Over the Second Cup

Snow Globe

Good morning world.  In my little spot on the planet the snow is coming down so heavily it looks like a thick fluffy blanket hanging from the sky.  We’re stuck in one big crazily shaken snow globe.  I’ll be out there driving in it soon.  Yay.  But not before I finish my second cup of coffee while writing yet another installment for the ongoing saga of my life in lists.  Man, I love lists.  Whoever invented lists is my hero.

These are my random thoughts for the day, in no well thought out order whatsoever.

1. The election is over at last for our American friends, and, for whatever it’s worth, this Canadian is happy with the results.  What’s good for you is often also good for us.  And I’m so sick of hearing all things political at the moment but I’m sure my little sigh of relief was lost in the great collective one to the south of us.  Time for some serious back to normal.

2.  Having a house husband around certainly has its perks.  I can give him a grocery list, and he goes off and buys stuff.  Last night when I came home he was barbecuing pork chops in the garage.  Yes, I think he does realize it’s November, but his barbecuing compulsion is proving to be a hard one to shut down.  Maybe by Christmas he’ll give it up.  Then I’ll get him going on the George Foreman Grill.  I may never cook again.

3. W has just informed me that we have a heavy snow fall warning in effect in our area and that it’s supposed to keep right on snowing all day long.  See how useful he can be?  He loves his snow blower even more than he loves the barbecue.

4.  December is the deadest month there is in the optical business.  Nobody that I know of ever decides to put a brand new pair of glasses in a childs stocking.  For the rest of this month and into the next, my working hours have been cut back, supposedly to make the wages number look better on paper.  But I also have been given the time off over Christmas that I requested, so I am not going to utter even one word of complaint.  Well, okay, maybe one.  But no more than that.  This will give me more time to shop and to make probably twice as many lists as I would have done with a normal work schedule.  So everybody wins.

5.  Thanks to sillyliss, one of my awesome blogging friends, for a lovely comment in which she mentioned the name of an author I greatly admire. I have downloaded the newest Kate Morton book to my kindle – The Secret Keeper.  That would no doubt be a great one for curling up with when we’re snowed in.  And can’t make it to work.  Even though it’s like a ten minute drive away on a normal day.  Well it’s a nice thought anyway.

My second cup is empty.  My list is done.  As long as the world never runs out of coffee, I feel like I can face anything it throws my way.  Or at least have the strength to make a list of all the reasons why I can’t.

Ancestor Mystery

If you could speak to one family member who has passed on, who would you pick?
Why? What would you want to ask them?

My great great great grandmother, Margaret Scott (1782-1865) came to Canada from Ireland with her six children – John, William, Thomas, George, Eliza and Mary Ann.  Her husband died on the ship.

It’s her husband I’d like to talk to, because no one seems to be able to figure out exactly who he was.  Or if he even existed or was on the ship at all.  If we knew more about him we could trace the ancestors all the way back to who knows where.  Not too many people back then cared much about a womans origins, so there appears to be nothing else to be uncovered regarding Margaret.  And without a name for her husband and some dates there’s just dead ends.

Much easier to go forward from her son William to his son, Robert John, to his son, another William (my grandfather) to his daughter, my mother, another Margaret.  (If I’ve learned anything at all, it’s that our family liked to use the same names over and over again, kind of like the Royal Family, but infinitely more confusing because we never thought to add roman numerals to their names.)

Besides asking my great great great grandfather who he was and where he came from, I’d like to know how he died.  Maybe Margaret threw him overboard.  Although I can’t imagine how she thought she would survive on a different continent without a husband, raising six children on her own.  She lived to be 83, so perhaps she had a plan.

Next time I go to see a psychic (I actually saw one for the first time a couple of weeks ago! It was great fun!) I’ll try to remember to ask her about my great etc. etc. no-name grandpa.  Accuracy isn’t as important to me as a good story, so there’s an avenue to explore.  Maybe he’ll have so much to say I’ll be inspired to write it all down for posterity.  And then one of my descendants will have the fun of sorting through it all trying to separate fact from fiction.  Like it matters or something.

What the Psychic Told Me

I’ve just spent an incredibly fun week with my sister – Ron and Jo arrived yesterday afternoon from Calgary to pick her up,  and they’ve headed back towards home this morning, via the states.  Shopping, eating out, going to movies, messing around with our PHONES.  Someone will no doubt invent something soon which will keep ones phone permanently attached to ones left hand!  Bridesmaids is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a very long time.  We liked it so much the first time, we took Jo with us last night and watched it again!    And of course we talked and talked and talked.

Yesterday we visited the Russian Tea Room on Jasper Avenue where readings are done – definitely a first for me, and I think it might be fun to go back again, being a little better prepared.  At the end she said she would answer ten questions for me, and after wracking my poor little brain I think I may have been able to come up with five.  I really wonder if my life is so incredibly boring that she couldn’t get into too much about me personally, but there was certainly lots and lots of stuff to do with family.  She did point out right away that I’m a very strong person, an earth sign surrounded by Alphas, but the one who keeps everything together – the rock of the family.  And apparently to me, home and family is everything.

I picked the Tarot cards and a full life reading – might as well go for the full meal deal.  Right away she started talking about my “son”, but it turned out to be my grandson once we established his age at 9 or 10.  He is bright and creative and destined to do something very brilliantly different with his life.  At some point he’ll have a falling out with either his father or his father-in-law.  I hope it’s not his dad – can’t even imagine that.  My ‘around the same age’ granddaughter also has a hidden passion yet to be discovered.  It will take her a very long time to figure out what it is and may involve books or writing, but it’s something she has to discover on her own.  If she marries, it will be later in life.    There is a pregnancy in the family that I’m very excited about, but it’s not my immediate family.  That would have to be my brother’s first grandchild, unless I’m missing something here.  There will also be a conception in October.  Which would mean another baby next July.  I suppose there’s many possibilities for that one.

She told me I’m separated from my husband.  That was a little disconcerting, even if she simply meant by distance.  But then I guess there’s all kinds of distances.  She said he has health problems but is in denial about them.  (Name me a guy to which that doesn’t apply).  I will outlive him.  It is highly unlikely that I will marry again.  Instead I will become the Ice Queen.  And my granddaughter is already the Ice Princess.  My son and his wife ‘take in strays’ and would like to save the world.  My daughter is the most spirited person in my life, and we have drifted apart and come back together many times.  She is a person who always gets what she wants, but mostly what she ‘wants’ is all wrong for her.   I have never much liked any of the men she’s been with,  although I don’t say so, and am just relieved when they’re gone, although also sad because I wish her happiness.

She told me my side of the family is all good, no big issues going on, but a lot of stuff going on with my husband’s side.  His father is not in good health and kind of done with living.  His mother will live to be 100.  (huge huge sigh from me…lol).  I did ask about W’s brother but she definitely skirted around that one, which makes me think the prognosis is probably not good.  For me, my blood pressure and circulation are possible areas of concern, and maybe some arthritis.  She told me I will have a stroke when I’m 93.  I made her repeat that number – how amazing if I live that long!  And she thinks the stroke might be fatal.  Gawd, at that age I don’t think I’d want any other outcome really.  She said I will never be rich, but will always be comfortably well off.  There is more money coming in the not too distant future.

She told me that I’m fed up and bored with my work and have lost all enthusiasm for it.  There is a move coming in the next 2 to 5 years, could even be sooner.  My husband does want to move and it’s possible that something will happen soon which will set the process in motion.  This next part of my life will see me being the happiest I’ve ever been, as long as I start preparing now deciding what I’m going to do with my time.  Otherwise I’ll sit around twiddling my thumbs going stir crazy.  She suggested that I like boats and fishing.  That got an eye roll.  I’m sure they’re in my future, but liking them is a stretch.  She also told me I think I don’t like to travel, but that it’s really something I secretly enjoy doing and I should do more of it.  There will be two trips this year, one inland and one having to do with an ocean, although not necessarily crossing it.  And this Christmas may be a good time to break with tradition and take a trip.  (Later Dana told me she and Jen have been thinking about a Mexican Christmas!  I’m sure they were wondering how they’d ever convince me to join them!!)  I’m so obviously a stick in the mud about so many things.

I have also come to a point in my life where I’m completely done with solving other people’s problems.  I just don’t want to do it anymore.  I want them to ‘get out of my head’.  She said that my sister and I are very different.  (Since other psychics have consistently told Ann she is a born healer, I will have to assume that a healer is something I definitely am not.)

Anyway, what can I say?  The whole process was just great fun.  Next time I’ll feed whoever it is a lot more information, and I’m sure that will give me a lot more interesting stuff in return.  And I’ll definitely dream up a few more questions!  Man, what a completely uncurious person I am.  Dana had her reading done right after mine, and I think the psychic quite enjoyed doing the mother/daughter thing.  There is a soul mate in Dana’s future!  I’m more excited about it than she is I think!!  Too funny.  We must just sit back and let the universe unfold as it should.  Or something like that.  And when you think about it, seriously, what else can you do?