 90th birthday, which was in February, because they thought it would be nice to wait until I got there.  My brother’s birthday is the 19th of April, so we’ll likely celebrate that one at the same time.  Gawd – I hadn’t really thought about how strange that is until right now, writing it down.  Strange, but certainly not a bad thing.  With this method, every day of the week could be a celebration of something, past or future.  Sounds like a plan. 

Some Days Are Made for Drivel.

Some days the effort required to think up something good to blog about is colossal.  I don’t have the energy today.

I love Maxine’s dog.  He always looks stunned by her pronouncements, although you’d think he’d be used to them by now.  I want a dog that serves me cookies.

Or a pirate cat.  Or a sheep.  It’s so hard to decide.

Flip back to Chapter Five

Here’s a gigantic leap back in time to 1971 when we were young and foolish and oblivious to the future.  If my life was a book divided into 5 year intervals, this would be the beginning of chapter five, revisited from half way through chapter ELEVEN.  Good Gawd.  That’s me and W. (on the left) in our little garage sized house entertaining friends.  We are serving something wrapped in waxed paper, and wine in tumblers, and looking suspiciously like we all just climbed out of bad tanning beds.   

The couple on the right are W.’s brother Daryl and his then girlfriend Sharon.  She moved into this house with me when he went off to university and W. worked and boarded in another town during the week.  That lasted about three months – we had an awesome time eating tomato soup and not wearing underwear or socks (long story) – until she got tired of having to find alternate accommodation on the weekends when W. came home to complain about what a mess the place was in.  Heavy sigh and eye roll here.  I eventually learned that he just needed to get used to the idea that not everyone cleaned house like his antiseptic mother.  Daryl and Sharon have been divorced for years.  He lives on his own, and she has remarried and moved away.  Their youngest son is getting married this summer.  I guess no matter how disastrous a marriage you’ve been witness to, you still want to give it a try.

The couple in the middle, Jan and Gord,  are going to be driving through here in a week or so on their way to visit their daughter and her family in Jasper.  They’ll be staying with us over night.  I hope I can dig up some wine glasses and something to feed them that has never seen the inside of waxed paper.  I don’t suppose they’ll remember eating whatever that was – although I remember her feeding us venison once.  Deer steak.  GAG.  Some things are hard to forget.  They’re the ones with grandchildren with Roman Gladiator names – Marcus and Darius.  They can actually say those names without laughing hysterically.  Go figure.  Yes, yes.  I’m a stuck up obnoxious bitch, nothing much has changed.  But I’m kind of looking forward to a night of ‘remember whens’, and complaining about how old we’ve all become and what curve balls life has thrown us.  When you’ve got this kind of a history with somebody you can’t just invent yourself in the moment.  W. lived on the same street as Jan and he and Gord grew up best friends.  They knew eachother’s parents and siblings – it makes you much more tolerant and accepting of how a person turns out I think. 

Our biggest concern back then was running out of ice cubes.  Or tomato soup.  We were happy to be grown up, and free, and not smart enough to worry about that vast unknown expanse of time in front of us. 

Life is like reading a good book.  You can see all those unread pages ahead of you and you’re anxious to get through them, but at the same time you don’t want the book to end. How profound is that?  Sometimes I freak myself out.  Anyway, we’ll get together and reminisce, but mostly we’ll boast about our grandchildren, as if we had something to do with how perfect they are.  We’ll marvel at how many years have gone by while we weren’t paying attention.  Another exciting chapter in the book we started way back when. 

Good Grief by Lolly Winston

Even though this book is the story of a young widow who is trying to deal with her loss and pain, it manages to be funny and not pathetic.  Amazingly, the character of Sophie is believable and her struggles are credible. 

It’s one of those books I picked up off the bargain table, drawn to it by the title and the bunny slippers.

It’s the story of an imperfect relationship cut short by cancer, and how the surviving partner’s life is changed in dealing with her husband’s illness and death.  It’s also a brilliant portrayal of her mother-in-law, her best friend, and a teenage pyromaniac she takes on as a ‘little sister’. 

Sophie loses a lot of things – her husband, her house, her job, her composure.  Somehow she salvages the will to live and re-invent her life with the help (or hindrance) of the people around her.  I was a bit leary when the handsome actor made his appearance, thinking, here we go.  Man to the rescue to make everything all right.  But even that was fraught with imperfections and real life type twists.

It’s ultimately a feel good kind of book.  Life has it’s tradgedies, and yet somehow we survive. 

How I Lost My Connectivity

I have limited or no connectivity. 

I really hate that.  It makes me sound disjointed and vague.  But that’s what my computer is telling me, with a little yellow triangular sign containing a black exclamation point.  Warning!  Serious!  No connectivity here!! 

It would be nice to have somebody specific to blame, but I don’t know who that is yet.  It happened when W. was talking on the phone to his dad and all of a sudden couldn’t be heard.  Even though his dad is very deaf, it seems inconceivable to me that W.’s telephone voice would ever go undetected.  People across the street can hear it with their windows closed.  Somehow the phone connection did get reestablished, but after they hung up W. discovered the internet was no longer accessible.   Then he started messing around with the connections from the phone jack to the phone through the filter through the splitter…I can only imagine this part, because by the time he called me he was pissed off and more or less incoherent.  That’s another thing I hate – being called at work and having a problem dumped on me that I don’t have a hope in hell of solving from a distance.  Like being asked how many green lights are supposed to be flashing on this modem thing.  Crap.  How would I know that?  WHY would I know that?  Then he’s mad at me for not knowing, even after he painstakingly describes what they look like.  Says he’s shutting the whole thing down and  I’ll have to deal with it when I get home. 

So, what I have to deal with when I get home is the furniture rearranged to expose the cord that goes from the jack to the modem. It IS possible to pull this thing up to look at it, although I’m still puzzled as to why anyone would need to do that.   But, a chair and an ottoman, a magazine rack,  the stereo, a speaker, my party animal grouping consisting of no less than 14 fragile wooden pieces and three racks of c.d’s have been moved across the room.  The living room phone has been disconnected and trashed, because suddenly it’s a piece of shit garbage get-a-new-one-for-Christ-sakes item.   I sit down amidst the chaos and try all the things I can think of to get the computer to find our internet provider, but it keeps giving up.  I phone tech support and we go through all these things again plus a few more, and then he gives up too.  He will have to send someone to my house.  The soonest he can do that is the nineteenth.  THE NINETEENTH!  I practically scream it.  I have to be without internet access until the NINETEENTH???  Uummm, ma’am – that’s Monday.  This is Saturday night.  Oh.  Well, when you put it that way it doesn’t sound quite so bad I guess.   

On Sunday, the eighteenth, I bring home four movies and a book hoping to somehow keep my brain occupied until the nineteenth.  Today is the nineteenth at last.  It is 10:00 a.m.  I am writing this in Microsoft Word for cutting and pasting to my blog if I ever see it again.  I am becoming despondent and morose.  I wonder if it would speed things up to call tech support and threaten suicide, or a hunger strike.  Or at the very least be mildly hysterical.  No, I think I’ll just stay pathetic until noon.  After that, they’ll be dealing with crazy.    

 4:50 p.m.  The craziness has ended and the internet is back.  Our old modem has been retired and replaced. I still have three movies left to watch!!   All is once again right with the world.     

Proof Positive that Time Yellows

Here’s a random ancient faded picture,  which I couldn’t leave uncropped or untouched by anything but the passage of time because the color was hurting my eyes and giving me a serious headache.   

So this is all softened up in the interests of art and mental well being.  Let’s call it “Little Girl in Red”.  Seems like a rather strange place to be playing, or even posing for a picture.  I think that’s grandma’s house up the hill in the distance, so this would be the raging river by our farm.  If that’s not right, it must be the creek by grandma’s and I don’t know what those buildings are in the background other than a house and a barn.  The doll is protected from the elements by a  towel.  The child looks happy to be taking her baby for a stroll across this incredibly bleak landscape.  Perhaps at the time it wasn’t quite so awash with yellow.