Even though the air wasn't very cold (the skin on my face disagreed), today's walk in the foggy afternoon was short.

*

After having an achey upper right arm since September, a couple stiff fingers on my right hand in the mornings since well before June, and a joint in my right thumb that complained whenever I held a pen, I decided to try one of those magnetic bracelets that wearers swear fixes their every ill. My brother-in-law Gary has one that vanquished his “golf elbow” overnight, and he never goes without it now. So on the way to the Kelowna airport in October, Joan and I stopped at the place he’d bought it.

There was a good variety of the bracelets but only two or three (thankfully; I was in a hurry) that were small enough for my wrist, so that narrowed the possibilities. I purchased a silver bracelet with narrow but solid rectangular links; something heavy, relatively speaking, and durable, I thought. I usually won't pay much for jewellery because I lose it or break it or leave it sitting in a box, unless I can put it on and forget about it (am I a real girl?). But if it meant avoiding a visit to the doctor to get checked for arthritis or muscular dystrophy, this seemed worth the hundred bucks.

It was two weeks before there was any difference in the state of my arm and hand. By Christmas Day I was not thinking about the arm except to note how much better it was, and only the thumb joint occasionally made itself felt. They were noticeably improved enough not to be an issue. Then on Boxing Day the bracelet, which I wore constantly, was no longer on my wrist. After a week without it, the arm was aching again; soon after, I awoke with stiff fingers once more. After searching (and cursing) high and low, the bracelet finally turned up with a broken link in the pocket of my mink coat.

“It’s all in your head,” Scott says to me.
“That may be,” says I, “but if that magnetic bracelet makes my head do right by me, then I need to get the thing fixed. And soon.”

*

*

Down in sunny Californey, Dad and Grace have hit the dusty trail and expect to be back in Kelowna on Saturday. I requested a photo of Grace for all Dad's nosy friends and relatives (you know who you are), and got it, to my surprise ...

Off the kitchen.

*

Misplaced my keys several weeks ago. Never could believe I’d lost the keys—to my van, the other house, the mail, Cathy’s— and was over at Golden Grain Farm today, telling Everett how I’d put them so carefully into my jacket pocket one evening when he and I were there with Scott’s truck, getting wood and checking on the furnace. It occurred to me that I might have put them in a pocket I rarely use. So I looked – and sure enough, they were in a pocket that zips up– as a matter of fact, one of the same set of pockets where I’d misplaced one of my gloves last February and didn’t find it for a month.

Scott would say, "I used to be blond too, but I grew out of it."

Sometimes the silver can't come in fast enough.

*

Emil has returned home coughing and hacking and stuffed up; I can taste his cold in the air when he comes near me.

*

Cathy had heard that a movie called Beauty Parlor or Beauty Shop, with Queen Latifah, was funny, so we watched it in the comfort of her living room on Friday night. Kevin Bacon played a self-important Austrian salon owner who said in an affected accent, “So, you vant to altercate vit me?” and I loved that line so much I repeated it 5 times throughout the evening.

*

Corey Amaro took a photo tour of Versailles. Nice.

*

Grace sent this photo of "the birthday boy standing underneath the London Bridge--it was brought over and rebuilt." They were at Lake Havasu, Palm Springs, California and are now on their way home to Kelowna. (Is it possible that anyone reading this doesn't recognize my paterfamilias?)

***

I'm to pass on the news that Saturday Jan 12 there's a birthday party for Aunt Vera at the seniors' club in Margo between 2 and 4. She's turning 80.

***

Emil and Everett are home. I'll say "Woo hoo" but without the !, because it was a long drive.

(((((((((((((((((((()((((((((((((((()(((((((((((((()(((((((((((

Doesn't my nephew live in the lap of luxury?

Below, his big sister Jordan holds him. (Cathy, I'm posting this for you so you can get another look at those eyebrows.)

Cathy thinks he's got my eyebrows; apparently I have one that arches just that way. She is the only person who has mentioned it but as we (ahem: I) like to say around here, "Cathy is always right."

By the time I update again, my sons will be home. I'm about to hit the highway; looks like a clear day for travelling, though Scott tells me it's warmed up to just below freezing, so that the roads are likely to be slippery. Oh goody.

***

I called Dad this morning; it's his 69th birthday and he has a lousy cold so has been sticking close to their hotel room. He says Arizona is cold right now, around 60 F and windy. Grace is feeding him soup and taking good care of him. In spite of being stuffed up and coughy, I can't think of many more pleasant ways to spend a birthday than holed up with your sweetheart. Could be he's just pretending to be sick.

Feel better soon, Pa.

First Convention of the United Farmers of Canada, Sask Section Limited, Moose Jaw, MCH 22-25, 1927

This is a wide photo on heavy paper stock. It came to me in Grandma's or Aunt Jean's collection, rolled up. Unrolled it's 34 inches wide. I've tacked it open beneath a bookshelf, where it will be seen rather than tucked into a box for the next 80 years. My eyes are peeled for an antique picture frame for it and for one like it, which is the staff of the Canadian General Hospital in England in 1942. Aunt Alma (my great-great aunt; I have a collection of heavy copper kettles she brought home from her travels) is in that one, in her nurse's uniform and cap.

(((((((((((((((((((()((((((((((((((()(((((((((((((()(((((((((((

It was cold enough yesterday afternoon that I didn't walk far but Casper, who doesn't always come with me since winter arrived, was full of vim and vigour and pranced on just slightly ahead. When she came to us in the summer I had to slow down so she could keep up without her heart exploding—that's how it sounded, as she panted so hard. She's slimmed down some. I used to call her Fat Girl but she now goes by the new moniker Scott has given her, Big Girl. My old friend Shelly, who brought her here from Alberta, was right: she's not fat, she's big-boned.

When I first offered to keep Casper (Shelly was moving from her acreage into a town and didn't want to confine the dog to a fenced yard), Scott was not positive about the prospect. "Two dogs together are stupid," he'd say, since there already is a dog on the farm. He'd register his disapproval that this was happening in spite of his own mild discouragement, for I had taken a page out of my sister Karen's book, ignored his protests, and was getting the dog anyway. (Karen's husband Dick has lived with a succession of household pets for the 25 years of their marriage, despite his objections. She's always been an animal lover and though she's still smitten with Dick, he's smart enough to know she might not be if he forced her to choose between himself and her little creatures. I'm only half-kidding.)

Nowadays Casper waits on the step for Scott to go out in the mornings for the usual banter and rubbing of her thick fur. Till lately she slept under the deck; he brought a doghouse over and set it by the step so she has a better shelter. In the evenings when he sprawls like a walrus on the couch in front of the TV, Casper comes to the window and looks longingly in at him; he waves at her and talks to her in a caressing tone, and she'll lick the window longingly. Yesterday he fried up stew meat and made a fine gravy to go with it ... for the dogs and cats. Yeah, he doesn't like pets at all. (I bet Dick, too, is only pretending.)

***

My nod to today's holiday is to put on a new shirt, red and lacy, so that it feels like a special occasion. I rang the New Year in quietly and with my own thoughts, while Scott snored on the other couch, waking up only a few times in the previous three hours when I'd laugh raucously at some joke made in the CBC comedy specials on TV. I'm not complaining, either. It's been a long time since I wanted to be out doing something celebratory on New Year's Eve.

(((((((((((((((((((()((((((((((((((()(((((((((((((()(((((((((((

Ah, if winter could always be like this ... no wind, or at least very little; temperature balmy; why, I could walk forever on these days. Above, I'm approaching the correction line (that's a gravel road that puts grid maps back into whack when the curve of the earth has raised a ruckus with the squares and lines of human mapping) from the farmyard driveway, where you can see the tractor tracks.

Below, I'll turn and walk north at the corner just past the fence. The new house is up that road less than a mile.

Down the driveway:

Down the garden path:

Sit down:

(((((((((((((((((((()((((((((((((((()(((((((((((((()(((((((((((

This was as close as the stallion would come when I stopped to talk to him today while walking around the perimeter of the farmyard. I have promised the poor lad I'd get him out of that corral, where he's been alone for two years now, but so far I've had no success motivating his owner to move him to green pasture and the company of other horses.

My friend Clever is visiting from Calgary and has just called from her mother's. She is coming out with her brother this evening. I am in the middle of making supper for Scott and me, and washing today's dishes. He's out doing his chores — feeding and watering cattle, putting into the barn the cows that already have newborn calves or are expected to give birth any day. The men hauled bales today and are all tired already, but there is no rest for the wicked. The beasts (the cattle, I mean; this time) must be taken care of.

In my CBC newsletter today: Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. I am disappointed in the world.

Now Playing: Bjork

(((((((((((((((((((()((((((((((((((()(((((((((((((()(((((((((((

Peace and quiet, with coffee, before the visiting begins. Scott and I will go next door for Christmas dinner with his family; I'll pick Grandma up from the lodge and bring her out for a few hours; it looks like I will be receiving some CDs, which means at some point today I will, if lucky, be back here listening to new music while sipping on Grand Marnier.

But first, to get rid of this slight headache. After the candlelight service in Margo last night, where the last of the choir singing got over and done with, we went to my sister Karen's and had a couple drinks. Two rye and cokes, and my neck is not happy. I might have to eschew alcohol from now on; okay, after the Grand Marnier.

Time to phone my children at their dad's.