Once upon a time...

B...B...Brrrrrrrrrr....

Another couple of days of this and the weather should break. I hope so. My butt is chapped.

Currently at -28 C (-18.4 F) before the wind chill. Expecting it to get around -45 C (-49 F) overnight with the wind. It's so much FUN to be out in that!

I need warmer boots.

Santa? Are you listening? A seat warmer would be nice, too. I mean for the truck. Or not...

The big boss man flew in from Vancouver and invited me and my management team out for dinner. It took almost two hours for the husband and I to get to the restaurant from our house. But during that time, I learned something very important:

No matter what happens with traffic or the weather, it's my fault.

I'm kidding. Kind of.

Anyway, I received a very nice bonus check for Christmas.

Gods, it's been so long since I was out in the evening. I'm not joking when I say that to get ready for dinner, I pulled out my makeup case and blew two inches of dust off of it before it was opened.

During dinner, my assistant kept staring at me until I finally asked him if there was something wrong.

"No," he said, "I've just never seen you wear anything but a sweatshirt and track pants."

Apparently, I need a life.

A few years ago, there was a fundraiser that auctioned off a number of life sized statues of cows, creatively painted by local artists. Usually you see them on the lawns of wealthy homes, but there is one in the very middle class neighborhood I'm currently working.

Last night I noticed that the cow was dressed like Santa.

Life is good.

Just before leaving the house around 1:00 am, the husband handed me a disc.

"Here," he said, "I made this for you."

Now, I know some people think it's tacky, and maybe I'd agree if he made me a disc of "our" songs, but honestly, I think a disc of mixed music is one of the best gifts. Ever.

I know that he's taken the time to find music that he thinks I'll like. Or music that he likes that he wants to share with me. Either way, my night has just become more interesting.

The disc is Christmas music. I can't stop grinning. Bing Crosby's infamous duet with David Bowie, Cheech and Chong, Johnny Lang, Bonnie Raitt, Blues Traveler, Joe Satriani, Bob Seger... The list goes on.

It doesn't matter that the temperature is hovering around -24 C, or that the cold is burning my thighs and butt. There are Christmas lights everywhere, and the night sky is clear although impossibly full of ice crystals that catch and reflect even the tiniest sliver of light.

The ice crystals shimmer in front of my eyes and the night glitters.

Whitney Houston has begun to sing "Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining..." I look up to greet Orion, just in time to see a shooting star burning through the sky. But that's not all.

The Northern Lights are out tonight and as I slowly turn I realize that they surround me in all directions, rippling and glowing. I am overwhelmed. Whatever divinity exists is here with me now. I laugh and cry right there in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night.

Around 5:00 am, the mist floats in like a dream, muffling the sounds of the city, and eventually even the Aurora Borealis succumbs, fading to black.

Every breath is a revelation. It's been a long time since I felt so complete. My night was filled with color and light, where everything was sparkle and shine, and beautiful voices soared in a celebration of life, and love and laughter.

I almost feel sorry for the people who sleep at this time of day. They will never get to know the wonder and beauty of the night.

I'm feeling kind of bad. I yelled at a homeless guy today for going through the garbage. It's not that I care if someone wants to go through my garbage looking for anything they can use, it's just that they always leave such a mess behind.

I am such a bitch. A bitch that feels bad... but a bitch all the same.

I'm extremely restless and can't seem to quiet myself enough to even try to sleep. I've wandered around my bedroom. I've set up a beautiful old table as a writing desk. I've listened to soothing music. I've polished a pair of antique tea light lamps. I organized all my Chinese calligraphy supplies. I tried to assemble a table top easel but I didn't have a screwdriver. I looked for a screwdriver. I didn't find a screwdriver. I tried to read. I tried to write.

You know what the problem is?

I went Christmas shopping today. I didn't mean to. It just kind of happened. And now I can't stop thinking about Christmas.

Brace yourself. It's going to be a long month.

On the cover of today's newspaper was a small picture of a smiling man. He looked so much like my father, when my father was still healthy, that I was distracted throughout the night. When I got home, I fell asleep and dreamed of my father and other members of his family who have passed.

Dad came from a large family. He had seven brothers and one sister. One of his brothers died in infancy and another drowned before I was born. With the exception of one uncle, all of them settled in the same area. They all farmed, except for Dad who was a heavy duty mechanic, and most of them had other jobs as well - driving trucks and working the rigs. The women of the family were the ones who really ran the farms - strong, capable women who managed to keep house, cook meals and raise large families of their own while doing so.

My parents were older when they married and started their family, so my sibs and I were more of an age with our second cousins. And there were scores of them. Family gatherings, weddings and funerals were a frequent occurrence so we ended up spending a lot of time with our extended family in spite of the fact that we lived more than an hour drive away.

When I woke from my dream, I was thinking about my Aunt Charlotte, my father's only sister. Her husband, Uncle Charlie was a short, quiet man who would hold up his end of the conversation with the words, "You don't say!" or "Honest!" When he got older and his mind started to go, the girls in the family had to be careful not to be left alone in the room with him. He wasn't a pedophile, but he would forget that he wasn't young and that we were his relatives and he would try to touch our breasts.

Aunt Charlotte was a loud, colorful personality. She had an opinion on EVERYTHING.

"I don't care what you say. A healthy person poops two times a day."

There was no telling fibs to Aunt Charlotte. She'd see right through you. And she always had a new idea.

"I'm going to grow three acres of marijuana beneath sunflowers so it can't be seen from the air and sell it for $5000 a bale."

She never did, of course, but her sunflowers were impressive. They towered over you. We would play hide and seek in the sunflowers and actually lost a second cousin for five hours. The rest of her garden was equally impressive - fat peas and enormous carrots and the reddest tomatoes I ever saw. She also grew herbs, raspberries and saskatoon berries.

I loved Aunt Charlotte's farm. There was a smokehouse and a greenhouse, a barn full of kittens, a chicken coop, and numerous other buildings scattered over the property. Most of those were falling apart, but they made great places for games of pretend. Every so often we'd sneak into one of the grain silos and play in the grain. Thank the gods none of us had asthma or any other lung disease. With all that grain dust, someone would have died before we made it back to the house for help. She knew we played in the silos, but she never said anything about it. The only real rule she had was we were not to spook the cattle.

For most of my life, Aunt Charlotte had an outhouse instead of a bathroom. It wasn't until she got older that she finally had a bathroom put in. Winter is damn cold on the prairies, and a trip to the outhouse is NOT a lot of fun - less so when arthritis settles in to your joints. Until the time the bathroom was put in, there was no running water in the house. There was a pump. All water for washing and cooking was heated on the enormous cast iron stove that warmed the whole house in the winter. The coal was kept in the cellar. I remember being sent to the cellar for a bucket of coal. It was the darkest, scariest place I'd ever been. But it was worth the trip to keep that stove going. Aunt Charlotte could really cook. Everything she cooked was delicious, but the thing that I remember the most was freshly baked bread, dripping with butter (that she churned herself) and honey (she traded with a neighbor for the honey).

The farmhouse wasn't very big. The kitchen was the largest room. The only other rooms on the main floor were a small living room and bedroom. There was a steep set of stairs that led to the second floor, where there were two tiny bedrooms, with sloped ceilings. Once her family was grown, those rooms were only used for storage. We'd go up there and explore when it was too cold to play outside. The calander on the wall was from 1955.

Eventually, her youngest daughter had another house moved onto the farm and lived there so there was never any need for Aunt Charlotte to leave her home. She lived and died in the house where she raised her family. And the farm still remains.

After a series of things went wrong today, the husband lost his temper. He'd been yelling for a while when he suddenly looked at me.

"What are YOU smiling about?" he asked.

"Well," I said, "I'm not sure exactly what the rules are, and it's not like I had anywhere to go anyway, but I'm pretty sure you can't ground me."

Growing up, I shared a room with my older sister. I hated it. We are two very different people, my sister and I, with different tastes in almost everything. When she had friends over, I wasn't allowed in our room. When I had friends over, I wasn't allowed in our room. She was older, you see, and needed her privacy. When she was in the ninth grade, she was accepted in an exchange program with a girl from Quebec. This presented a bit of a problem. As a "temporary" measure, I was moved to the bedroom in the basement suite downstairs, giving up my bed to the girl from Quebec.

I could hardly contain my happiness. Not only was it cooler and darker downstairs, but I had my own bathroom, not to mention kitchen and living room. Okay, I was too young to use the kitchen, but I made full use of the rest of the suite.

The bed was queen size (no more single for me!) and piled with three regular mattresses, one four inch foam mattress and an assortment of feather quilts hand-made by widowed aunts. It was in the center of the room, but to maximize space, I moved it into the corner. Foraging through the rest of the house, I collected furniture that was no longer in use by anyone, including my parents old cabinet record player that took me hours to wiggle in to the bedroom and took up an entire wall. When I was done, in addition to the bed and stereo, I had a tall dresser, a bookcase, a comfy chair and ottoman, my sister's outgrown desk with chair, a multicolored lamp that looked like it was straight out of a fifties sci-fi movie and a mirror.

I was NEVER moving back upstairs.

I loved that room. I decorated it with psychedelic posters and a blackboard, where I would quote classic poets, just to confuse my mother. I'd turn off all the lights except the weird lamp in the corner, lay on the floor and listen to Pink Floyd, letting my imagination take me wherever it wanted to go. I sang along with Simon and Garfunkel, and I wept when John Lennon was shot. When I was fourteen, my nineteen year old (and therefore forbidden) boyfriend who lived in the apartment building across the street would come by at night when I was sleeping and slip love letters into my window.

In my mind, the most interesting thing in my room was the mirror above the dresser. It had originally been part of my sister's bedroom set, before I came along. It was large and square, and the frame was painted an obscene canary yellow. (The tiny desk matched.) Partly to cover the hideous yellow, and partly because it's what young girls do, I covered the mirror with decorations. Stickers of mythical beasts, pictures of friends, cards from roses I'd received, feathers and beads, necklaces, postcards, even the little umbrella from my first cocktail in a bar. There was even a missing child poster I found when we were in Idaho. (Something about the young girl in the picture struck a chord with me. I still think about her, occasionally, and wonder what happened to her.) Anyone who looked closely at the mirror would know instantly what was important to me.

Teenage years are full of insecurities, but I had a magic mirror. Whenever I wanted to know what I looked like, I didn't look in the mirror - I looked at it.

My almost ten year old son, Bear, was working on the computer, compiling his Christmas wish list. When he left to get something to drink, I stole a peek. This is what he wrote:

Bear's Christmas List

1. Left for Dead
2. Left for Dead 2
3. Laptop
4. Wireless head set
5. A Very Good Christmas

Yesterday, I was reading the journal of manifestress She was speaking of a gentleman named Dr. Yu and the Chinese practice of not telling a patient when they have a terminal disease like cancer. It reminded me of my father in his final days.

My father was in his eighties when he died. Near the end of his life, his kidneys began to fail. He was being kept alive with thrice weekly dialysis sessions. His doctors gathered the family in order to make a decision as to what to do. He was not going to get better. His health would just continue to deteriorate until even the dialysis stopped being effective.

The human body is an amazing machine. There is not a single piece of man-made technology that can give you an 80 year+ warranty on all parts. It requires very little maintenance and repairs itself. But eventually, even the human body succumbs to time.

I loved my father beyond anything I can express with words. He was my rock - the one person in my family that, even if I wasn't related to him, I would have wanted him to be part of my life. My love for him was unshakable.

When it came time to make a decision, I voted to discontinue treatment. Was it an easy decision? Hell, no. But I knew my father well enough to know that he was suffering - trapped as he was in his failing body. And I loved him enough to let him go.

My brother and sister were shocked and upset that I would vote the way I did. They claimed that if I loved him, I would want him to live. It's my belief that it was their own sense of guilt that wanted him kept alive under those circumstances. Neither of them shared the relationship that I enjoyed with dad. In family battles, of which there were many, both of them would side with my mother. It was dad and I against the world.

This was the only time that I sided with my mother. As the person who would have to see to his care, feeding him and changing him, etc., the final decision was hers. She voted with me. My siblings have never forgiven me.

Once treatment was stopped, we were told, we could expect him to last up to five days. The next question was, did we want him to know we were stopping his treatment?

Again, I was on the opposite side of my siblings. Only this time, my mother voted with them. My father was NOT told that his treatment was being stopped.

Now, I can understand the Chinese way of not telling a patient that their illness is terminal. The logic in that argument is that they might lose their will to live, give up the fight.

But if I only had a few days to live, as was the case with my father, I would want to know. Maybe there was someone from his past that he would want a chance to forgive, or ask forgiveness of. Maybe he had a message he would want passed on. Maybe he had final wishes that were left unspoken. Maybe he would just want the chance to say, "I love you" one more time.

My vote didn't count.

And I hope my father forgives me for that.

I met Santa once. 

It was 1994 and the husband and I were newly married.  I had begun to realize that he suffered from Chronic Depression and agoraphobia. In a few short months, my life had become a sinking ship.  In a desperate attempt to improve our situation,  I convinced him we needed a change of scenery, and began to plan a move from our beloved beach community back to the city on the prairie.  I thought with the combination of familiarity and anonymity, he might snap out of it. I was very wrong, but that's another story.

Island living is not inexpensive, and although I worked three jobs, pulling the money together for a move of that magnitude was going to be a challenge.  The move was slated for the week between Christmas and New Year's.  I had rented us an apartment, sight unseen, over the phone, using a newspaper that was more than a week old.  I had enough money for the first month's rent and damage deposit, but once I had rented a truck, there was almost nothing left over.

Christmas would have to be canceled.

I love Christmas.  I love the sights and the smells.  I love the feeling you get when you KNOW you have the perfect gift for someone.  I love the warmth and the laughter.  And I love Christmas trees.

It was very hard not to feel sorry for myself.

In the end I couldn't do it.  I couldn't cancel Christmas entirely.  I bought a turkey, reasoning that we would be able to use the leftovers to eat for the two days it would take us to move.  I bought a second hand video game and wrapped it in the Sunday comics I saved from the old newspaper I used to find us a place to live.

On the 23rd of December I pulled in to the parking lot at the pub I worked in during the day.  Behind me pulled in a little red truck, filled with evergreens.  Behind the wheel was a little old man.

"Hello, miss!" he called out to me. "Would you like a tree for your Christmas?"

I could feel the tears rising behind my eyelids.  Never mind that I couldn't have a Christmas tree, I felt really bad that I couldn't help this old man by buying one of his trees.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I just can't afford to buy a tree this year."

"Oh, I'm not selling them," he chortled, "I'm GIVING them away!"  He jumped out of his truck, walked over to me and patted my hand. "Let's find you a nice one."

He rummaged around in the back of his truck and pulled out a tree.

"Oh," he said with a frown. "Not this one.  It has a bald spot as big as mine."

"No," I said. "It's perfect."

He looked at me and smiled.

"I knew I was going to like you." he said as he loaded the tree into my car.

"I don't know how to thank you," I said.

"It's my pleasure," he said.  Then he stopped and looked at me closely. "I don't know what it is that's troubling you, miss, but I want to tell you that you are going to be just fine.  You are strong."

He clasped my hand, kissed my cheek, jumped back in his little red truck and with a wave, he drove away.  I opened my hand.  In it was a piece of paper, with a name and a phone number. On it were the words "If you are ever in trouble, you just go on ahead and call me."

I don't know how he found the time to write me that note when I was with him the whole time.  Santa magic I guess.

I took that little tree with the bald spot home with me and decorated it with cookies and popcorn.  I put my comic wrapped gift beneath it.

On Christmas morning we sat on the floor in front of the tree and the husband opened our gift. The turkey went into the oven and we began to play.  An hour later some friends came by with a plate of Christmas baking, and a half an hour after that some more friends came by with some homemade Bailey's. We all played the video game.

There were sights and smells.  There was that one perfect gift. There was warmth and laughter.  And there was a Christmas tree.

I will always remember that Christmas as being one of the best I ever had.

I found out before we left that my Santa was a reclusive old millionaire who once owned most of the land upon which our town was built.  He slowly sold it off, piece by piece to the developers and now lived on a few remaining acres deep in the forest.

I never called that number, but I held on to that piece of paper for years.  Just having it made me stronger. And knowing that Santa exists - that made me stronger, too.

One of my guys did a vanishing act last night.  This isn't really unusual - it used to happen all the time.  Payday comes and the next day you're down a few people.  I've been lucky.  It hasn't happened to me for a while.  Probably because I don't bother to bullshit people.  I tell them the truth about how much money they can expect to make.  The last three people to run this district had a very bad habit of exaggerating and disaster was quick to follow.

Never lie to people about money, and always do what you say you're going to do. Seems pretty simple.

This guy had issues.  I knew that about him and I took the chance anyway.  My mistake.

I loaned him some money to get him started and only took half of what he owed me back from his pay. It doesn't really matter.  There is a week's delay between the end of the pay period and payday, so I'll get back the rest of what was loaned out.

What really sucks is how he screwed his "friends" in the process.  He convinced two guys to come work with him and promised them they would make x number of dollars. Then he took the paycheck and vanished. His two friends, Curtis and not-Curtis were left high and dry. (The name not-Curtis came about because we never knew the guy's name.  I would say something about Terry's friend and the husband would ask, "Curtis?" and I would say "Not Curtis." So that's who he became.)

Not-Curtis is the one who tipped me off.  Curtis had done his own vanishing act a few days before.  Some unexplained illness. Not-Curtis had continued to work with Terry. When Terry didn't come to pick him up last night, not-Curtis walked to his house and discovered his van and travel trailer were gone. Terry had borrowed his phone to call me a few days earlier, so not-Curtis looked up the number and called me.

Two things of note here: had not-Curtis not been the guy he was, I wouldn't have found out about the no-show until it was too late to fix it.  Secondly, here is a guy who has just been screwed out of a month's pay, has no insured vehicle and a new baby at home.  And all he wants to do is work.

I drove to the north end of the city to get him, took him back to my house and loaned him a vehicle. He went out on his own and did a damn fine job.

We met up this afternoon to discuss what could be done.  I calculated what was owed for the week, subtracted what was owed to me and gave him the rest. At this point, most people would chalk it up to a bad experience and walk away.  Not not-Curtis. He just wants to work.

It's been decided.  I will lease him one of my vans and pay for the gas for the rest of the month.  The lease and gas money will be deducted from his check.  And he will have steady work. With his other income, he will at least be able to look after his family, and in a month or two, be able to register and insure his own vehicle.

Maybe I'm a fool to take another chance.  But even though he'd just been ripped off, including the last of his savings that he had given to Terry to get things started, his first thought was how bad things would be for me if he didn't show up.  How can I not acknowledge that?

It's never good to start from behind in this business.  You end up putting in a lot of time for very little take-home.  Not-Curtis knows this.  But he just wants to work.

I'm restless.

Entertain me.

Yesterday I performed a random act of coffee.

It was my turn at the window of the Tim Horton's drive-through.  As I paid for my order, I told the woman at the window that I'd like to pay for the order of the man in the truck behind me.

It amused me to think of him wondering why on earth a stranger would buy his coffee.  And he got a free coffee.  It was win-win.

The husband thinks I'm a nut.  This wasn't my first random act of coffee.

When we were in Waterton, the only civilized cup of coffee to be had came from a little cappuccino place that only took cash.  The couple behind me had already placed their order when they learned that they couldn't use their debit card. They asked for directions to the nearest cash machine and while the proprietor was giving them directions, I quietly paid for their order and left the store.

They caught up with me at breakfast the following morning and came over to say thank you.

"What was that about?" asked the husband.

"Random act of coffee," I said.

He just rolled his eyes and smiled.

The first two days were all about survival.  Let's just get through this. And we did.

The third day was used  to observe and analyze.  Recognize patterns.  Prioritize problems.

Day four (today) was split - brainstorming and attacking. If someone couldn't or wouldn't provide me with answers, I went over their heads. I searched until I found the core of the problem and then I worked on the solution. No one else seemed to know where to look.  Cosmetic cover-ups are not good enough.  I want this fixed from the foundation.

The higher ups are predicting that everything will be worked out by the first of November.  Screw that.  I'm going to have my district running smoothly by the end of the weekend.

I don't care who I have to piss off to do it.

I'm angry.  Really angry.

I've spent the last week doing everything I can think of to make this transition as smooth as possible.   I've worked hard.  I've stayed calm. I've attended to a thousand little details that others would have missed.

The one thing I didn't have was the data that I needed to make this all come together.  The supplier promised it would be ready.

We are now HOURS away from go-time, and the phone rings.

Data is still unavailable.  Maybe tomorrow.

What?

I've got five absolutely green rookies coming out tonight and I can't give them the correct information. I can't train them properly. What are the chances that any of them will come back tomorrow, after finding out what an unprofessional organization this really is? This is NOT the way I conduct my business.

Why the hell have I been killing myself to make this work?

I'd complain to man who is supposed to be running this shit show, but he chose this week to go on holidays.  It's no wonder the supplier is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy protection.  No one there knows what the fuck they are doing.

...okay, I'm done now.

As twilight began to fall, we pulled the truck off to the side of the road that leads to "Hole" and killed the engine.  There's nothing to see here, just a big empty field with forest in the background.  From our excursion earlier in the day, I know that behind the trees is the rocky shore of the lake and that the mountains are on the other side.

At first, everything is quiet, but for the wind.  No one is speaking, but we are all listening. A sound rises from the forest, echoing eerily across the valley.  It sounds like a woman screaming.  I feel the hair on my arms standing as a shiver ripples through my body.  There is an answering call from the other side of the field.  In the distance, I see movement.

Silently, I curse myself for not having found the binoculars before we left.  All I have is a small pair of opera glasses.  We pass them back and forth, trying to locate the source of the calls.

"There!" I say, pointing, "Just left of center. Do you see him?"

An enormous bull elk has stepped out of the trees and has resumed his bugling. His calls are being answered by other bulls as they step out of the trees with their harems.  Challenges are being issued. 

Fascinated we watch as the first bull trots over to another group and lowers his head.  His challenge is refused.  He chooses a female and herds her away.  From all sides of the semi-circular grove at the end of the field, elk are emerging in small groups. We are far enough away to not disturb the ritual and almost too far away to see anything.  But the elk are large, and even from this distance, it's easy to see two massive animals as they come together, locking antlers and wrestling each other into submission. The collisions are so forceful we can hear the crack of the antlers and see the unmistakble cloud of dust that arises.  Each time, the winner chooses his prize and leads her off to the forest before returning to the action.

There are hundreds of elk now, and the deepening twilight is full of the sounds of their calls. It is one of the most impressive and awe inspiring things I've ever seen. Darkness falls too quickly and we are forced, by our inadequate night vision to leave the area, knowing that the fight will continue through this night, and every night during rutting season.

It is so regular, in fact, that our coming to this particular spot was no accident.  For hundreds, maybe thousands of years, the elk have come to this field to conduct their mating rituals.

The experience made me wonder about the rhythms and patterns of nature, and most of all about human beings.  Did we once have elaborate courtship rituals that had nothing to do with drinks and stilted conversation?  We must have and yet somehow we have broken away from them.  How different would life be if things had not changed? How much simpler?

( Read more... )

I looked at my home page and noticed that I haven't written anything here for a week.  Wow.  I don't even know how that happened. 

I've been really busy with work and various other pursuits, managing only to read my friend's list before falling asleep.  I haven't missed a single post, although I haven't commented much at all.  You are a very interesting group of people.

I thought today was going to be the day I could set aside some minor work-related tasks and have an "inside" day.  I planned to spend the day cooking, cleaning, sorting out music and writing. I managed to take some steaks out of the freezer and fold a couple of loads of laundry before all hell broke loose with my job.  I must have spent half the day on the phone between Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.  All the big changes are due to begin next week, and so far I've been given little to no information to work with.  Today I received just enough information to begin formulating a strategy, so my inside day took on a whole new look.

I didn't even get to cook the steaks.

I thought I should take a minute or two to say SOMETHING just so you know I haven't disappeared.

I'll try this again tomorrow.