4-23-08
Well, that silly twit dog of mine needed his second bath in a week this morning. His second one ever, for that matter. And for the same reason as the first. He lucked into a couple of rotting trout corpses, an unpleasant but common byproduct of the spring fishing season. Not content with merely finding such treasures, he naturally had to acquire some proof in order to convince me he wasn’t fibbing.
So he rolled in them, covering himself in dirt, blood and gore and enveloping his entire little body in a miasma of eau de rot.
You’ve never seen a happier dog.
He was a little less pleased with the bathtub but submitted with reasonably good grace. Worth it I suppose.
After the first time, I’d kept him on the leash until we were well past the area of the corpse he found. Today, he found another “treasure” further upstream. He’ll remain on the leash for the morning walks for the foreseeable future.
4-29-08
I’m definitely missing the solitary aspect of walking in winter. The paths are just too darn busy these days. Everybody and their brother-in-law and their dogs are out there enjoying Spring. Can’t say I blame them but comparatively, it feels like playing on the highway. Ben enjoys the face time with other dogs but is a little frustrated because on the morning walks he’s being kept on his leash (those rotting fish I mentioned earlier).
For the most part, our evening walks occur further from the creek, so I still let him off then, and will continue, despite what happened last evening. As usual, he was some 50 yards (meters) ahead of me, scouting. He disappeared from my sight briefly as I was rounding a turn. When I spotted him next, I groaned.
He was on his back and rocking joyfully from side to side. This is hardly ever a good sign. I hurried over and called him off. Luckily, this time the object of his affections was the carcass of a desiccated salmon. The fish died months ago and had sort of freeze-dried over the winter. I was hopeful that the taint wasn’t too bad, as he wasn’t covered in gore and slime as he had been on the earlier, bath-worthy occasions.
I rubbed his flank and then smelled my hand. Not too bad. I’ve smelled worse after a day of fishing. Pretty sure.
Anyway, shortly afterwards, we met up with a woman walking her white poodle which was leashed and approximately Ben’s size. Ben, of course, dashed toward them and began playfully circling the poodle, hoping for a romp and some mutual sniffing of naughty bits.
The woman, who was rather stylishly dressed and sported dark sunglasses, wasn’t overly thrilled with Ben’s attentions. I was told that “Princess” was nipped by another dog and was nervous of them. Princess appeared fine to me, curious and unafraid, but I called Ben off. It reminded me of how some moms will feel a chill and immediately put a sweater on their child who was blissfully unaware of being cold.
We let Princess and the Queen Mum get well ahead of us while I diverted Ben’s attention by tossing a stick.
About 10 minutes later though, our paths crossed again. By now we were nearing the road and I had Ben back on his leash. The Queen Mum was inclined to stop and chat this time, probably because Ben’s attentions were somewhat curtailed. As we spoke, she bent to pat him.
I almost said something about his earlier roll in the salmon carcass. My internal debate lasted for the two seconds it took for her hand to make contact with Ben’s fur. I decided to smile and nod instead as she stroked him and chatted about the weather.
A minute or so later we bid each other a pleasant good evening. She’d probably find out when she got back to her car, or home. Or maybe not. When Ben and I returned, I held him close and sniffed deeply.
He was fine. He just smelled like an old fishing buddy to me.
If we meet again, I expect the Queen Mum’s reaction at that time will tell me if she agrees.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Of Geese & Men: Spring Fishing Adventures II (#167)
If you haven’t read the first part of this story, you may do so by scrolling down the page a bit.
Approximately 150 yards south of where I was fishing, and on the opposite side of the creek, is a boat launch ramp and parking lot. The ramp is busy during the summer and fall months with pleasure boaters and salmon/trout fishermen. They launch their craft in the creek and putter south for half a mile until they reach the harbour and Lake Ontario.
A car with a canoe strapped to the roof appeared in the lot and gave me something new to look at. Two people got out of the vehicle, unstrapped the canoe and carried it to the water’s edge.
It was early afternoon now and the temperature had probably reached 10C (50F) under sunny skies but the water temperature was still only about 4C (39F). I couldn’t see the people very clearly but it seemed obvious they were not wearing floatation gear. After placing the canoe in the water, one of them returned from the car carrying two very old-fashioned, keyhole-type life preservers which were plopped into the bottom of the canoe.
I shook my head. If they were to overturn, hypothermia would set in quickly and there was zero chance they’d be able to don those antique life jackets while in the water. I hoped they had no intention of heading to the lake proper.
It seemed they didn’t. They pointed their canoe upstream and stroked their way toward me, politely staying close to the opposite shore where they were least likely to interfere with my fishing.
A russet-haired woman, in her early-mid 30s and wearing a heavy knit sweater, sat in the bow. I didn’t get much of an impression of the man in the stern except to note he also wore a sweater and some kind of off-white toque on his head.
They both waved as they passed and I waved back. As I watched them stroke their way upstream, my dismay at their old lifesaving gear was replaced by admiration for their paddling prowess.
They stroked and paused in unspoken unison, displaying a synchronicity that could only be born from hundreds of hours of togetherness. On every second stroke, the woman in the bow would rest her paddle on the gunnel for a two-count. The man would simply pause in mid-stroke, paddle blade hovering. Their strokes were precise and clean. The blades barely dripped. It was poetry. Too soon, they were out of sight.
Shortly after the canoeists passed, Mr. Couple, the lonely goose whose mate had been driven off by a rival, caught my attention again. He had been desultorily preening on the opposite bank when he suddenly waddled back into the water and began swimming southward, to my right. He was making soft noises, almost as if talking to himself, and was swimming with intent.
In a moment, I could see why. Swimming upstream to meet him was his lost lady love. I was amazed he could recognize her from such a distance. I’m fairly certain he didn’t hear her. There was something about her, perhaps her swimming style, that he recognized from over a hundred yards away. I was very pleased they’d found each other again.
So he wasn’t being blase (or a pig!) after all. He was just patiently awaiting his mate’s return. He had faith.
Men are such saints.
A half-hour after they’d disappeared upstream, the canoeists returned, this time a little closer to the middle of the creek. We chatted briefly about the lovely day as they passed me again. This time I noted that the man’s “off-white toque” was actually a thick head of grey-white hair. He seemed to be in his late 50s or early 60s and I wondered if they were a father/daughter or May/December pair. I hoped the former.
How wonderful to foster, then share, a much-loved activity throughout childhood and into adulthood, like my father and I did with fishing. It’s a priceless gift for both parent and child.
May have jumped the gun a tad when I declared the gander a non-pig. A few minutes after his mate’s return, he swam behind her and, in a flurry of splashing and honking, clambered atop her back, immersing her completely.
If the act I’m pretty sure he intended, actually occurred, I sure hope she was one of those rare, easy-to-please females because in two seconds they were back above water and swimming apart.
Men are so...efficient.
The shadows were lengthening. My thermos was empty. The fish, if any were indeed around, were too polite to disturb my half-day reverie. That other reality beckoned and I reluctantly packed my gear for the half-mile walk back to the car.
Several hours earlier, when I walked to the fishing spot, I passed a couple of mated pairs of geese swimming in the creek. Now, on the way back, they were on the shore and quite close to the path I was walking.
The two pair were about 100 yards apart. As I clomped past them in my hip waders, the males (I presume) hissed and muttered soft warnings. I could tell they didn’t want to have to mess with me but would, if I came too close. I reassured them, both verbally and via my body language, that I posed no threat. I avoided eye contact, spoke softly and didn’t break stride.
Men are so brave, respectful, and all-round admirable.
Maybe my next fishing adventure will feature a finned critter or two. Or not. Doesn’t matter. Fishing is always good.
Here's where I set up shop for the day. The rod on the left is ready for action. The rod leaning on the stick is already in action - sorta.
Mr. and Mrs. Couple, in a non-intimate moment.
Can you spot the froggie above?
Okay, how about now?
###
Approximately 150 yards south of where I was fishing, and on the opposite side of the creek, is a boat launch ramp and parking lot. The ramp is busy during the summer and fall months with pleasure boaters and salmon/trout fishermen. They launch their craft in the creek and putter south for half a mile until they reach the harbour and Lake Ontario.
A car with a canoe strapped to the roof appeared in the lot and gave me something new to look at. Two people got out of the vehicle, unstrapped the canoe and carried it to the water’s edge.
It was early afternoon now and the temperature had probably reached 10C (50F) under sunny skies but the water temperature was still only about 4C (39F). I couldn’t see the people very clearly but it seemed obvious they were not wearing floatation gear. After placing the canoe in the water, one of them returned from the car carrying two very old-fashioned, keyhole-type life preservers which were plopped into the bottom of the canoe.
I shook my head. If they were to overturn, hypothermia would set in quickly and there was zero chance they’d be able to don those antique life jackets while in the water. I hoped they had no intention of heading to the lake proper.
It seemed they didn’t. They pointed their canoe upstream and stroked their way toward me, politely staying close to the opposite shore where they were least likely to interfere with my fishing.
A russet-haired woman, in her early-mid 30s and wearing a heavy knit sweater, sat in the bow. I didn’t get much of an impression of the man in the stern except to note he also wore a sweater and some kind of off-white toque on his head.
They both waved as they passed and I waved back. As I watched them stroke their way upstream, my dismay at their old lifesaving gear was replaced by admiration for their paddling prowess.
They stroked and paused in unspoken unison, displaying a synchronicity that could only be born from hundreds of hours of togetherness. On every second stroke, the woman in the bow would rest her paddle on the gunnel for a two-count. The man would simply pause in mid-stroke, paddle blade hovering. Their strokes were precise and clean. The blades barely dripped. It was poetry. Too soon, they were out of sight.
###
Shortly after the canoeists passed, Mr. Couple, the lonely goose whose mate had been driven off by a rival, caught my attention again. He had been desultorily preening on the opposite bank when he suddenly waddled back into the water and began swimming southward, to my right. He was making soft noises, almost as if talking to himself, and was swimming with intent.
In a moment, I could see why. Swimming upstream to meet him was his lost lady love. I was amazed he could recognize her from such a distance. I’m fairly certain he didn’t hear her. There was something about her, perhaps her swimming style, that he recognized from over a hundred yards away. I was very pleased they’d found each other again.
So he wasn’t being blase (or a pig!) after all. He was just patiently awaiting his mate’s return. He had faith.
Men are such saints.
###
A half-hour after they’d disappeared upstream, the canoeists returned, this time a little closer to the middle of the creek. We chatted briefly about the lovely day as they passed me again. This time I noted that the man’s “off-white toque” was actually a thick head of grey-white hair. He seemed to be in his late 50s or early 60s and I wondered if they were a father/daughter or May/December pair. I hoped the former.
How wonderful to foster, then share, a much-loved activity throughout childhood and into adulthood, like my father and I did with fishing. It’s a priceless gift for both parent and child.
###
May have jumped the gun a tad when I declared the gander a non-pig. A few minutes after his mate’s return, he swam behind her and, in a flurry of splashing and honking, clambered atop her back, immersing her completely.
If the act I’m pretty sure he intended, actually occurred, I sure hope she was one of those rare, easy-to-please females because in two seconds they were back above water and swimming apart.
Men are so...efficient.
###
The shadows were lengthening. My thermos was empty. The fish, if any were indeed around, were too polite to disturb my half-day reverie. That other reality beckoned and I reluctantly packed my gear for the half-mile walk back to the car.
Several hours earlier, when I walked to the fishing spot, I passed a couple of mated pairs of geese swimming in the creek. Now, on the way back, they were on the shore and quite close to the path I was walking.
The two pair were about 100 yards apart. As I clomped past them in my hip waders, the males (I presume) hissed and muttered soft warnings. I could tell they didn’t want to have to mess with me but would, if I came too close. I reassured them, both verbally and via my body language, that I posed no threat. I avoided eye contact, spoke softly and didn’t break stride.
Men are so brave, respectful, and all-round admirable.
###
Maybe my next fishing adventure will feature a finned critter or two. Or not. Doesn’t matter. Fishing is always good.
Here's where I set up shop for the day. The rod on the left is ready for action. The rod leaning on the stick is already in action - sorta.
Mr. and Mrs. Couple, in a non-intimate moment.
Can you spot the froggie above?
Okay, how about now?
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Spring Fishing Adventures - Part One (#166)
Despite my outdoor enjoyment with Ben this winter, my spirit meter was still down a quart because it had been quite some time since I’d been fishing.
I remedied that over the last couple of days. Here’s Part One of what happened:
Finally! We have lovely, true-Spring weather with temperatures around 7C (45F). It was warmer in town, just a couple of miles north of where I fish, but my proximity to Lake Ontario subtracted a few degrees.
High water precluded fishing from my usual spot, so I set up shop at my second-favourite, the confluence of two creeks. Geese appeared to be pairing up. I spotted several couples on my walk in and a pair were nibbling at grass on the opposite bank from where I decided to fish, about 100 feet (30 metres) away.
Conditions weren’t conducive to actually catching a fish. The water was still too high and dingy and most of the trout had undoubtedly moved beyond this part of the creek, further north into spawning water. Those spawning grounds, parts of which include the area where Ben and I walk daily, were off-limits to anglers for 10 more days.
Which was fine. Because I didn’t come for the fish. I came for the fishing.
As expected, the underwater action was slow. After an hour, I quit drifting roe under a float, rigged up a worm on a slip-sinker rig, cast it out and set my rod down on a forked stick. I then commenced some serious idling.
Soon, I was ambling along the shoreline, peering amongst the flotsam for anything of interest. Spooking a frog was accompanied by a sudden realization:
For 50 years, ever since I was a kid, I’d do this when the fish weren’t biting. I’d wander the shoreline looking for frogs, crayfish, minnows and/or treasure. Treasure usually took the form of lost or forgotten fishing gear - a lure or a float, sometimes a knife or some coins.
I wasn’t to be disappointed this day either. As if spotting the frog wasn't enough, I found two floats tucked in amongst some reeds. One was of the balsa variety I use often, the other was a plastic model, more suited to a young angler. I kept the former and “hid” the latter on a branch of a nearby tree, at approximately the eye level of an eight-year-old.
Lunch was a fisherman’s feast and I nibbled at it over the course of the afternoon - a bag of pumpkin seeds, a couple of thick slices of kielbasa, a chunk of old cheddar and two mini-carrots so, if questioned, I could respond with a righteous “Of course I ate some vegetables!”
I choked down the carrots first so I could savour the good stuff. Dessert was a chocolate-covered granola bar and all of the above was washed down with hot, honeyed cups of tea from my thermos.
As I sipped and chewed, I watched and listened.
Geese nibbled grass and each other. The cries of soaring gulls swelled and faded as they dipped close, then away. The buzzy trill of redwing blackbirds was as near-constant as the distant hum of the highway. To the north, perhaps a mile away, four turkey vultures circled slowly. I pitied da’ food.
Every hour or so, the peace was shattered by a mournful whistle heralding the rumbling approach of a train at the nearby crossing. For a thunderous few seconds, as it blasted its whistle yet again, all other sounds disappeared. Then, after the train’s departure, like cautious children peeking around a corner after a parental quarrel, the birds re-took up their songs.
The pair of geese I considered a couple were in the shallows on the opposite side of the creek when two other geese paddled their way upstream. The newcomers passed on my side of the creek, about 20 feet in front of me.
Well, I guess they got too darn close for Mr. Couple’s liking and he tore after both, skittering across the top of the water, half flying and half running, all the while honking and hissing his outrage. He veered towards the goose in the lead and chased it upstream, to the north. I heard the commotion but my view was blocked by some trees.
The trailing newcomer suddenly flew towards Mrs. Couple, who had been left defenseless on the opposite shore. Trumpeting her alarm, she dashed off to the south, the newcomer in hot pursuit, only inches behind. As they flew past me, I could almost feel the concussion of their wing beats. Within seconds, they too were out of my sight.
A moment later, Mr. Couple’s triumphant return from chasing off one challenger was ruined by the realization there’d be no hero-welcoming nuzzle from Mrs. Couple.
She was gone.
I felt badly for Mr. Couple as he swam back and forth in front of me, bugling softly. He stopped calling within a few minutes though, and seemed to resume his normal behaviour - preening and feeding.
Men are such pigs.
To be continued....
I remedied that over the last couple of days. Here’s Part One of what happened:
###
Finally! We have lovely, true-Spring weather with temperatures around 7C (45F). It was warmer in town, just a couple of miles north of where I fish, but my proximity to Lake Ontario subtracted a few degrees.
High water precluded fishing from my usual spot, so I set up shop at my second-favourite, the confluence of two creeks. Geese appeared to be pairing up. I spotted several couples on my walk in and a pair were nibbling at grass on the opposite bank from where I decided to fish, about 100 feet (30 metres) away.
Conditions weren’t conducive to actually catching a fish. The water was still too high and dingy and most of the trout had undoubtedly moved beyond this part of the creek, further north into spawning water. Those spawning grounds, parts of which include the area where Ben and I walk daily, were off-limits to anglers for 10 more days.
Which was fine. Because I didn’t come for the fish. I came for the fishing.
###
As expected, the underwater action was slow. After an hour, I quit drifting roe under a float, rigged up a worm on a slip-sinker rig, cast it out and set my rod down on a forked stick. I then commenced some serious idling.
Soon, I was ambling along the shoreline, peering amongst the flotsam for anything of interest. Spooking a frog was accompanied by a sudden realization:
For 50 years, ever since I was a kid, I’d do this when the fish weren’t biting. I’d wander the shoreline looking for frogs, crayfish, minnows and/or treasure. Treasure usually took the form of lost or forgotten fishing gear - a lure or a float, sometimes a knife or some coins.
I wasn’t to be disappointed this day either. As if spotting the frog wasn't enough, I found two floats tucked in amongst some reeds. One was of the balsa variety I use often, the other was a plastic model, more suited to a young angler. I kept the former and “hid” the latter on a branch of a nearby tree, at approximately the eye level of an eight-year-old.
###
Lunch was a fisherman’s feast and I nibbled at it over the course of the afternoon - a bag of pumpkin seeds, a couple of thick slices of kielbasa, a chunk of old cheddar and two mini-carrots so, if questioned, I could respond with a righteous “Of course I ate some vegetables!”
I choked down the carrots first so I could savour the good stuff. Dessert was a chocolate-covered granola bar and all of the above was washed down with hot, honeyed cups of tea from my thermos.
As I sipped and chewed, I watched and listened.
Geese nibbled grass and each other. The cries of soaring gulls swelled and faded as they dipped close, then away. The buzzy trill of redwing blackbirds was as near-constant as the distant hum of the highway. To the north, perhaps a mile away, four turkey vultures circled slowly. I pitied da’ food.
Every hour or so, the peace was shattered by a mournful whistle heralding the rumbling approach of a train at the nearby crossing. For a thunderous few seconds, as it blasted its whistle yet again, all other sounds disappeared. Then, after the train’s departure, like cautious children peeking around a corner after a parental quarrel, the birds re-took up their songs.
###
The pair of geese I considered a couple were in the shallows on the opposite side of the creek when two other geese paddled their way upstream. The newcomers passed on my side of the creek, about 20 feet in front of me.
Well, I guess they got too darn close for Mr. Couple’s liking and he tore after both, skittering across the top of the water, half flying and half running, all the while honking and hissing his outrage. He veered towards the goose in the lead and chased it upstream, to the north. I heard the commotion but my view was blocked by some trees.
The trailing newcomer suddenly flew towards Mrs. Couple, who had been left defenseless on the opposite shore. Trumpeting her alarm, she dashed off to the south, the newcomer in hot pursuit, only inches behind. As they flew past me, I could almost feel the concussion of their wing beats. Within seconds, they too were out of my sight.
A moment later, Mr. Couple’s triumphant return from chasing off one challenger was ruined by the realization there’d be no hero-welcoming nuzzle from Mrs. Couple.
She was gone.
I felt badly for Mr. Couple as he swam back and forth in front of me, bugling softly. He stopped calling within a few minutes though, and seemed to resume his normal behaviour - preening and feeding.
Men are such pigs.
###
To be continued....
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Sticks & Pups & Play (#165)
Yep, another excerpt from Walking With Benny.
3-26-08
Last evening’s walk was a misery. A wind-whipped rain (one degree colder and there’s another word for it) made me glad for my hood. My gloves were soon soaked and do not retain heat at all well when wet. By the time we returned, Ben was shivering and needed to be toweled off. (Don’t feel sorry for him. Within seconds, he was playing tug-of-war with the towel.)
So I was pleased to awaken to a sunny day that was a couple of degrees on the happy side of freezing.
Last night’s rain was still frozen in the shaded areas, so I had to tippy-toe for part of the walk but the sunshine and warmth made up for that temporary discomfort. The birds were still singing their fool heads off except, of course, for the gulls and crows. They can’t sing a lick. They screeched and cawed their fool heads off though; sounding just as happy, if a trifle less melodic, than their kin.
I joined them occasionally, in a dignified manner. My caw has promise but I think I’ll retire my screech.
Ben is learning the Joy of Sticks. He seeks them out now, especially when I’ve stopped to do something boring like listen to a set of rapids or try to spot a calling bird. His favourites are moist and heavily barked. These shred easily and really, what good is a chew if it doesn’t make some kind of a mess? Like most pups, he was gifted in this area. At eight weeks of age, he could turn a single tissue into 273 pieces and distribute them throughout three rooms. In less than a minute. The lad was a prodigy. And a bit spooky.
Anyway, for a goodly portion of our walks these days, he’s either happily carrying or happily destroying a stick. It’s quite comical to watch at times. He’s especially proud when he manages to snag a long one, a three-footer or so. Of course, it’s whip-thin but to look at this wee dog prancing down the path, head and tail proudly erect, you’d think he just broke a stick-carrying world record and he’s basking in the huzzahs of the cheering throng.
And then I lunge - as if to steal it - and the game is on.
My thunderfeet are no match for his limber legs and he knows it. He taunts me, scampering some distance ahead, then laying down for a quick gnaw while never taking his eyes off my lumbering progress.
I give up. I stand erect, lower my arms from their vaguely menacing, gonna-grab-that-stick position, and walk more quickly, not looking at him. I am obviously tiring of the game. He dances ever closer with the stick, alert for any untoward movement of mine. He suspects I’m likely feigning. I mean, who wouldn't want such a yummy stick?
Another lunge, a quick dodge, and he’s off again, grinning.
Maybe I’m too old and too clumsy to win at this game (although I prefer to blame my heavy winter boots and clothing) but you’re never too old to play, right?
3-26-08
Last evening’s walk was a misery. A wind-whipped rain (one degree colder and there’s another word for it) made me glad for my hood. My gloves were soon soaked and do not retain heat at all well when wet. By the time we returned, Ben was shivering and needed to be toweled off. (Don’t feel sorry for him. Within seconds, he was playing tug-of-war with the towel.)
So I was pleased to awaken to a sunny day that was a couple of degrees on the happy side of freezing.
Last night’s rain was still frozen in the shaded areas, so I had to tippy-toe for part of the walk but the sunshine and warmth made up for that temporary discomfort. The birds were still singing their fool heads off except, of course, for the gulls and crows. They can’t sing a lick. They screeched and cawed their fool heads off though; sounding just as happy, if a trifle less melodic, than their kin.
I joined them occasionally, in a dignified manner. My caw has promise but I think I’ll retire my screech.
Ben is learning the Joy of Sticks. He seeks them out now, especially when I’ve stopped to do something boring like listen to a set of rapids or try to spot a calling bird. His favourites are moist and heavily barked. These shred easily and really, what good is a chew if it doesn’t make some kind of a mess? Like most pups, he was gifted in this area. At eight weeks of age, he could turn a single tissue into 273 pieces and distribute them throughout three rooms. In less than a minute. The lad was a prodigy. And a bit spooky.
Anyway, for a goodly portion of our walks these days, he’s either happily carrying or happily destroying a stick. It’s quite comical to watch at times. He’s especially proud when he manages to snag a long one, a three-footer or so. Of course, it’s whip-thin but to look at this wee dog prancing down the path, head and tail proudly erect, you’d think he just broke a stick-carrying world record and he’s basking in the huzzahs of the cheering throng.
And then I lunge - as if to steal it - and the game is on.
My thunderfeet are no match for his limber legs and he knows it. He taunts me, scampering some distance ahead, then laying down for a quick gnaw while never taking his eyes off my lumbering progress.
I give up. I stand erect, lower my arms from their vaguely menacing, gonna-grab-that-stick position, and walk more quickly, not looking at him. I am obviously tiring of the game. He dances ever closer with the stick, alert for any untoward movement of mine. He suspects I’m likely feigning. I mean, who wouldn't want such a yummy stick?
Another lunge, a quick dodge, and he’s off again, grinning.
Maybe I’m too old and too clumsy to win at this game (although I prefer to blame my heavy winter boots and clothing) but you’re never too old to play, right?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
A Pictorial Farewell (I Hope) To Winter (#164)
Some winter mornings are Creator-kissed and glisten with near-blinding brilliance. (Click on the pictures for a larger view.)
My eyes can rest a bit in the relative gloom of the cedar grove.
On another day, a warmer one, mist adds to the beauty and mood, almost softening the jagged chunks of ice in the foreground.
Views like this are our reward for enduring weeks of below-freezing temperatures and shoveling tons of snow.
A small tree in my backyard bows under its snowy burden. After taking the shot, I stepped outside, shook off the snow and the tree sprang back up, I trust, gratefully.
In a few short weeks, the cushions will be back on the chairs and I'll be sitting there, enjoying a beverage.
I hope. I really, really hope. This has been a lovely, Currier-&-Ives-like, but overly-long winter.
My eyes can rest a bit in the relative gloom of the cedar grove.
On another day, a warmer one, mist adds to the beauty and mood, almost softening the jagged chunks of ice in the foreground.
Views like this are our reward for enduring weeks of below-freezing temperatures and shoveling tons of snow.
A small tree in my backyard bows under its snowy burden. After taking the shot, I stepped outside, shook off the snow and the tree sprang back up, I trust, gratefully.
In a few short weeks, the cushions will be back on the chairs and I'll be sitting there, enjoying a beverage.
I hope. I really, really hope. This has been a lovely, Currier-&-Ives-like, but overly-long winter.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Pillow Talk (#163)
It’s been closer to me, for longer, than anything else in my life. For more than thirty-five years I shared with it my dreams, my hopes, my despair, my tears, my prayers. Virtually every day. More accurately, every night.
“It” is an overstuffed, feather-filled pillow that might once have belonged to my grandmother or great-grandmother. It weighs in at a still-hefty 8-10 pounds. I can’t recall precisely when I took possession of it but it was probably when I left home for university in 1971. And it wasn't new then.
It is a wonderful pillow. I travel with it. In the nearly forty years we’ve been together, I don’t think we’ve slept apart much more than a dozen times.
Holy moley. That’s through two marriages, a dozen jobs and umpteen moves. Thousands and thousands of nights. At approximately eight hours a night that’s over a hundred thousand hours of cradling my head.
How many of you can say you’ve had any part of yourselves cradled by the same thing for over 100,000 hours? (Hair doesn’t count.)
I don’t see any hands. And I’m squinting.
So you can imagine how I felt when my pillow began falling apart a few years ago. Oh, I didn’t panic. I mean, a few feathers were working their way out. Big deal. It happens. As some of the exit holes became dime-sized though, I began to worry a bit. Not overly, because I did as any graduate of the Red Green School Of Handymanhood would do - I duct taped ‘em.
And that worked reasonably well for a few years, even when the holes became tears. Who cares if a pillow sports a few bits of tape here and there? Like laugh lines, they add character.
Lately though, every time I change the pillowcase, a few dozen loose feathers appear from new breaches. The tape isn’t holding very well any more and it appears the fabric itself is disintegrating.
The only logical conclusion of course, is to never change pillowcases again. Good job God invented Febreze. Just in time too.
I felt pretty good about that decision until I realized a complaint or two might eventually be voiced from someone else who may be sleeping in the same vicinity. So, the second most logical plan was to put another pillowcase on, a really good quality one, pull it sort of tight, sew it closed and trim off the extra fabric - making the pillowcase the new pillow. In a way.
And that’s what I meant to do as soon as I could talk someone with a sewing machine into doing it for me. I had high hopes for one of my sisters but was uncertain if any of them owned a sewing machine.
My fallback was sister-in-law Linda, who is Dutch. Dutch people own everything ever invented that has anything to do with housework or cleanliness. In fact, they own two of them, just in case. If she didn’t own a sewing machine it would only be because she could do a better job, and faster, by hand.
So that was my plan. As plans go, I felt it was one of my better ones.
Until last Thursday.
Last Thursday, someone who shall remain nameless (it was Hilary) mused aloud.
“There must be millions upon millions of dust mites in that old pillow of yours. Possibly billions.”
Now, at the time those words were spoken, my head was resting upon that “old pillow” of mine. Upon it and billions of swarming dust mites - surging through the breaches of my pillow’s oft-taped hull.
It was time to abandon ship.
For four nights now, my pillow has laid on the floor beside my bed. For four nights now, I have subjected my head to the indignity of either a foam or too-poofy new feathered pillow.
I have not slept well.
If I wanted to punch a temporary dent in my pillow to accommodate some part of my anatomy, a tender ear or achey jaw, it would stay punched. Not like foam or too-poofy new feathered pillows, which insist on pressing against every single part of your head.
I’ll probably have to go to some expensive store and part with hundreds of dollars for a densely-packed feathered pillow. Maybe I’ll even have to get one custom made. Because I can’t very well ask anyone to sew a new pillowcase on something that is disintegrating and is chock-ful of gazillions of dust mites can I?
Unless...unless someone...someone like, oh, I don’t know let’s say Linda - sees it as a challenge. I mean, if anyone on the planet could hermetically seal a near-forty-year-old disintegrating pillow teeming with hordes of disgruntled dust mites, it would pretty much have to be a person of Dutch descent.
Wouldn’t it?
“It” is an overstuffed, feather-filled pillow that might once have belonged to my grandmother or great-grandmother. It weighs in at a still-hefty 8-10 pounds. I can’t recall precisely when I took possession of it but it was probably when I left home for university in 1971. And it wasn't new then.
It is a wonderful pillow. I travel with it. In the nearly forty years we’ve been together, I don’t think we’ve slept apart much more than a dozen times.
Holy moley. That’s through two marriages, a dozen jobs and umpteen moves. Thousands and thousands of nights. At approximately eight hours a night that’s over a hundred thousand hours of cradling my head.
How many of you can say you’ve had any part of yourselves cradled by the same thing for over 100,000 hours? (Hair doesn’t count.)
I don’t see any hands. And I’m squinting.
So you can imagine how I felt when my pillow began falling apart a few years ago. Oh, I didn’t panic. I mean, a few feathers were working their way out. Big deal. It happens. As some of the exit holes became dime-sized though, I began to worry a bit. Not overly, because I did as any graduate of the Red Green School Of Handymanhood would do - I duct taped ‘em.
And that worked reasonably well for a few years, even when the holes became tears. Who cares if a pillow sports a few bits of tape here and there? Like laugh lines, they add character.
Lately though, every time I change the pillowcase, a few dozen loose feathers appear from new breaches. The tape isn’t holding very well any more and it appears the fabric itself is disintegrating.
The only logical conclusion of course, is to never change pillowcases again. Good job God invented Febreze. Just in time too.
I felt pretty good about that decision until I realized a complaint or two might eventually be voiced from someone else who may be sleeping in the same vicinity. So, the second most logical plan was to put another pillowcase on, a really good quality one, pull it sort of tight, sew it closed and trim off the extra fabric - making the pillowcase the new pillow. In a way.
And that’s what I meant to do as soon as I could talk someone with a sewing machine into doing it for me. I had high hopes for one of my sisters but was uncertain if any of them owned a sewing machine.
My fallback was sister-in-law Linda, who is Dutch. Dutch people own everything ever invented that has anything to do with housework or cleanliness. In fact, they own two of them, just in case. If she didn’t own a sewing machine it would only be because she could do a better job, and faster, by hand.
So that was my plan. As plans go, I felt it was one of my better ones.
Until last Thursday.
Last Thursday, someone who shall remain nameless (it was Hilary) mused aloud.
“There must be millions upon millions of dust mites in that old pillow of yours. Possibly billions.”
Now, at the time those words were spoken, my head was resting upon that “old pillow” of mine. Upon it and billions of swarming dust mites - surging through the breaches of my pillow’s oft-taped hull.
It was time to abandon ship.
For four nights now, my pillow has laid on the floor beside my bed. For four nights now, I have subjected my head to the indignity of either a foam or too-poofy new feathered pillow.
I have not slept well.
If I wanted to punch a temporary dent in my pillow to accommodate some part of my anatomy, a tender ear or achey jaw, it would stay punched. Not like foam or too-poofy new feathered pillows, which insist on pressing against every single part of your head.
I’ll probably have to go to some expensive store and part with hundreds of dollars for a densely-packed feathered pillow. Maybe I’ll even have to get one custom made. Because I can’t very well ask anyone to sew a new pillowcase on something that is disintegrating and is chock-ful of gazillions of dust mites can I?
Unless...unless someone...someone like, oh, I don’t know let’s say Linda - sees it as a challenge. I mean, if anyone on the planet could hermetically seal a near-forty-year-old disintegrating pillow teeming with hordes of disgruntled dust mites, it would pretty much have to be a person of Dutch descent.
Wouldn’t it?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Walking With Benny (#162)
As previously threatened, er, promised, I'm going to post excerpts now and then from a journal I've been writing about my walks with Benny, a young Jack Russell Terrier. During the course of these walks - which mostly take place in woods and fields near my home - we learn about each other and some of the small wonders of Nature. Regular readers know I'm a big fan of the philosopher Yogi Berra. One of his pronouncements which has always resonated with me is "You can observe a lot just by watching."
When Ben allows it, I watch and listen. When I allow it, he sniffs and digs. It evens out. Yogi would be pleased.
The weather prophets were on their game again. We’re in the midst of a major winter storm. There’s already a few inches on the ground and it’s still coming down hard, driven by a fierce wind. I almost decided not to go out at all until I thought of those hungry ducks. I’d go at least as far as the pond.
And we did. Thank goodness we didn’t try to go further because I was puffing like a bellows and my heart was thumping like a bunny by the time we got there. My fall-free winter also came to a crashing halt.
Twice. And before I even got to the end of the street.
Sheesh. What a revoltin’ development. There was glare ice under those several inches of powdery snow. Both times I went down on my left side and popped (nearly) immediately back up - my dignity smarting more than my knee or hip. Ben glanced back each time and I imagined I saw a shrug before he returned to his own thoughts.
There was some small respite from the stinging, wind-driven snow when we got to the cedar grove. I took advantage of that to slow down and rest a bit. My thigh muscles had forgotten what they’d learned during the last big snowfall a month ago.
I reviewed my decision to not try to get to the main birdfeeding stations today. It made sense, and not only from the standpoint of my health. After slogging my way up there, I’d have to clear the accumulated snow from the boulders and logs and spread seed, knowing that in 20 minutes it would be covered up again with a fresh dusting of snow. It wasn’t unusually cold and the birds and squirrels I’d helped fatten up would be just fine.
There were about four dozen ducks at the pond and they were hungry. I was glad I’d come.
As I tossed bread, I was thinking about letting Ben off his leash on the way back home. It would be for the first time when walking along our usual route. The foreshortened walk wouldn’t diminish his energy level much and that didn’t bode well for a pester-free couple of hours to write when we got back. But if allowed to run free, he could put a couple of extra kilometres on his pawdometer while zigging and zagging hither and yon.
Nobody else seemed interested in walking in a blizzard, so there was little chance of an unwelcome encounter with a dog or a person. I wasn’t at all convinced Ben would respond to my call if he smelled, saw, or heard something wonderful in the opposite direction. It was the main reason I'd kept him leashed at all times.
When we’d left the pond behind and were re-entering the grove, I called to him. He trotted up, looking puzzled as I bent down and reached for his collar.
“Listen buddy. I’m taking the leash off but you MUST come when I call or this will be a one-time, never-to-be-repeated experience. Kapeesh?”
He gave me that endearing look that pets get when they’re thinking what a whack-job you are.
But as soon as I unclicked the leash and stood up with it in my hand, he realized his good fortune and was off like a shot.
It went pretty well, all in all. I had to call him a couple of times when he disappeared from view and each time he ran back and waited for me to get closer before venturing off again. It was fun to watch him gamboling like a young colt, running pell-mell then leaping, landing, skidding, and veering off in a new direction to do it all again.
When we were within 200 yards of the roadway I called him and got the leash out of the bag so he could see it. He was surprisingly patient and held still while my gloved fingers fumbled with the clasp. He was shivering. Silly twit insists on eating fresh snow and it freezes him from the inside out.
Hmm...his compliance probably had much to do with the fact he was quite ready to get home, have breakfast and warm up.
So while I was pleased with how this test went, I know enough about my headstrong JRT buddy that I’m not going to assume we’ll have the same result next time.
If you're interested in other stories, pictures and even a video or two about Benny, then you'd best visit Hilary's blog and scroll through some of her past posts. Many feature Benny and his antics.
When Ben allows it, I watch and listen. When I allow it, he sniffs and digs. It evens out. Yogi would be pleased.
###
The weather prophets were on their game again. We’re in the midst of a major winter storm. There’s already a few inches on the ground and it’s still coming down hard, driven by a fierce wind. I almost decided not to go out at all until I thought of those hungry ducks. I’d go at least as far as the pond.
And we did. Thank goodness we didn’t try to go further because I was puffing like a bellows and my heart was thumping like a bunny by the time we got there. My fall-free winter also came to a crashing halt.
Twice. And before I even got to the end of the street.
Sheesh. What a revoltin’ development. There was glare ice under those several inches of powdery snow. Both times I went down on my left side and popped (nearly) immediately back up - my dignity smarting more than my knee or hip. Ben glanced back each time and I imagined I saw a shrug before he returned to his own thoughts.
There was some small respite from the stinging, wind-driven snow when we got to the cedar grove. I took advantage of that to slow down and rest a bit. My thigh muscles had forgotten what they’d learned during the last big snowfall a month ago.
I reviewed my decision to not try to get to the main birdfeeding stations today. It made sense, and not only from the standpoint of my health. After slogging my way up there, I’d have to clear the accumulated snow from the boulders and logs and spread seed, knowing that in 20 minutes it would be covered up again with a fresh dusting of snow. It wasn’t unusually cold and the birds and squirrels I’d helped fatten up would be just fine.
###
There were about four dozen ducks at the pond and they were hungry. I was glad I’d come.
As I tossed bread, I was thinking about letting Ben off his leash on the way back home. It would be for the first time when walking along our usual route. The foreshortened walk wouldn’t diminish his energy level much and that didn’t bode well for a pester-free couple of hours to write when we got back. But if allowed to run free, he could put a couple of extra kilometres on his pawdometer while zigging and zagging hither and yon.
Nobody else seemed interested in walking in a blizzard, so there was little chance of an unwelcome encounter with a dog or a person. I wasn’t at all convinced Ben would respond to my call if he smelled, saw, or heard something wonderful in the opposite direction. It was the main reason I'd kept him leashed at all times.
When we’d left the pond behind and were re-entering the grove, I called to him. He trotted up, looking puzzled as I bent down and reached for his collar.
“Listen buddy. I’m taking the leash off but you MUST come when I call or this will be a one-time, never-to-be-repeated experience. Kapeesh?”
He gave me that endearing look that pets get when they’re thinking what a whack-job you are.
But as soon as I unclicked the leash and stood up with it in my hand, he realized his good fortune and was off like a shot.
It went pretty well, all in all. I had to call him a couple of times when he disappeared from view and each time he ran back and waited for me to get closer before venturing off again. It was fun to watch him gamboling like a young colt, running pell-mell then leaping, landing, skidding, and veering off in a new direction to do it all again.
When we were within 200 yards of the roadway I called him and got the leash out of the bag so he could see it. He was surprisingly patient and held still while my gloved fingers fumbled with the clasp. He was shivering. Silly twit insists on eating fresh snow and it freezes him from the inside out.
Hmm...his compliance probably had much to do with the fact he was quite ready to get home, have breakfast and warm up.
So while I was pleased with how this test went, I know enough about my headstrong JRT buddy that I’m not going to assume we’ll have the same result next time.
###
If you're interested in other stories, pictures and even a video or two about Benny, then you'd best visit Hilary's blog and scroll through some of her past posts. Many feature Benny and his antics.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Some Things That Are Good (Issue #161)
A smile from a child.
Being appreciated.
Appreciating.
Watching puppies, kittens or children at play.
Finding exactly what you’re looking for, on sale.
Having someone in your life who remembers your birthday.
Hope.
Finding just the right words.
Holding a loved one’s hand.
Sitting in front of a campfire.
A hard-fought, well-played game.
Sipping good whiskey with a good friend and hardly talking at all.
Learning something new.
Realizing an acquaintanceship has ripened into a friendship.
Watching a released fish swim away.
Laughing.
Being appreciated.
Appreciating.
Watching puppies, kittens or children at play.
Finding exactly what you’re looking for, on sale.
Having someone in your life who remembers your birthday.
Hope.
Finding just the right words.
Holding a loved one’s hand.
Sitting in front of a campfire.
A hard-fought, well-played game.
Sipping good whiskey with a good friend and hardly talking at all.
Learning something new.
Realizing an acquaintanceship has ripened into a friendship.
Watching a released fish swim away.
Laughing.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Art of Multitasking (Issue #160)
You hear a lot these days about multitasking. My parents would have referred to it as “busy.” I guess, like “domestic engineer,” it’s a dressed-up word for an everyday kind of a thing. It seems kids have co-opted it now though. It can still mean “busy” but sometimes it means “don’t wanna.”
“Son, I asked you refill the humidifier two hours ago.”
“Dad! I’m multitasking here!”
“No, you’re not. You’re playing a video game and breathing through your mouth. That doesn’t count.”
Kids. And they have the gall to complain when someone really is multitasking.
“Dad, how long you gonna be?”
“Why?”
“I left my watch in there after my shower.”
“Oh, I dunno. Maybe another 15-20 minutes. Hard to say.”
“Jeez! You know, some people can go to the bathroom in less than an hour.”
“So? Some people can turn their eyelids inside out. Others eat insects. And some cheer for the Yankees. Doesn’t mean I have to.”
“But an hour in the bathroom? And you’re just sitting there!”
“Ha! I am not just sitting here! I am multitasking! I have the radio on to listen to the news, which, by the way, I can no longer hear at the moment. I have my large mug of tea from which I sip from time to time. This gives me some caffeine, enough so that I am able to maintain a pleasant disposition and not lose my temper with inconsiderate sons who yell through bathroom doors and disturb their father. I am also working on a crossword puzzle. The New York Times’. In ink.”
“Big whoop.”
“Besides, it’s hardly ever an hour. These days, my legs fall asleep at around the 30-40 minute mark. Lemme tell ya, it’s heck getting old.”
He left before I could elaborate.
My sons think because they can walk and listen to an iPod and hardly ever fall down, they’re whizzes at multitasking.
I just wonder how well they’d do if they were daydreaming while fishing. It’s not easy to notice a disappearing bobber and still set the hook in time while rescuing Susan Sarandon from a rampaging buffalo as that Tim Robbins guy cowers in fear.
And let them just try playing Cribbage with their Significant Other and making the appropriate conversational noises while peeking over her shoulder at the tv to keep tabs on the game.
It takes patience, wisdom, experience and a heck of a lot of trial n’ error to evolve into a competent multitasker. And perseverance. Mustn’t forget that one. You can’t let the occasional little faux pas derail your development. Once in a while, you’re gonna answer the tv remote when the phone rings. It happens. Just shrug it off and get back to reading the paper, munching chips and watching the game. If you’re still feeling a little bad, use the picture-in-picture function and watch two games.
Some people though, like in just about every human endeavour, take it to an absurd extreme.
We’ve all either seen or heard about the woman driving down the highway at 120 kph (70mph), holding a newspaper and cup of coffee in one hand while applying her makeup with the other and talking on her cell phone.
Dumb as a bag of doorknobs. Not only will she retain very little of what she reads, she’s apt to smear her mascara and everybody at work will laugh at her.
“Son, I asked you refill the humidifier two hours ago.”
“Dad! I’m multitasking here!”
“No, you’re not. You’re playing a video game and breathing through your mouth. That doesn’t count.”
Kids. And they have the gall to complain when someone really is multitasking.
“Dad, how long you gonna be?”
“Why?”
“I left my watch in there after my shower.”
“Oh, I dunno. Maybe another 15-20 minutes. Hard to say.”
“Jeez! You know, some people can go to the bathroom in less than an hour.”
“So? Some people can turn their eyelids inside out. Others eat insects. And some cheer for the Yankees. Doesn’t mean I have to.”
“But an hour in the bathroom? And you’re just sitting there!”
“Ha! I am not just sitting here! I am multitasking! I have the radio on to listen to the news, which, by the way, I can no longer hear at the moment. I have my large mug of tea from which I sip from time to time. This gives me some caffeine, enough so that I am able to maintain a pleasant disposition and not lose my temper with inconsiderate sons who yell through bathroom doors and disturb their father. I am also working on a crossword puzzle. The New York Times’. In ink.”
“Big whoop.”
“Besides, it’s hardly ever an hour. These days, my legs fall asleep at around the 30-40 minute mark. Lemme tell ya, it’s heck getting old.”
He left before I could elaborate.
My sons think because they can walk and listen to an iPod and hardly ever fall down, they’re whizzes at multitasking.
I just wonder how well they’d do if they were daydreaming while fishing. It’s not easy to notice a disappearing bobber and still set the hook in time while rescuing Susan Sarandon from a rampaging buffalo as that Tim Robbins guy cowers in fear.
And let them just try playing Cribbage with their Significant Other and making the appropriate conversational noises while peeking over her shoulder at the tv to keep tabs on the game.
It takes patience, wisdom, experience and a heck of a lot of trial n’ error to evolve into a competent multitasker. And perseverance. Mustn’t forget that one. You can’t let the occasional little faux pas derail your development. Once in a while, you’re gonna answer the tv remote when the phone rings. It happens. Just shrug it off and get back to reading the paper, munching chips and watching the game. If you’re still feeling a little bad, use the picture-in-picture function and watch two games.
Some people though, like in just about every human endeavour, take it to an absurd extreme.
We’ve all either seen or heard about the woman driving down the highway at 120 kph (70mph), holding a newspaper and cup of coffee in one hand while applying her makeup with the other and talking on her cell phone.
Dumb as a bag of doorknobs. Not only will she retain very little of what she reads, she’s apt to smear her mascara and everybody at work will laugh at her.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
A Few Fall/Winter Photos
I've amassed quite a few pics over the last several months. Here's a few of them.
Morning light is often misty and magical near water.
A couple of leaves cling desperately, postponing joining their fallen brethren by hours - maybe a day or two.
I had several encounters with herons in the summer and fall of '07. I'll be writing more about them.
Cold winter sunsets often offer their own stark beauty.
Mrs. Cardinal shows she's hardly dowdy, even compared to her flashy mate. My apologies for the blurriness. We can blame shooting through a window and a klutzy photographer.
A few weeks ago, rising temperatures and a prolonged rain resulted in the release of an ice jam upstream. It drifted down, clobbering everything in its path and nearly overlapping this bridge. Benny wasn't overly pleased with all the ice OR the fact I had to stop and take pictures.
A little closer look at how high the ice floes rose.
Morning light is often misty and magical near water.
A couple of leaves cling desperately, postponing joining their fallen brethren by hours - maybe a day or two.
I had several encounters with herons in the summer and fall of '07. I'll be writing more about them.
Cold winter sunsets often offer their own stark beauty.
Mrs. Cardinal shows she's hardly dowdy, even compared to her flashy mate. My apologies for the blurriness. We can blame shooting through a window and a klutzy photographer.
A few weeks ago, rising temperatures and a prolonged rain resulted in the release of an ice jam upstream. It drifted down, clobbering everything in its path and nearly overlapping this bridge. Benny wasn't overly pleased with all the ice OR the fact I had to stop and take pictures.
A little closer look at how high the ice floes rose.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Some Christmas Memories (Issue #159)
When I was a child I was considered the luckiest kid in my class, at least once a year. Every January, around the 6th or 7th, I got to take the day off school - for a sort of religious holiday.
Not a boring old, spend-half-the-day-at-church religious holiday. Nuh-uh. It was Ukrainian Christmas.
Say it with me: Back-to-back Christmases. Every year.
I can still taste the triumph as I reminded my friends I wouldn’t be in the next day. Their envy was palpable, even when I explained there would “only” be one gift under the tree for me at my grandparents’ and it was usually clothes. You could still colour them green even when Ukrainian Christmas landed on a weekend.
It was celebrated every year at my maternal grandparents’ farm, about 20 miles from where we lived. Gramma and Gigi were dairy farmers for the most part, though Gigi switched to raising beef cattle in his later years.
They were born Out West,* in Selkirk, Manitoba and moved to Ontario when my mother was in her late teens. Every year since I could remember, we’d gather at Gramma and Gigi’s a couple of weeks after the “big” Christmas to celebrate our smaller one.
Let’s part the sepia curtains and see what’s playing at Memory Theater this morning....
Gramma and Gigi lived on three different properties in three different houses within my memory. But the structures and colours seem fluid and meld into one another. The people and the smells and the laughter were the same though, so essentially there was only one farmhouse.
It was big. The rooms were all big. Only the gathering of the clan at Christmas could shrink them.
Tables were pushed end-to-end and followed the contours of the room. The kids sat at one end, the adults at the other. I remember my sense of pride when I realized I’d graduated somewhere around the age of 16.
The food. Oh my goodness, the food.
Big Baba, my grandmother’s mother and the family fortune teller, ladles doughnuts, poondiki (dough stuffed with dates) and other delicacies into, around, and finally - golden and delicious - out of, a large vat of hot oil.
To us older kids, cousin Linda, me, and my sister Theresa, she entrusts the critically important task of dusting the hot pastries with icing sugar.
Naturally, we felt it our solemn duty to taste-test the final products as soon as they’d cooled enough, before we could, in good conscience, put them on the dessert platters.
If it once mooed, clucked, oinked or quacked - it made an appearance on the table in some form or another - all of them delicious. They were accompanied by mountains of cabbage rolls, mashed potatoes and perogies. There were several different gravies, my favourite being a buttermilk/mushroom/onion concoction that elevated mashed potatoes to the hautest of cuisine.
Vegetables weren’t left out. Gramma grew many of her own in a large garden. It was just that there was rarely room on my plate for the beets, corn, turnip, peas and beans. Understandable really.
Gigi was about 5' 8" and approximately 225 pounds, barrel-chested and immensely strong. He could shoulder a cow to the left that was intent on going right. I always recall him with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes. He had the permanently ruddy cheeks of an outdoorsman.
He enjoyed a drink. Who the heck wouldn’t after working 14-hour days, seven days a week since he was 14? There were only three alcoholic beverages fit to drink in Gigi’s mind: beer, if it was summer, vodka or rye whiskey at all other times. The vodka was a salute to his heritage, the good old Canadian rye, to his heartland.
You had to be careful if Gigi was pouring the drinks. He only made them in two strengths: regular and Ukrainian. If you didn’t specify, you got Ukrainian - which meant four ounces of whiskey flavoured with a tablespoon of 7-Up. Regular would be three tablespoons.
Gramma was only an inch or two shorter than Gigi and about the same width. Her mission in life, and she took it seriously, was to feed people. At Ukrainian Christmas, she had to feed a LOT of people.
Besides my aunts and uncles and cousins, there were their cousins and aunts and uncles - many of them visiting from Out West. There were also places around the table for “the men,” the workers who lived permanently on the farm.
Like most traditional hostesses, Gram wasn’t all that visible at these feasts. She was forever fussing with something in the kitchen or getting up to fetch a forgotten morsel or to refill a platter.
She was about as huggable as a human can get.
At some point, probably after a couple of Gigi’s drinks, my Dad would sit at the piano and start playing. Sometimes Gigi would pick up his fiddle and play along. One year, and we have curled-up black and white evidence to prove it, Uncle Fred sat in on drums.
I remember noise - a constant hum of conversation or song or both - punctuated often with clinking glasses and raucous hoots of laughter.
It was family at its funnest.
It’s been about 25 years since the last Ukrainian Christmas at Gramma and Gigi’s. For a few years after their deaths, we had modest gatherings at my parents’ house which lasted until my mother’s death 13 years ago.
Today, the only acknowledgment might be in passing, during a phone call with a brother or sister. My kids sure never got the day off school.
But I’ve tried to pass along to them the essence of those Ukrainian Christmases and apply it to ours- that it’s not about the getting - it’s about the getting together.
Merry Christmas to all. Have a safe and happy holiday season.
*If you live in Canada, you live in a region. There’s Central, then there’s Down East, Out West, or North. For the authentic, Ukrainian-Canadian pronunciation of “west” try saying the “e” like the “a” in “apple.” Out Wast. Perfect.
Not a boring old, spend-half-the-day-at-church religious holiday. Nuh-uh. It was Ukrainian Christmas.
Say it with me: Back-to-back Christmases. Every year.
I can still taste the triumph as I reminded my friends I wouldn’t be in the next day. Their envy was palpable, even when I explained there would “only” be one gift under the tree for me at my grandparents’ and it was usually clothes. You could still colour them green even when Ukrainian Christmas landed on a weekend.
It was celebrated every year at my maternal grandparents’ farm, about 20 miles from where we lived. Gramma and Gigi were dairy farmers for the most part, though Gigi switched to raising beef cattle in his later years.
They were born Out West,* in Selkirk, Manitoba and moved to Ontario when my mother was in her late teens. Every year since I could remember, we’d gather at Gramma and Gigi’s a couple of weeks after the “big” Christmas to celebrate our smaller one.
Let’s part the sepia curtains and see what’s playing at Memory Theater this morning....
###
Gramma and Gigi lived on three different properties in three different houses within my memory. But the structures and colours seem fluid and meld into one another. The people and the smells and the laughter were the same though, so essentially there was only one farmhouse.
It was big. The rooms were all big. Only the gathering of the clan at Christmas could shrink them.
Tables were pushed end-to-end and followed the contours of the room. The kids sat at one end, the adults at the other. I remember my sense of pride when I realized I’d graduated somewhere around the age of 16.
###
The food. Oh my goodness, the food.
Big Baba, my grandmother’s mother and the family fortune teller, ladles doughnuts, poondiki (dough stuffed with dates) and other delicacies into, around, and finally - golden and delicious - out of, a large vat of hot oil.
To us older kids, cousin Linda, me, and my sister Theresa, she entrusts the critically important task of dusting the hot pastries with icing sugar.
Naturally, we felt it our solemn duty to taste-test the final products as soon as they’d cooled enough, before we could, in good conscience, put them on the dessert platters.
If it once mooed, clucked, oinked or quacked - it made an appearance on the table in some form or another - all of them delicious. They were accompanied by mountains of cabbage rolls, mashed potatoes and perogies. There were several different gravies, my favourite being a buttermilk/mushroom/onion concoction that elevated mashed potatoes to the hautest of cuisine.
Vegetables weren’t left out. Gramma grew many of her own in a large garden. It was just that there was rarely room on my plate for the beets, corn, turnip, peas and beans. Understandable really.
###
Gigi was about 5' 8" and approximately 225 pounds, barrel-chested and immensely strong. He could shoulder a cow to the left that was intent on going right. I always recall him with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes. He had the permanently ruddy cheeks of an outdoorsman.
He enjoyed a drink. Who the heck wouldn’t after working 14-hour days, seven days a week since he was 14? There were only three alcoholic beverages fit to drink in Gigi’s mind: beer, if it was summer, vodka or rye whiskey at all other times. The vodka was a salute to his heritage, the good old Canadian rye, to his heartland.
You had to be careful if Gigi was pouring the drinks. He only made them in two strengths: regular and Ukrainian. If you didn’t specify, you got Ukrainian - which meant four ounces of whiskey flavoured with a tablespoon of 7-Up. Regular would be three tablespoons.
###
Gramma was only an inch or two shorter than Gigi and about the same width. Her mission in life, and she took it seriously, was to feed people. At Ukrainian Christmas, she had to feed a LOT of people.
Besides my aunts and uncles and cousins, there were their cousins and aunts and uncles - many of them visiting from Out West. There were also places around the table for “the men,” the workers who lived permanently on the farm.
Like most traditional hostesses, Gram wasn’t all that visible at these feasts. She was forever fussing with something in the kitchen or getting up to fetch a forgotten morsel or to refill a platter.
She was about as huggable as a human can get.
###
At some point, probably after a couple of Gigi’s drinks, my Dad would sit at the piano and start playing. Sometimes Gigi would pick up his fiddle and play along. One year, and we have curled-up black and white evidence to prove it, Uncle Fred sat in on drums.
I remember noise - a constant hum of conversation or song or both - punctuated often with clinking glasses and raucous hoots of laughter.
It was family at its funnest.
###
It’s been about 25 years since the last Ukrainian Christmas at Gramma and Gigi’s. For a few years after their deaths, we had modest gatherings at my parents’ house which lasted until my mother’s death 13 years ago.
Today, the only acknowledgment might be in passing, during a phone call with a brother or sister. My kids sure never got the day off school.
But I’ve tried to pass along to them the essence of those Ukrainian Christmases and apply it to ours- that it’s not about the getting - it’s about the getting together.
Merry Christmas to all. Have a safe and happy holiday season.
###
*If you live in Canada, you live in a region. There’s Central, then there’s Down East, Out West, or North. For the authentic, Ukrainian-Canadian pronunciation of “west” try saying the “e” like the “a” in “apple.” Out Wast. Perfect.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
WWB Excerpt & An Incident (Issue #158)
Walking With Benny: 12/04/07
I realized last night, on our evening walk, that I’ve written very little about them. Most of my focus has been on our morning ambles. There’s a reason or three for that.
Often, and particularly since switching to Daylight Savings Time a month or so ago when I started writing this thing, our evening walks are in the...wait for it...dark. My main sense, unlike Ben’s, has been severely constrained. My ears don’t have a whole lot to do either, as the wildlife is usually quiet, settling in for the night. Consequently, I rarely see or hear anything of particular interest.
Ben is as active as ever. His nose, through which he perceives most of his world, doesn’t need light. He trots from side to side in front of me, covering as much ground as possible while still managing to tug me forward. His nose is glued to the ground like a canine minesweeper. To an onlooker, I might look like a blind man sweeping his 15-foot-long, animated-at-the-end cane.
Since my senses are far from overloaded with outside stimuli, I find it easy to slip into a contemplative mood on these evening excursions. Sometimes, I’ll consider the morning’s walk. Did I miss anything - either in the telling or the remembering?
Occasionally, I’ll find myself recalling a particular moment but see it in the different light that time and altered circumstance often conspire to inspire. Each time you see something from a different angle, you are adding to your knowledge of it. Added lore should lead to greater wisdom. Or, as is usually my case, it becomes another canape added to my smorgasbord of useless trivia.
Perhaps things will be different as the days lengthen again and more and more evening walks take place before the sun sets. We’ll see.
Anyway, last night began as a picture-perfect postcard of a Christmas Eve. Heavy, but still fluffy snowflakes drifted in a gentle breeze, romanticizing the streetlights.
A moment later, no longer protected by a row of houses on the left, the west wind slapped us with a gust. Those fluffy flakes of a moment ago now packed some sting when they smacked cheeks and eyelids.
My legs reminded me early on that I had abused them just that morning, thank you very much. The southern part of the path, which Ben and I take every evening, is less-traveled than the northern one. So I was breaking fresh ground in crunchy snow again and my thighs weren’t too pleased with me at all.
I focused on putting one foot in front of the other while hurling thought bolts at Ben, pleading with him to start shivering and turn back for home.
He was a very bad dog and paid me no nevermind.
By the time we got back on the sidewalk, a half-hour later and a scant hundred yards from home, my legs were jelly. And the sidewalk, under a fine coating of new snow, was very icy.
“Oh crap,” said my thighs, in a manner of speaking.
Luckily Ben couldn’t garner any more traction than I, or even his wee frame might have been enough to topple me. Or tow me. He looked like he was exercising on a treadmill and I was as wobbly as a two-year-old ballerina.
But we made it home without mishap.
This time. They did say it was gonna be a long, cold winter.
So I was leaving the Beer Store yesterday, having returned some empties. Approaching my car, I noticed slush had built up in the wheel wells. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before and kicked out the offending crud on the front passenger’s side. The stuff in the rear passenger wheel well had really solidified and required several mighty kicks before it finally loosened and fell. The rear driver’s side was easier and I headed to the front to finish up.
It was then I noticed a splash of colour in the back seat. Leaning closer, I peered inside. Wrapped Christmas parcels. Strange. I didn’t recall doing any shopping, let alone wrapping.
And the woman staring at me from the passenger’s seat at the front wasn’t at all familiar either.
Oh crud.
I had just slowly circled and kicked the heck out of someone else’s car.
Don’t you hate when that happens? I blame tinted windows. They’re the work of the devil. And why is it that everyone has to buy a silver car just because I have a silver car?
The laughing driver, another lady, returned as I was slapping my forehead and miming my apologies to the woman in the car. Over my stumbling sorrys she not-at-alled and thanked me for ridding her of the accumulated ice and snow. When I peeked over a moment later, before pulling out of the lot, I noticed she and her friend whooping and hollering in a most unladylike manner.
Rascals must have gotten into the brewskies early because it wasn't that funny.
I realized last night, on our evening walk, that I’ve written very little about them. Most of my focus has been on our morning ambles. There’s a reason or three for that.
Often, and particularly since switching to Daylight Savings Time a month or so ago when I started writing this thing, our evening walks are in the...wait for it...dark. My main sense, unlike Ben’s, has been severely constrained. My ears don’t have a whole lot to do either, as the wildlife is usually quiet, settling in for the night. Consequently, I rarely see or hear anything of particular interest.
Ben is as active as ever. His nose, through which he perceives most of his world, doesn’t need light. He trots from side to side in front of me, covering as much ground as possible while still managing to tug me forward. His nose is glued to the ground like a canine minesweeper. To an onlooker, I might look like a blind man sweeping his 15-foot-long, animated-at-the-end cane.
Since my senses are far from overloaded with outside stimuli, I find it easy to slip into a contemplative mood on these evening excursions. Sometimes, I’ll consider the morning’s walk. Did I miss anything - either in the telling or the remembering?
Occasionally, I’ll find myself recalling a particular moment but see it in the different light that time and altered circumstance often conspire to inspire. Each time you see something from a different angle, you are adding to your knowledge of it. Added lore should lead to greater wisdom. Or, as is usually my case, it becomes another canape added to my smorgasbord of useless trivia.
Perhaps things will be different as the days lengthen again and more and more evening walks take place before the sun sets. We’ll see.
Anyway, last night began as a picture-perfect postcard of a Christmas Eve. Heavy, but still fluffy snowflakes drifted in a gentle breeze, romanticizing the streetlights.
A moment later, no longer protected by a row of houses on the left, the west wind slapped us with a gust. Those fluffy flakes of a moment ago now packed some sting when they smacked cheeks and eyelids.
My legs reminded me early on that I had abused them just that morning, thank you very much. The southern part of the path, which Ben and I take every evening, is less-traveled than the northern one. So I was breaking fresh ground in crunchy snow again and my thighs weren’t too pleased with me at all.
I focused on putting one foot in front of the other while hurling thought bolts at Ben, pleading with him to start shivering and turn back for home.
He was a very bad dog and paid me no nevermind.
By the time we got back on the sidewalk, a half-hour later and a scant hundred yards from home, my legs were jelly. And the sidewalk, under a fine coating of new snow, was very icy.
“Oh crap,” said my thighs, in a manner of speaking.
Luckily Ben couldn’t garner any more traction than I, or even his wee frame might have been enough to topple me. Or tow me. He looked like he was exercising on a treadmill and I was as wobbly as a two-year-old ballerina.
But we made it home without mishap.
This time. They did say it was gonna be a long, cold winter.
###
So I was leaving the Beer Store yesterday, having returned some empties. Approaching my car, I noticed slush had built up in the wheel wells. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before and kicked out the offending crud on the front passenger’s side. The stuff in the rear passenger wheel well had really solidified and required several mighty kicks before it finally loosened and fell. The rear driver’s side was easier and I headed to the front to finish up.
It was then I noticed a splash of colour in the back seat. Leaning closer, I peered inside. Wrapped Christmas parcels. Strange. I didn’t recall doing any shopping, let alone wrapping.
And the woman staring at me from the passenger’s seat at the front wasn’t at all familiar either.
Oh crud.
I had just slowly circled and kicked the heck out of someone else’s car.
Don’t you hate when that happens? I blame tinted windows. They’re the work of the devil. And why is it that everyone has to buy a silver car just because I have a silver car?
The laughing driver, another lady, returned as I was slapping my forehead and miming my apologies to the woman in the car. Over my stumbling sorrys she not-at-alled and thanked me for ridding her of the accumulated ice and snow. When I peeked over a moment later, before pulling out of the lot, I noticed she and her friend whooping and hollering in a most unladylike manner.
Rascals must have gotten into the brewskies early because it wasn't that funny.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Here's The (Current) Plan (Issue #157)
The first winter storm of the season greets us as we step out the door. Sleet, rain, freezing rain and snow have been, and still are, tag teaming - slapping hands and changing every few minutes. The first half of our walk is northerly, into the teeth of the storm. I am wearing my warmest winter coat. Pre-Benny, it was only worn when engaged in some unavoidable, outdoor wintertime task like snow shoveling. And since my Stupid Heart Attack, I’ve managed to fob those tasks off on the lads more often than not.
It is too bulky for slipping into and out of the car easily, so entire winters have gone by without me wearing it. But this morning, as I heard the wind howl and the sleet patter on the windows, I had a hunch it would be a good choice.
The coat has a hood - a nice, warm hood. Unfortunately, it’s enormous. When I wear it, my world view is about the same as if I was peering through a toilet paper tube, which, for the record, I hardly ever do. Unless I have to.
Anyway, I don’t wear the hood. A toque keeps my head warm enough but my glasses are soon speckled with sleet. This adds a not-unpleasant extra layer of blurriness to the soft-focus beauty of a snowy day.
I am reminded that it also adds a wee element of danger when, a little later, I get hip-checked by an unnoticed tree on my left.
Ben accepts the white-covered sidewalk with equanimity but seems a bit nonplussed when we get to the field and his Favourite Pooping Place. It appears that nothing in his previous seven months of existence has prepared him for grass that crunches.
He tippy-toes tentatively, here and there and back again, before finally finding a spot worthy of his gift.
The above is an excerpt from today's entry of a journal I've begun keeping. Be still your beating hearts - it's not gonna be a daily diary of Benny's poops. The journal, along with some backstory and research, has occupied much of my time recently. I'm beginning to think there just might be a book in the making. But it's early days yet.
However, time spent on this project (along with it being my favourite time of the year to fish) means the column/blog will be appearing (more) sporadically for a while. I'm debating running more excerpts from time to time. It's a bit sticky, copyright-wise, especially if they appear on the blog. I may restrict further excerpts to my email subscribers. Jury's still out on that one.
I mentioned fishing....
I've been out four times in the last couple of weeks. Got skunked the first time, with only one tentative nibble. Caught three the next time - two the time after that and three again on Tuesday. Each time, I was only fishing for two or three hours so there's no complaints from this corner about my luck. (Of course, we all know it's not solely luck don't we? Just mostly....)
I kept four of the fish and had decent success smoking two of them in my nearly-new electric smoker. I'll continue to experiment with brines and wood chips and smoking times until I feel I have a couple of foolproof formulas for great-tasting fish. Naturally, as mentioned above, if I'm going to develop a great recipe, I'm going to have to catch more steelhead (rainbow trout).
Sigh. Such sacrifice in the furtherance of the culinary arts....
I'm quite encouraged by the last batch. Kinda wish now though, that I'd written down what I did. My mental notes keep getting misplaced.
I'll wrap this up with pics of a nice, 8-lb. male I released after a spirited tussle and a smaller female that became destined for my smoker.
I meant, and forgot, to wish my many American friends a Happy Thanksgiving in the emailed version of this column/post. Consider yourselves wished!
It is too bulky for slipping into and out of the car easily, so entire winters have gone by without me wearing it. But this morning, as I heard the wind howl and the sleet patter on the windows, I had a hunch it would be a good choice.
The coat has a hood - a nice, warm hood. Unfortunately, it’s enormous. When I wear it, my world view is about the same as if I was peering through a toilet paper tube, which, for the record, I hardly ever do. Unless I have to.
Anyway, I don’t wear the hood. A toque keeps my head warm enough but my glasses are soon speckled with sleet. This adds a not-unpleasant extra layer of blurriness to the soft-focus beauty of a snowy day.
I am reminded that it also adds a wee element of danger when, a little later, I get hip-checked by an unnoticed tree on my left.
Ben accepts the white-covered sidewalk with equanimity but seems a bit nonplussed when we get to the field and his Favourite Pooping Place. It appears that nothing in his previous seven months of existence has prepared him for grass that crunches.
He tippy-toes tentatively, here and there and back again, before finally finding a spot worthy of his gift.
###
The above is an excerpt from today's entry of a journal I've begun keeping. Be still your beating hearts - it's not gonna be a daily diary of Benny's poops. The journal, along with some backstory and research, has occupied much of my time recently. I'm beginning to think there just might be a book in the making. But it's early days yet.
However, time spent on this project (along with it being my favourite time of the year to fish) means the column/blog will be appearing (more) sporadically for a while. I'm debating running more excerpts from time to time. It's a bit sticky, copyright-wise, especially if they appear on the blog. I may restrict further excerpts to my email subscribers. Jury's still out on that one.
###
I mentioned fishing....
I've been out four times in the last couple of weeks. Got skunked the first time, with only one tentative nibble. Caught three the next time - two the time after that and three again on Tuesday. Each time, I was only fishing for two or three hours so there's no complaints from this corner about my luck. (Of course, we all know it's not solely luck don't we? Just mostly....)
I kept four of the fish and had decent success smoking two of them in my nearly-new electric smoker. I'll continue to experiment with brines and wood chips and smoking times until I feel I have a couple of foolproof formulas for great-tasting fish. Naturally, as mentioned above, if I'm going to develop a great recipe, I'm going to have to catch more steelhead (rainbow trout).
Sigh. Such sacrifice in the furtherance of the culinary arts....
I'm quite encouraged by the last batch. Kinda wish now though, that I'd written down what I did. My mental notes keep getting misplaced.
I'll wrap this up with pics of a nice, 8-lb. male I released after a spirited tussle and a smaller female that became destined for my smoker.
I meant, and forgot, to wish my many American friends a Happy Thanksgiving in the emailed version of this column/post. Consider yourselves wished!
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The Tyranny of Positive Thinking & Other Stuff (Issue #156)
Recently, I was surprised to hear one of tv’s talking heads say that a positive attitude didn’t appear to have any effect on the survival rate of cancer patients. I checked around and he wasn’t fibbing. The conclusion was based on a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the results are to appear in the December issue of the American Cancer Society journal Cancer.
Initially I thought, “well that sucks.” Then I read further and was surprised to find that many doctors were relieved by the study’s findings, none more so than Dr. Jimmie Holland, a psychiatrist who wrote the book The Human Side of Cancer: Living with Hope, Coping with Uncertainty.
Dr. Holland coined the term “the tyranny of positive thinking” to describe the approach of those who preach the mind-over-cancer mantra. She believes it puts tremendous pressure and unreasonable expectations on people struggling with this disease. She thinks no one should believe they’re dying because they weren’t being positive enough.
Now that makes perfect sense to me.
Dr. Holland believes there certainly are benefits to staying positive during treatment. It’s just that positive thinking alone doesn’t appear to extend a cancer patient’s life.
That makes sense to me too.
I worry that too many people, like me initially, won’t read or listen past the headline - Upbeat Attitude No Match For Cancer* - and succumb to negativity and depression if they or a loved one are stricken with a terminal illness.
Certainly, negativity and depression are way stations on the road towards acceptance but I’d sure try to keep my visits brief at the former and hurry towards the latter. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not advocating a rush to accept a death sentence but rather a rush to accept that what will be, will be. Once you’ve accepted where you’re at - accepted that some things are just beyond your power to affect - peace descends, time slows down and suddenly everywhere you look there’s a rose to stop beside and smell.
Naturally, treatment is focused on the body but the mind and spirit need tending as well. They’ve all got a stake in the outcome. Do what needs doing for all the parts of you that are ailing.
And I'm convinced having a positive outlook on life, whether that life is measured in weeks or years, is part of a good, overall health package.
What I think it boils down to is this: If given a few months to live, would it be better to spend them depressed or optimistic?
I can’t imagine a lengthy debate.
I wouldn’t want to go to sleep every night fearful it may be my last.
I’d rather open my eyes in the morning and be pleasantly surprised I was still here.
Simplistic perhaps but complicated makes me dizzy.
*Probably made that up.
Other Stuff I
There have been significant changes in my life this year which I'll detail eventually. Not the least of them was inheriting Benny, the Jack Russell Terror. Suddenly, at 56 years of age, I had a toddler in the house again - a toddler that could run like the wind - while chewing shoes.
I’ve had to carve out at least a couple of hours a day to deal with him. Walks are mornings and evenings and many of you know that most of the time we explore the territory across the road from my house. It’s a field/woods combination that borders a creek that runs through my town. Recently, a paved walking/biking path was built that intersected and paralleled the ones created over the years by fishermen and kids taking shortcuts to school.
I’ve found that nearly every day something happens on one or both of our walks - small things usually - but things of interest to me and perhaps some others; things that arouse a sense of wonder or that might add bits of lore to the collection rattling around in my cranial attic.
I’ve found myself wanting to write about them but didn’t think all that many of you would be interested in reading it. So that leaves me considering starting another blog, among other possibilities. Which leaves me wondering where the time is going to come from - which means I need to consider making even more changes.
Which makes me want to lie down.
Stay tuned.
Other Stuff II
A week or so ago I saw a singer on the David Letterman show who knocked my socks off. I haven’t been able to get her song out of my head since. Thanks to YouTube I can share her performance with you folks.
I showed both sons and they were less than enthusiastic.
But what do kids know anyway?
She reminds me of an old-style chanteuse. She’s got a wicked set of pipes, a fine band and, I think, talent oozing from every pore. Her name is Nicole Atkins and I think she could become a Very Big Star.
Am I alone on this one?
You can check her out by clicking here.
Other Stuff III
I rarely plug another blog and I know there’s going to be some eye-rolling from the peanut gallery when I plug this one....
But if you’re a parent, or may become one - or enjoy kids, or were one yourself - check out Hilary’s recent post at The Smitten Image.
It’s warm and amusing and as a bonus, you’ll see some spiffy pics.
Initially I thought, “well that sucks.” Then I read further and was surprised to find that many doctors were relieved by the study’s findings, none more so than Dr. Jimmie Holland, a psychiatrist who wrote the book The Human Side of Cancer: Living with Hope, Coping with Uncertainty.
Dr. Holland coined the term “the tyranny of positive thinking” to describe the approach of those who preach the mind-over-cancer mantra. She believes it puts tremendous pressure and unreasonable expectations on people struggling with this disease. She thinks no one should believe they’re dying because they weren’t being positive enough.
Now that makes perfect sense to me.
Dr. Holland believes there certainly are benefits to staying positive during treatment. It’s just that positive thinking alone doesn’t appear to extend a cancer patient’s life.
That makes sense to me too.
I worry that too many people, like me initially, won’t read or listen past the headline - Upbeat Attitude No Match For Cancer* - and succumb to negativity and depression if they or a loved one are stricken with a terminal illness.
Certainly, negativity and depression are way stations on the road towards acceptance but I’d sure try to keep my visits brief at the former and hurry towards the latter. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not advocating a rush to accept a death sentence but rather a rush to accept that what will be, will be. Once you’ve accepted where you’re at - accepted that some things are just beyond your power to affect - peace descends, time slows down and suddenly everywhere you look there’s a rose to stop beside and smell.
Naturally, treatment is focused on the body but the mind and spirit need tending as well. They’ve all got a stake in the outcome. Do what needs doing for all the parts of you that are ailing.
And I'm convinced having a positive outlook on life, whether that life is measured in weeks or years, is part of a good, overall health package.
What I think it boils down to is this: If given a few months to live, would it be better to spend them depressed or optimistic?
I can’t imagine a lengthy debate.
I wouldn’t want to go to sleep every night fearful it may be my last.
I’d rather open my eyes in the morning and be pleasantly surprised I was still here.
Simplistic perhaps but complicated makes me dizzy.
*Probably made that up.
Other Stuff I
There have been significant changes in my life this year which I'll detail eventually. Not the least of them was inheriting Benny, the Jack Russell Terror. Suddenly, at 56 years of age, I had a toddler in the house again - a toddler that could run like the wind - while chewing shoes.
I’ve had to carve out at least a couple of hours a day to deal with him. Walks are mornings and evenings and many of you know that most of the time we explore the territory across the road from my house. It’s a field/woods combination that borders a creek that runs through my town. Recently, a paved walking/biking path was built that intersected and paralleled the ones created over the years by fishermen and kids taking shortcuts to school.
I’ve found that nearly every day something happens on one or both of our walks - small things usually - but things of interest to me and perhaps some others; things that arouse a sense of wonder or that might add bits of lore to the collection rattling around in my cranial attic.
I’ve found myself wanting to write about them but didn’t think all that many of you would be interested in reading it. So that leaves me considering starting another blog, among other possibilities. Which leaves me wondering where the time is going to come from - which means I need to consider making even more changes.
Which makes me want to lie down.
Stay tuned.
Other Stuff II
A week or so ago I saw a singer on the David Letterman show who knocked my socks off. I haven’t been able to get her song out of my head since. Thanks to YouTube I can share her performance with you folks.
I showed both sons and they were less than enthusiastic.
But what do kids know anyway?
She reminds me of an old-style chanteuse. She’s got a wicked set of pipes, a fine band and, I think, talent oozing from every pore. Her name is Nicole Atkins and I think she could become a Very Big Star.
Am I alone on this one?
You can check her out by clicking here.
Other Stuff III
I rarely plug another blog and I know there’s going to be some eye-rolling from the peanut gallery when I plug this one....
But if you’re a parent, or may become one - or enjoy kids, or were one yourself - check out Hilary’s recent post at The Smitten Image.
It’s warm and amusing and as a bonus, you’ll see some spiffy pics.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Three Things That Happened Yesterday (Issue #155)
Thing #1.
Benny and I were on our morning walk, following our usual a.m. route which is northwards from the house, along the creek. You old-timers have seen pics from time to time.
On the homeward part of the journey, I often veer off the main path and take another, slightly less-traveled one through a wooded area. There’s a mammoth old willow tree in there I like to pay homage to. I don’t think it’s going to be standing a whole lot longer. Ben likes this detour too because there’s usually a squirrel or three he can startle.
Now, I forget whether or not I’ve told you folks that in the last few months I’ve taken something of an interest in birds. I’ve gone so far as to buy a field guide and Son #1 treated me to a pair of pretty decent binoculars. Thing is, I’m normally outside these days - you know, where the birds are - when I’m out walking with Benny.
Benny, being a hyperactive Jack Russell Terror pup, takes at least one hand to control. That leaves me one hand with which I can do other stuff, like untangle him. You may recall, a few posts ago, how using my free hand to wield a camera worked out. In any event, I don’t usually take either my binoculars or my field guide out with me when I know my attention is often going to be focused on unwrapping Benny’s leash from a tree trunk. Or my legs.
I didn’t miss the field guide or binocs along the wooded path yesterday. I wished I had my camera though, when a Downy woodpecker picked a tree only a few feet away to drill for bugs. I managed to watch her for a minute and memorized her peeping call before Benny had to be extricated from nearby brush.
A few minutes later, back on the stream-side path, I saw a large, somewhat hunched silhouette on a tall tree branch overhanging the creek. It was facing southeast and although cloudy out, the morning sun was still bright enough to make me squint and shield my eyes. At first I thought maybe it was a raven. It was much too big to be a crow.
I slowed as I got closer. Ben seemed to understand that stealth was called for and actually slowed with me. As we neared it, I got increasingly excited. Even seen from behind and in silhouette, it was very large.
We got within 50 or 60 feet of it before it noticed us and took off - straight into the weakened sun’s glare. I’m knowledgeable enough to know it was a raptor - the wingtips told me that - and it was bigger than any hawk I’d ever seen. I’m pretty sure it was a juvenile eagle, probably a bald eagle, like the one that was born near our cottage this summer.
I don’t think in this particular instance, because of the glare, that binocs would have helped me identify the bird. But again, I wished I’d taken the camera. Even a silhouetted photo might have told an experienced birder (Hi cousin Karl!) what it was.
Yep, am packing my camera in my pocket from now on.
Thing #2.
A few minutes later, only a hundred yards from home, Benny began to act strangely. Normally, because I use one of those retractable leashes, he’s at its limit, about 15 feet ahead, straining to get to two places at once.
We were on back on the street again at this point and he’d been doing his usual ranging from side to side, snuffling.
Suddenly, I realized my arm was not perpendicular to the ground and doing its impression of a divining rod gone berserk. It was hanging down at my side. Benny was trotting along beside me, like one of those trained dogs, head and tail proudly erect, beige tongue protruding slightly.
Hmmm. Pretty sure his tongue used to be pink.
Uh-huh. He’d found a rib bone that some scavenger had left behind. I think he didn’t want me to notice so he was being well-behaved. Ha! And he thinks he’s so smart! I’m smarter! So far.
Thing #3.
On our evening walk, we take the southward path along the creek. At roughly the mid-point, the creek angles away from the path and to reconnect with it, one needs to walk through a small wooded glen. We usually do so because that bend of the creek offers a nice trough-like run in which I’ve often watched salmon and trout working their way upstream.
The salmon run is pretty much done, has been for about 10 days, and there hasn’t been enough recent rain to call up many steelhead. So I didn’t really expect to see any fish. It’s just a pleasant place to be. I was standing at the top of the bank while Ben explored below, drinking at the water’s edge and snapping at drifting leaves.
A slight surface disturbance a few yards upstream caught my eye and I wandered closer.
It was a dying salmon, on its side, feebly trying to right himself against the weak current, and failing.
Three or four weeks ago, this fish was 20 pounds of bronzed muscle, sleek and healthy from three-plus years of gorging on Lake Ontario’s forage fish. He would have fairly stampeded upstream, eager to spawn.
Now he was a blackened hulk of perhaps 13-14 pounds, too weak to fight a current that wouldn’t tumble a toddler.
I watched as he was slowly tugged downstream. He got caught up on some shallow rocks below me for a moment and I studied him. He was too far gone to even gape. I don’t think it was my imagination that glazed that fierce, predator’s eye.
I felt sad but privileged, for being allowed to bear witness to a noble warrior’s death.
I thought I’d have to clamber down and get wet in order to ease him back into the main current. But he found enough energy to twitch his tail feebly, once. It was just enough. The current took him back into its arms and gently bore him away.
Benny and I were on our morning walk, following our usual a.m. route which is northwards from the house, along the creek. You old-timers have seen pics from time to time.
On the homeward part of the journey, I often veer off the main path and take another, slightly less-traveled one through a wooded area. There’s a mammoth old willow tree in there I like to pay homage to. I don’t think it’s going to be standing a whole lot longer. Ben likes this detour too because there’s usually a squirrel or three he can startle.
Now, I forget whether or not I’ve told you folks that in the last few months I’ve taken something of an interest in birds. I’ve gone so far as to buy a field guide and Son #1 treated me to a pair of pretty decent binoculars. Thing is, I’m normally outside these days - you know, where the birds are - when I’m out walking with Benny.
Benny, being a hyperactive Jack Russell Terror pup, takes at least one hand to control. That leaves me one hand with which I can do other stuff, like untangle him. You may recall, a few posts ago, how using my free hand to wield a camera worked out. In any event, I don’t usually take either my binoculars or my field guide out with me when I know my attention is often going to be focused on unwrapping Benny’s leash from a tree trunk. Or my legs.
I didn’t miss the field guide or binocs along the wooded path yesterday. I wished I had my camera though, when a Downy woodpecker picked a tree only a few feet away to drill for bugs. I managed to watch her for a minute and memorized her peeping call before Benny had to be extricated from nearby brush.
A few minutes later, back on the stream-side path, I saw a large, somewhat hunched silhouette on a tall tree branch overhanging the creek. It was facing southeast and although cloudy out, the morning sun was still bright enough to make me squint and shield my eyes. At first I thought maybe it was a raven. It was much too big to be a crow.
I slowed as I got closer. Ben seemed to understand that stealth was called for and actually slowed with me. As we neared it, I got increasingly excited. Even seen from behind and in silhouette, it was very large.
We got within 50 or 60 feet of it before it noticed us and took off - straight into the weakened sun’s glare. I’m knowledgeable enough to know it was a raptor - the wingtips told me that - and it was bigger than any hawk I’d ever seen. I’m pretty sure it was a juvenile eagle, probably a bald eagle, like the one that was born near our cottage this summer.
I don’t think in this particular instance, because of the glare, that binocs would have helped me identify the bird. But again, I wished I’d taken the camera. Even a silhouetted photo might have told an experienced birder (Hi cousin Karl!) what it was.
Yep, am packing my camera in my pocket from now on.
Thing #2.
A few minutes later, only a hundred yards from home, Benny began to act strangely. Normally, because I use one of those retractable leashes, he’s at its limit, about 15 feet ahead, straining to get to two places at once.
We were on back on the street again at this point and he’d been doing his usual ranging from side to side, snuffling.
Suddenly, I realized my arm was not perpendicular to the ground and doing its impression of a divining rod gone berserk. It was hanging down at my side. Benny was trotting along beside me, like one of those trained dogs, head and tail proudly erect, beige tongue protruding slightly.
Hmmm. Pretty sure his tongue used to be pink.
Uh-huh. He’d found a rib bone that some scavenger had left behind. I think he didn’t want me to notice so he was being well-behaved. Ha! And he thinks he’s so smart! I’m smarter! So far.
Thing #3.
On our evening walk, we take the southward path along the creek. At roughly the mid-point, the creek angles away from the path and to reconnect with it, one needs to walk through a small wooded glen. We usually do so because that bend of the creek offers a nice trough-like run in which I’ve often watched salmon and trout working their way upstream.
The salmon run is pretty much done, has been for about 10 days, and there hasn’t been enough recent rain to call up many steelhead. So I didn’t really expect to see any fish. It’s just a pleasant place to be. I was standing at the top of the bank while Ben explored below, drinking at the water’s edge and snapping at drifting leaves.
A slight surface disturbance a few yards upstream caught my eye and I wandered closer.
It was a dying salmon, on its side, feebly trying to right himself against the weak current, and failing.
Three or four weeks ago, this fish was 20 pounds of bronzed muscle, sleek and healthy from three-plus years of gorging on Lake Ontario’s forage fish. He would have fairly stampeded upstream, eager to spawn.
Now he was a blackened hulk of perhaps 13-14 pounds, too weak to fight a current that wouldn’t tumble a toddler.
I watched as he was slowly tugged downstream. He got caught up on some shallow rocks below me for a moment and I studied him. He was too far gone to even gape. I don’t think it was my imagination that glazed that fierce, predator’s eye.
I felt sad but privileged, for being allowed to bear witness to a noble warrior’s death.
I thought I’d have to clamber down and get wet in order to ease him back into the main current. But he found enough energy to twitch his tail feebly, once. It was just enough. The current took him back into its arms and gently bore him away.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Benny Invents A New Game & Much, Much More! (Issue #154)
Our family cottage, with which you folks have become familiar over the last few years, has all the amenities necessary for a comfortable life. At least it does from May to sometime in October. Because it is not insulated, nor does it have a foundation, the pipes would freeze and split during winter if the water remained connected.
Therefore, every October, sometime after (Canadian) Thanksgiving, a local handyman comes around, turns off our water, drains the pipes and fills the traps with antifreeze. From that point on, until late spring, trips to the cottage are of short duration and very much weather-dependent.
The weather this fall has been so darn balmy that we hoped the handyguy would postpone his work into November. When contacted and asked about that possibility, he said it "depends." Which is local-speak for a shrug of the shoulders.
So when we ventured up there last weekend, even though it was two weeks after Thanksgiving, I was hopeful that we'd still have running water.
We didn't.
Adjustments must be made when one is living without plumbing. Bathing, washing dishes, going to the bathroom - all become tasks which require foresight, planning and resigning oneself to a certain measure of discomfort. It helps to remember that not many generations ago, folks lived that way all the time. It also helps to be a bit nuts.
But what really helps, when you're "showering" outside in a cold rain, then rinsing off in a 55F (12C) lake, is to lubricate oneself on the inside first with a belt or three of Scotch.
It was BennyTheJackRussellTerror's first visit and he was in heaven. He loved having endless room to run and surprisingly, seemed untroubled by the fact we were plumbing-challenged. He delighted us by inventing a new game - a game of stunningly-inspired lunacy.
It was windy much of the time. Wind affects lakes by making waves. Waves roll onto shore. Benny's shore. They must be thwarted. So he took it upon himself to patrol the rocky shoreline, defending all and sundry from the endless parade of waves by biting them. I'll add a link to the video evidence at the end of this.
A highlight for me was seeing not one, not two, but three otters playing a short distance from our dock. In my 40 years of cottaging at that lake, I'd never seen an otter before. To see three gamboling a few feet away was breathtaking. Unfortunately, by the time a camera arrived on scene, they were out of reasonable picture range.
Here are a few pics from when my camera was with me:
A plus on dark, rainy days from a photographic viewpoint, is the wonderful colour saturation.
Without running water, this unpretentious little shack out back assumes an important role.
Benny is prepared to defend the rock from the next wave's onslaught.
The next three images show how patience can be rewarded and why it's always a good idea to have a camera handy. The day was dark and unsettled. A few moments before sunset, a glow began to appear in the west. The pictures were taken in approximately 5-minute intervals.
Hilary has also blogged about the visit and posted pictures. As of this writing, I haven't seen hers yet. I'm pretty sure we're going to near-duplicate some pictures but I didn't want to be influenced by what she posted. I know she's taken some great shots though. You can visit her blog, The Smitten Image, by clicking here.
As promised, you can see a snippet of Benny's heroic wave-biting here.
Therefore, every October, sometime after (Canadian) Thanksgiving, a local handyman comes around, turns off our water, drains the pipes and fills the traps with antifreeze. From that point on, until late spring, trips to the cottage are of short duration and very much weather-dependent.
The weather this fall has been so darn balmy that we hoped the handyguy would postpone his work into November. When contacted and asked about that possibility, he said it "depends." Which is local-speak for a shrug of the shoulders.
So when we ventured up there last weekend, even though it was two weeks after Thanksgiving, I was hopeful that we'd still have running water.
We didn't.
Adjustments must be made when one is living without plumbing. Bathing, washing dishes, going to the bathroom - all become tasks which require foresight, planning and resigning oneself to a certain measure of discomfort. It helps to remember that not many generations ago, folks lived that way all the time. It also helps to be a bit nuts.
But what really helps, when you're "showering" outside in a cold rain, then rinsing off in a 55F (12C) lake, is to lubricate oneself on the inside first with a belt or three of Scotch.
It was BennyTheJackRussellTerror's first visit and he was in heaven. He loved having endless room to run and surprisingly, seemed untroubled by the fact we were plumbing-challenged. He delighted us by inventing a new game - a game of stunningly-inspired lunacy.
It was windy much of the time. Wind affects lakes by making waves. Waves roll onto shore. Benny's shore. They must be thwarted. So he took it upon himself to patrol the rocky shoreline, defending all and sundry from the endless parade of waves by biting them. I'll add a link to the video evidence at the end of this.
A highlight for me was seeing not one, not two, but three otters playing a short distance from our dock. In my 40 years of cottaging at that lake, I'd never seen an otter before. To see three gamboling a few feet away was breathtaking. Unfortunately, by the time a camera arrived on scene, they were out of reasonable picture range.
Here are a few pics from when my camera was with me:
A plus on dark, rainy days from a photographic viewpoint, is the wonderful colour saturation.
Without running water, this unpretentious little shack out back assumes an important role.
Benny is prepared to defend the rock from the next wave's onslaught.
The next three images show how patience can be rewarded and why it's always a good idea to have a camera handy. The day was dark and unsettled. A few moments before sunset, a glow began to appear in the west. The pictures were taken in approximately 5-minute intervals.
Hilary has also blogged about the visit and posted pictures. As of this writing, I haven't seen hers yet. I'm pretty sure we're going to near-duplicate some pictures but I didn't want to be influenced by what she posted. I know she's taken some great shots though. You can visit her blog, The Smitten Image, by clicking here.
As promised, you can see a snippet of Benny's heroic wave-biting here.
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Squeaky Drawer (Issue #153)
Some of you know I'm a moderator of an online writers' community called the Absolute Write Water Cooler. There are over 17,000 members and hundreds of ongoing discussion threads - some of which deal with current events and other non-writing-related topics. As you might imagine when dealing with so many opinionated, reasonably-intelligent egos, discussions can sometimes become heated. The moderators have a private room on the site within which we discuss various issues affecting the board, often revolving around plans for dealing with the latest bruhaha. Sometimes we just kick back and shoot the breeze (in a virtual, internet kind of a way).
A recent bull session involved parenting strategies and it triggered a memory of my father's most brilliant psychological ploy.
I was about 10 years old. Theresa would be around eight, Karl six, Mark five, Marina three and Lisa a toddler. (I don't have a calculator handy but that should add up to six kids.)
This would be around 1961. Home computers and video games were decades away. Kids amused themselves by playing outside in almost all kinds of weather.
Almost.
We'd be out there on blazing hot days and during snowstorms but if it was cold and rainy, we had to play indoors.
Apparently, there were times when we might have been a tad rowdy. Hard to believe, I know. But I suppose six kids in one small house, usually in one room of that house, might get somewhat rambunctious.
I can recall us being locked in the basement rec room. It had Dutch doors, so my mother would keep the bottom one locked but the top one open so she could hear if someone needed to go to the hospital. Or the toilet. This would free her up somewhat to do whatever it was that Moms did when they weren't actively Momming.
Of course at 10, I was undeterred by the locked bottom door. I could clamber out through the top. But years earlier I was stymied. So when I was about four, I liberated a grapefruit spoon (with that nifty serrated edge) and set about drilling a hole through that bottom door, near the lock. The theory was, I would slip my hand through the hole, reach out, unlock the door and surprise Mom when I appeared upstairs.
It would have worked too, if the spoon had been bigger. Over the course of a few days, I managed to drill a hole all right but I couldn't fit my hand through it.
But I digress.
So, picture six kids bouncing around in a confined space. There might have been some violence here and there. A little jumping and falling and running and tripping. Concurrent with those activities of course, would be the sound effects. Booms. Thuds. Crashes. Screams. Crying. Laughter. The usual.
One day, probably after consecutive days of wet weather, my mother, usually a rather placid woman, snapped.
When Mom was riled she'd holler some. Hollering had a fairly short-term effect on our behaviour. Occasionally she would pinch an upper arm or an ear. That would sting and have a more lasting effect - up to several minutes.
But when Mom had had enough - when she really couldn't stand it anymore - she'd cry.
Moms aren't supposed to cry. Her tears would have an instantly sobering effect on us. Partly because it was such a rare event, perhaps once a year, and partly because we knew Dad was going to get involved when he got home from work.
In situations like this, Dad majored in Being Disappointed. He would talk and talk and talk about expectations and respect and caring and how he sure hated Being Disappointed in us. I swear, sometimes we had to poke each other in order to stay awake.
One day though, after Mom cried, Dad didn't lecture us. After supper he told us to follow him downstairs. He carried an old leather belt in his hands.
We were nervous. And respectfully quiet. In the unfinished part of the basement, near the dirty old coal-burning furnace, was a small area he used as a workshop. In a corner stood an old broom.
Dad took the broom and sawed off about a foot of the handle. Positioning us to either side of him, making sure we could all see, he then used a pair of shears to cut the leather belt into three pieces. When done, he nailed the pieces of leather to the end of the broom handle.
It made for a vicious-looking whip.
He tested it with a few whacks against the bench and nodded, satisfied, then bade us follow him back upstairs to the kitchen.
I'm pretty sure everybody has a drawer somewhere in their kitchen wherein they keep stuff that doesn't really belong anywhere else - things like tape and string and elastics and candles. Well, back then, in that kitchen, that particular drawer squeaked. Not a delicate, mousey-type squeak either. Nope, that drawer screeched when opened. Imagine Barry Manilow plopping down on a thumbtack.
Dad opened the squeaky drawer and placed his newly-made whip inside. Then he closed it and went to read his newspaper.
For years afterward, when we were bouncing from bed to bed instead of sleeping, or playing Throw Lisa Against The Wall a little too enthusiastically, all my parents needed to do to achieve silence was open the squeaky drawer.
Wisely, they never closed it too quickly afterwards. The one, piercing screech left a mental image in our heads of that strap/whip sitting there - ready to be used.
And it never was. Not once. The squeak was enough.
Dad was a pretty smart guy.
---------------
Addendum: Going away for a few days on Thursday, Oct. 18th, so please forgive my delayed response to any further comments.
Just in case you don't know, you can see what Dutch doors look like if you click here.
If you're interested in visiting the AW Water Cooler, you can click here.
A recent bull session involved parenting strategies and it triggered a memory of my father's most brilliant psychological ploy.
I was about 10 years old. Theresa would be around eight, Karl six, Mark five, Marina three and Lisa a toddler. (I don't have a calculator handy but that should add up to six kids.)
This would be around 1961. Home computers and video games were decades away. Kids amused themselves by playing outside in almost all kinds of weather.
Almost.
We'd be out there on blazing hot days and during snowstorms but if it was cold and rainy, we had to play indoors.
Apparently, there were times when we might have been a tad rowdy. Hard to believe, I know. But I suppose six kids in one small house, usually in one room of that house, might get somewhat rambunctious.
I can recall us being locked in the basement rec room. It had Dutch doors, so my mother would keep the bottom one locked but the top one open so she could hear if someone needed to go to the hospital. Or the toilet. This would free her up somewhat to do whatever it was that Moms did when they weren't actively Momming.
Of course at 10, I was undeterred by the locked bottom door. I could clamber out through the top. But years earlier I was stymied. So when I was about four, I liberated a grapefruit spoon (with that nifty serrated edge) and set about drilling a hole through that bottom door, near the lock. The theory was, I would slip my hand through the hole, reach out, unlock the door and surprise Mom when I appeared upstairs.
It would have worked too, if the spoon had been bigger. Over the course of a few days, I managed to drill a hole all right but I couldn't fit my hand through it.
But I digress.
So, picture six kids bouncing around in a confined space. There might have been some violence here and there. A little jumping and falling and running and tripping. Concurrent with those activities of course, would be the sound effects. Booms. Thuds. Crashes. Screams. Crying. Laughter. The usual.
One day, probably after consecutive days of wet weather, my mother, usually a rather placid woman, snapped.
When Mom was riled she'd holler some. Hollering had a fairly short-term effect on our behaviour. Occasionally she would pinch an upper arm or an ear. That would sting and have a more lasting effect - up to several minutes.
But when Mom had had enough - when she really couldn't stand it anymore - she'd cry.
Moms aren't supposed to cry. Her tears would have an instantly sobering effect on us. Partly because it was such a rare event, perhaps once a year, and partly because we knew Dad was going to get involved when he got home from work.
In situations like this, Dad majored in Being Disappointed. He would talk and talk and talk about expectations and respect and caring and how he sure hated Being Disappointed in us. I swear, sometimes we had to poke each other in order to stay awake.
One day though, after Mom cried, Dad didn't lecture us. After supper he told us to follow him downstairs. He carried an old leather belt in his hands.
We were nervous. And respectfully quiet. In the unfinished part of the basement, near the dirty old coal-burning furnace, was a small area he used as a workshop. In a corner stood an old broom.
Dad took the broom and sawed off about a foot of the handle. Positioning us to either side of him, making sure we could all see, he then used a pair of shears to cut the leather belt into three pieces. When done, he nailed the pieces of leather to the end of the broom handle.
It made for a vicious-looking whip.
He tested it with a few whacks against the bench and nodded, satisfied, then bade us follow him back upstairs to the kitchen.
I'm pretty sure everybody has a drawer somewhere in their kitchen wherein they keep stuff that doesn't really belong anywhere else - things like tape and string and elastics and candles. Well, back then, in that kitchen, that particular drawer squeaked. Not a delicate, mousey-type squeak either. Nope, that drawer screeched when opened. Imagine Barry Manilow plopping down on a thumbtack.
Dad opened the squeaky drawer and placed his newly-made whip inside. Then he closed it and went to read his newspaper.
For years afterward, when we were bouncing from bed to bed instead of sleeping, or playing Throw Lisa Against The Wall a little too enthusiastically, all my parents needed to do to achieve silence was open the squeaky drawer.
Wisely, they never closed it too quickly afterwards. The one, piercing screech left a mental image in our heads of that strap/whip sitting there - ready to be used.
And it never was. Not once. The squeak was enough.
Dad was a pretty smart guy.
---------------
Addendum: Going away for a few days on Thursday, Oct. 18th, so please forgive my delayed response to any further comments.
Just in case you don't know, you can see what Dutch doors look like if you click here.
If you're interested in visiting the AW Water Cooler, you can click here.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
It was like this....
"Frank," I hear a few of you mutter, "you haven't posted anything lately."
Let me s'plain. No. That will take too long. Let me recap.
My computer has been in the shop for much of the last 10 days. And when it hasn't been in the shop, it's been fritzing. And when it's not been fritzing, I've been out of town.
So there.
I should be posting (and emailing) with my usual degree of infrequency in a few days. I hope you'll wander back for a look-see then.
Let me s'plain. No. That will take too long. Let me recap.
My computer has been in the shop for much of the last 10 days. And when it hasn't been in the shop, it's been fritzing. And when it's not been fritzing, I've been out of town.
So there.
I should be posting (and emailing) with my usual degree of infrequency in a few days. I hope you'll wander back for a look-see then.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Uh, No. Life Is Not A Game Show. (Issue #152)
I was taught that when someone (me) screwed up (got caught) and the explanation (lie) failed to win exoneration, it was time to apologize and atone. Somewhere along the road to maturity, one eventually even bypasses the attempt to fib. It's what a man does. (And yes, it's what women do too.) It's about taking responsibility for one's behaviour. Most folks of my generation clued into the concept fairly early on. My own learning was aided and abetted by periodic whacks from nuns and other teachers.
But let's leave the sepia-toned memories of whip-wielding nuns for a moment and flash forward to today.
These days, on a near-weekly basis, we're confronted with pop musicians, athletes and movie stars who do Very Bad Things and then apologize. But they don't really apologize. Instead, they go into damage-control mode as orchestrated by well-paid advisors - advisors who are desperate to rehabilitate the image of their meal ticket. And these advisors are all singing from the same songbook. It doesn't matter if it's Britney, Lindsay, Michael Vick or any of dozens of others - the refrain is similar:
"I made a wrong choice. I hope to make better choices going forward.*"
Well.
Isn't. That. Special.
They made a wrong choice. They would like us to believe it could happen to anyone. If only they had chosen Door #1 because behind it was Reasonable Behaviour! Oh, and look! Behind the curtain that the lovely Doreen is now parting...it's...it's a Heaping Helping of Personal Responsibility coupled with a Smidge of Social Conscience!
But Nooooooooooooo! They had to choose Door #3 and got How To Drive Drunk, Flash Your Crotch, Insult Gays and Kill Dogs. What a bummer.
Woe is them. They made a wrong choice.
Nuh-uh. No sale here. They were selfish, inconsiderate a**holes, at the very least. But I'll admit they didn't get that way by themselves. The wrong choices were made years earlier. By parents. By indifferent schools. By substituting money for caring, presents for companionship. By being raised in a society which values celebrity over all.
As much as their behaviour appalls, I honestly feel sorry for most of these people, many of whom are little more than kids. Values like respect, honesty, dignity and compassion, instead of being ingrained by the time they hit their teens, remain abstract concepts. They can mouth the words, as taught by their agents, managers and lawyers, and they can learn that downcast eyes and a tremulous voice mimics contrition -- but in their heart of hearts, I think most of them just don't get it and probably never will. As long as they have money and flashbulbs going off in their faces, they'll have simpering sycophants whispering about how wonderful they are. And they'll believe them.
Because to do otherwise is to admit there's an emptiness inside that can't be filled with money, red carpets, screaming fans and high-fives. And then what do they have to turn to?
Oh yeah. Drugs, alcohol and brushes with the law.
And so it goes.
* This is my nominee for the phrase of the year that MUST be obliterated, expunged, erased from the lexicon. If you hear or read it, you can be reasonably sure the user is trying to sell you a line of something that is better spread on farmer's fields.
More nice cottage pics at Hilary's blog.
But let's leave the sepia-toned memories of whip-wielding nuns for a moment and flash forward to today.
These days, on a near-weekly basis, we're confronted with pop musicians, athletes and movie stars who do Very Bad Things and then apologize. But they don't really apologize. Instead, they go into damage-control mode as orchestrated by well-paid advisors - advisors who are desperate to rehabilitate the image of their meal ticket. And these advisors are all singing from the same songbook. It doesn't matter if it's Britney, Lindsay, Michael Vick or any of dozens of others - the refrain is similar:
"I made a wrong choice. I hope to make better choices going forward.*"
Well.
Isn't. That. Special.
They made a wrong choice. They would like us to believe it could happen to anyone. If only they had chosen Door #1 because behind it was Reasonable Behaviour! Oh, and look! Behind the curtain that the lovely Doreen is now parting...it's...it's a Heaping Helping of Personal Responsibility coupled with a Smidge of Social Conscience!
But Nooooooooooooo! They had to choose Door #3 and got How To Drive Drunk, Flash Your Crotch, Insult Gays and Kill Dogs. What a bummer.
Woe is them. They made a wrong choice.
Nuh-uh. No sale here. They were selfish, inconsiderate a**holes, at the very least. But I'll admit they didn't get that way by themselves. The wrong choices were made years earlier. By parents. By indifferent schools. By substituting money for caring, presents for companionship. By being raised in a society which values celebrity over all.
As much as their behaviour appalls, I honestly feel sorry for most of these people, many of whom are little more than kids. Values like respect, honesty, dignity and compassion, instead of being ingrained by the time they hit their teens, remain abstract concepts. They can mouth the words, as taught by their agents, managers and lawyers, and they can learn that downcast eyes and a tremulous voice mimics contrition -- but in their heart of hearts, I think most of them just don't get it and probably never will. As long as they have money and flashbulbs going off in their faces, they'll have simpering sycophants whispering about how wonderful they are. And they'll believe them.
Because to do otherwise is to admit there's an emptiness inside that can't be filled with money, red carpets, screaming fans and high-fives. And then what do they have to turn to?
Oh yeah. Drugs, alcohol and brushes with the law.
And so it goes.
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* This is my nominee for the phrase of the year that MUST be obliterated, expunged, erased from the lexicon. If you hear or read it, you can be reasonably sure the user is trying to sell you a line of something that is better spread on farmer's fields.
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More nice cottage pics at Hilary's blog.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Vacation Pics (Issue #151)
As promised...
It's been a long, extended summer and parts of cottage country seem untouched by autumn's fingerpaints - like this path off the road. It used to lead to a swamp and was a favoured spot for frog-catchers in summer and duck hunters in fall. But as you can see by the meadow in the background, consecutive dry summers have evaporated all the water.
Over at Hilary's blog, The Smitten Image, you can read her take on how the fishing went and see more fine pics.
It's been a long, extended summer and parts of cottage country seem untouched by autumn's fingerpaints - like this path off the road. It used to lead to a swamp and was a favoured spot for frog-catchers in summer and duck hunters in fall. But as you can see by the meadow in the background, consecutive dry summers have evaporated all the water.
The picture below is more reflective of what the countryside looks like now. It will become even more colourful in the next week or so.
About a mile from our cottage is a lovely little lake from which we've plucked many a brook trout over the years. The path shown below, carved out by anglers, canoeists and campers, leads to it.
The next two shots are proof I wasn't lying about the "lovely" part.
After a long day's hike...well...after a long, nearly-an-hour's hike, it feels good to take a load off the old pins.
Now there's a novel shoeshine.
Some of you are itching to know how the fishing was. Well, when you have to resort to using a gaff in order to successfully land a largemouth bass, you know darn well you've got yourself a beauty!
Or maybe you just learn about the importance of perspective....
Sometimes I didn't know whether to focus on the reality or the reflection - so usually I opted for both. This, by the way, is our cottage's "front lawn." Some folks opt for clearing the brush and seeding grass. We're from the landscaping-by-Mother-Nature school of cottaging.
As evening draws down, it's time to start thinking about making a fire, sitting back, and sipping something smooth.
It just doesn't get any better than this folks. Glad you could join me.
Over at Hilary's blog, The Smitten Image, you can read her take on how the fishing went and see more fine pics.
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