"Although he may not be a man
Some girls think of
As handsome
To my heart, he carries the key"

Most mornings when I sit at my computer I am half-spooked by some distorted photo Scott or Everett has made.

***

Now playing: Linda Ronstadt with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, I've Got a Crush on You

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4:33 p.m.

There won't be many more pictures this year like the one above. The snow has started to melt; yesterday in town the van and I waded through water on the streets.

~ my best girl ~

Soon time to get out, where Sara will be so excited to go for a walk that she will nip at my heels, Blue Heeler style, as if I am a cow to be herded in the direction she wants me to go.

I woke up this morning feeling well rested, and looked over at Mom’s photo tacked up on the wall near the bed, and thought “I’d sure like to see you again.”

***

1. Grab the book closest to you.

2. Open page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.

3. Post the text of the next three sentences to me.
Here's mine:

"And the unbearable sweetness of completion, of fulfillment, for two beings so restless, so unsatisfied.

When Hugo's telegram arrives [from London] Henry looks stony. In the morning our sentimentality is shelled in."

4. Name the book and the author. Mine:

Incest: From a Journal of Love by Anaïs Nin

***

Now Playing: Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now (2000)
(love jazz, love crooners? try this — it's my favourite CD right now)

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9:52 a.m.

It was late in the day when I finally got dressed up to go for a walk. I'd just taken a batch of oatmeal bread out of the oven (and made two pizza crusts from the dough) and had finished most of my day's office work. The boys had been home from school for almost an hour. It was only as I was getting my ski pants on that Everett looked out the window and informed me that the schoolbus was stuck in the driveway. When I got out there, two vehicles had already stopped on the road to find out what was happening, Scott's mom was out there talking to the busdriver and kids, and Scott's dad was moving snow with a tractor.

You can't tell much from the picture, but there is so much snow that the driveway is about three feet of packed snow and the bus has gone off it. Its tires on one side are in the "ditch."

In the end, the tractor tires just spun when Ivan tried to pull the bus out. Men came with a backhoe and a grader, moved a bunch more snow, and then basically winched the bus out. I can't explain because I don't know what all the tools they used are called.

Then I went for my walk:

My sister Joan called yesterday and we had quite a long conversation. Halfway through it Dad called her on her cellphone; he was going to come over to her place. When he got there a half-hour later and Joan and I were still chatting enthusiastically, he quipped "Sorry, don't mean to cut your call short!"

I'm still in my pyjamas here. Have to get ready for my weekly trip to town. Am meeting with my lawyer again to finish up papers to apply to the courts for Emil's guardianship -- he's an adult now, since he turned 18, so I'm no longer automatically his guardian -- and will also get groceries and mail, pick up a book the library has in for me, visit Grandma, and bring Everett home from his piano lesson. Then I'll have to work a few hours in the office as well as come up with something for supper. It'll be a full day but at least it's starting off nice and slow, the way I like it.

Now Playing: Eliza Gilkyson, Misfits

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3 p.m.

Yesterday the principal called from the high school to tell me they were kicking Emil out for a day for saying "fuck" in the hallway four times. I guess they've been having this struggle with him over inappropriate language and now they have to impose the most dire consequence Emil can imagine—missing school.

To make sure I seem appropriately disapproving, I am making him work. This morning he did dishes; this afternoon he's making oatmeal squares.

Two calls from the school on the same day; one in regard to Everett having three assignments that are late. Must be something in the stars.

***

Now playing: Björk, Homogenic

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Unintended Consequences, a webpage I came across this morning, explains what it can be like to keep a blog:

"There are people out there reading, finding out what we are thinking and feeling and seeing. But we don't know the same things about them. I never fail to be shocked at a party when someone whose name I can't remember starts talking intimately about my 'blog.' And people who I count as friends read and keep up with me in a way. But their e-mails are few and far between. It's an unequal communication."

***

Vincent Van Gogh envisioned a sort of artists’ colony in the south of France. He went about renting, furnishing and decorating a little house in a small village, and persuaded the painter Paul Gaugin to join him there. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gaugin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles, by Martin Gayford, is the story of the time the two of them spent together, pursuing their art.

The book contains black and white illustrations of many of the paintings completed during this time (imagine how wonderful these would have been in colour), and even has a drawing of the layout of both floors of the house.

To read a review of The Yellow House, go here.

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7 p.m.

Just making supper now. Busy day. Went to the funeral for a lady in Margo, someone I've known all my life. Seeing the death announcement in the post office on Thursday was like a punch in the stomach. I drove down the street in tears after that. It's not that I knew her well; it's that I know how her kids are feeling.

Or maybe I don't. Their mom died suddenly, a heart attack. The shock of that must be a lot different. We had lots of time to bid our mom goodbye. Not that we really did, or I didn't, for I never believed she'd really go, not till she went into a coma. I held out hope for a miraculous recovery right till the last days.

The funeral was at the same little church where we held Mom's. It wouldn't have been too rough except that I can't keep my composure the moment I see anyone else weeping. Sheesh.

Afterward we all went to the hall for a lunch of sandwiches, squares, coffee and tea at long tables. It was an opportunity to see many friends and acquaintances and to hug the bereaved. One of them, a gal I'd gone to school with and who was a neighbour of ours on the farm, said "You know what it's like. But at least you still have your dad." Her dad died in 2004; I remain in the ranks of the fortunate.

Go, Dad! I hope he lives to be at least 98. That gives us another 30 years with him. I tease him that he'll have to come and live with me then; he can pay me back for being such a twitty teenager, living with him and Mom. "What goes around, comes around," he snorts.

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5:25 p.m.

Didn't get out for a walk today, but here's some pictures from one afternoon this week. The animules are pretty active, as you can tell by their tracks in the ditch (above). Lately the deer have moved from the flax and oat fields, which weren't harvested in the fall because the rain never let up and the snow came too soon, to the hay bales on "the hill" just outside the farmyard. So yesterday the dog flushed out two of them when we headed in that direction and I got to see two does close up, running past me. Naturally I didn't have the camera along, as its batteries were recharging.

~ another kind of animal tracks ~

Grandma needed to go for some tests at the hospital today. I met with my lawyer right after lunch (I have to apply to the courts to be made Emil's legal guardian now that he's 18 and considered an adult), then did the postoffice/library/grocerystore/hardwarestore thing before going to pick her up. When I got there the residents were all playing bingo in the dining room so I said I'd come back later. To kill time I went shopping and bought a nice orange shirt with lace around the bottom, and picked up coffee and doughnuts for Scott and the guy he's working with. After a little sitdown at the workplace and a tour of the new house, I got Grandma, drove her the half-block to the hospital (well it's really slippery with the wet snow coming down an inch at a time this afternoon), and had her back in her room within a half-hour. Just enough time for her to lay down for a short rest before supper.

Picked Everett up from his piano lesson and came home. Road pretty slippery. Time to make supper but I never feel like it when I walk in at 5 o'clock. Oh well, best get to it. Egg foo yung tonight, I think.

~ looking out the window,
a.k.a. putting off making supper ~

***

I'm told you can't leave a comment unless you become a "member." But how do you do that? Don't ask me. I'm guessing you'd click on the link that says "login" but ... god only knows. Sorry folks, you'll just have to email me directly, and I won't mind that at all.

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4:13 p.m. and I am finishing my afternoon tea and about to head out for a walk. I was hoping to get out a little earlier but there were breakfast dishes and editing waiting and bread (and pizza crusts) to bake and then more kitchen mess to clean up. These things take time, dammit. My day has already been full and is not done yet. I have a couple more hours of work to do, and supper to think about, and haven't done my yoga.

I was blessed by phone calls from both my sisters and my dear friend Shelly (who is thinking of coming out from Edmonton to visit me, woo hoo!). Yes, I had time to talk on the phone. What is a home office good for if you can't give yourself the "coffee breaks" you need for the important things in life?

There goes the timer; the bread's ready to come out. And I'm ready to go out. Bye!

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12:01 a.m.
Got stuck in front of the Biography channel tonight for a couple hours. I'm a sucker for life stories.

Grandma has been having pain and swelling in one of her hands so I got her a doctor's appointment, thus had to go to town. It was not the most pleasant day I've spent, because the Neck Thing was bothering me, as it has for the past week. All I wanted was to get home so I could take a pill and lay down. As it turned out, by the time I left town I'd also been out for lunch, shopped for Grandma, and had a haircut, and when I finally got here I took a pill and felt fine within an hour. Shoulda taken the damn pill before leaving, obviously. However, Doc told me today that I shouldn't take more than four of the pills in any given week. If I have another week like the past one, that won't be easy.

In the doctor’s waiting room, which was unusually full, everyone was talking to each other. "How are you?" someone asked Grandma and she replied "Ohhhh, pretty good, but not quite 100%" and someone remarked “If we were 100% we wouldn’t be here would we” and everyone nodded.

It’s so different from waiting rooms in the city, where people avoid each other’s eyes and pretend to be alone. Here, some of the old men had put their caps up on a shelf above the coats, which were fitted onto hangers. I saw that one old gentleman, when he came out and retrieved his cap, had even left his mail underneath it. You’d never see that in the city!

There were people in that waiting room from miles away. A lady who'd travelled some distance to see the doctor struck up a conversation with an old fellow sitting across from her. She recognized him, but didn’t recall his name. He remembered her sister, he said; didn’t she used to “go with” So-and-so? Yes indeed, the sister had, and had married him, but So-and-so is “not here any more,” she told the inquisitive gent.

Another oldster came out of the doctor’s office and sat in the waiting room to wait for his ride. He would be going into the hospital for a few days, he told the man sitting next to him; he wasn’t able to eat anything at all. He looked like he felt pretty lousy.

I was near tears several times this morning. Maybe it was the migraine thing, which brings on fatigue; that can be tear-prompting. But some of it was the simple observation of conditions so many of us are brought to by aging. We are slow, we are tired, we are sick, we have to rely on others to help us and take us places, sometimes we can’t live alone, we are institutionalized apart from our family members, we lose our spouses and friends, we go places with our granddaughters but lack confidence, aren’t sure we’re going in the right direction, don't remember what was said five minutes ago. It struck me hard today, even though I try to believe we can make the best of these conditions and changes if we look for the beauty in life and don't dwell on what has been lost.

Lately Grandma always thanks me when I drop her off. She thanks me for doing things for her. Today I said, “Well, you’ve done things for me all my life; why shouldn’t I do for you, now?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s the way it goes,” she said.

“As well it should,” I replied.

My uncle Bruce, to whom I spoke twice today about Grandma’s sore hand and the doctor visit, also thanked me both times for taking care of things. I responded with a casual “Uh huh” and it’s nice that my efforts are appreciated but at the same time thanks are unnecessary. She’s my grandma; who else should be doing these things for her? I’m one of those who should naturally reach for these responsibilities without thinking of myself as a hero for doing so.

I think of all the schooldays when my siblings and I wandered down the Margo street to Grandma and Grandpa’s for a hot lunch. The table would be set and bowls of steaming food would be placed before us. Kraft Dinner or fried potatoes were staples of these meals, which we kids loved; to this day, no one makes either dish as tasty as Grandma did.

We hardly ever took a packed lunch to school. At the time I never questioned it, but now I think surely Grandma had better things to do than make and clean up after a noontime meal for her grandchildren five days a week. How did she end up doing that, I wonder. Was it her idea? Grandpa’s? She did it for years.

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~ lunch's second course, fried perogies ~

This morning I caught a ride to town with Scott's dad, who was going in to do some business on main street. I was home in time to put away four bags of groceries before listening to the first instalment of Canada Reads. As the contestants talked about the books they are championing, I felt tempted to read them a second time. To hear others describe the characters in the stories is like turning a page I missed.

There’s one I haven’t finished yet: The Song of Kahunsha, by Anosh Irani; I’m just starting the third chapter. It's about a boy from an orphanage in India, who ends up on his own in a violent Bombay. I hope it won't have horrible images. When I read a particular account of torture and murder in one of Rohinton Mistry's celebrated books, I set it aside without finishing it. The images upset me enough not to knowingly risk another by reading further.

***

In the local paper ~

Excerpts from The Greenwater Report by Jerry and Doreen Crawford, reprinted from the Wadena News:

• Monday morning was quite brisk, -36C, sunny, and calm. I walked down to the café for coffee and sat by the window with Merv Miller and Chelsea. Merv mentioned mirages but I didn't know what he was talking about until he pointed it out.
On the north shore right at the treeline we could see a hill, which seemed normal enough until it moved, flattened out and disappeared. Then a trail opened up in the trees, moving across our field of vision. What looked like a ski run appeared, running down to the lake; then another opened up beside it and finally they merged and faded out.
There were two fishing huts by the point, a white one and a black one. The white one appeared to grow until it looked about twelve feet tall; a black spot appeared at the base of it and the hut seemed to move farther and farther away to the north until it disappeared. In the meantime, the black one grew taller and moved closer to us, but when it was as tall as the white one, it shrank again until it was just a little black bump in the snow. Then they both went back to normal.
Merv says the mirages only appear when the weather is very cold, and only last about an hour. We haven't noticed them from our place, but we haven't been watching, either. Of course, everyone gave Connie and Gary a rough time about putting special ingredients in the coffee.

• Shirley Miller told me a strange story the other day. A redpoll had hit their front window and knocked itself out. Its mate came along and pecked at it, trying to pull it up, but eventually the injured one died. The mate then picked it up and flew away with it! Has anyone else witnessed a similar event?

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