I do love that dog.

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Think you got it bad?

Mary-Jo Fetterly was injured in a skiing accident and is now a quadriplegic. However, she has returned to teaching yoga and is one very inspiring woman.

I heard her interviewed on CBC Radio's Sounds Like Canada some time ago. I was interrupted while she was describing how her yoga breathing kept her alive in the moments immediately following the accident, so will go here to find the link to the interview and listen to it again.

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Hey, it's Friday! Woo hoo!

~a walk with the dog, late afternoon~

10:46 a.m.
The boy who wants to stay home -- gone to school.
The one who wants to go to school -- is home.
I probably won't go to town myself, given a choice; and we do still have one as long as there's food in the house.

Scott drove Everett in this morning so it's not a desperate situation, although once again our schoolbus didn't run. Because it's slippery everywhere outside, it's more dangerous for Emil to be out and around, so he's here with me.

My computer crashed three or four times within the first half-hour this morning, when I was only trying to read some email. It's gonna be a frustrating day if this keeps up. Boy it'll be nice when the new machine is ready to go. I have to be so patient. Thankfully Scott is looking after it so the glitches in technology (having to do with being on dialup; are we the last people on the planet to be on dialup?) are not boggling my mind. It's a matter of having to buy more and different software and connections, which means getting things sent or brought out from the city. Delays R us.

Less than an hour ago the schoolbus driver called to say they have decided the roads are too icy and there is a storm on its way, so they will not be bringing the kids home this afternoon. I walked carefully out to the road to see for myself; you can tell by the photo that it's pretty slick out there. Apparently it started raining at 4 a.m. and carried on for several hours. Now that the thermometer has dropped to 10 or 20 below, it's treacherous to drive.

Scott is working in town and will make his way home no matter what, so is going to pick up the boychiks. Let's hope they make it here safe and sound. At this rate, the buses may not be running tomorrow either. Everett will be thrilled to get an extra day off, and I'll be happy to have the boys home. I've almost got my fingers crossed. (Perhaps we won't mention that to the teachers, eh?)

Has anyone managed to take a picture that shows the way snow sparkles?

Grandpa Jack, my great-grandfather.
On the left is Uncle Wesley (my great-uncle)
and on the right is Grandma sitting on Grandpa's knee. They're obviously partying.

[[[ Pay dirt! Reta called after seeing the photo. Grandma is wearing the same dress she wore to Mom and Dad's wedding, and this was the first Christmas Reta was in nursing school. The house was one of several where Grandma and Grandpa had lived. "They lived in every house in Margo," she said. There was more too... some details about Grandpa Jack that I didn't know, though I remember him, being about eight when he died. Jackpot! ]]]

Do you have an elderly person on your Christmas list?
If so, consider purchasing a unique (à la Calendar Girls, the movie) pin-up calendar to put under the tree this December.

A seniors’ home in southern Saskatchewan is fundraising with a calendar whose pinups are either scantily clad (I assume) older men, or older folks of both sexes, and so on and so forth. You can order one by sending a cheque for $22 Cdn (includes postage and shipping within the country) to:

Deep South Personal Care Home
Box 150
Pangman, SK
S0C 2C0

For more information you can call (306) 442-2043.

Be sure to note which calendar you want, when you mail that cheque. I’m ordering the older men for Grandma.

These were so popular they sold out quickly last year, didn't they Joanne? Thanks for the great idea; I can't wait to see the calendar. Dad’s not old enough for me to get him a “grandmas” one yet, is he?

Seven minutes before company's due to arrive, and what am I doing? Sending off a quick hello to you faithful readers who wail and gnash your teeth when I don't update regularly. You know who you are.

All joking aside, I truly am beginning to wonder whether there is such a thing as a reality shift that makes time disappear.

Oh! Here they are, five minutes early. Off I go.

my vehicle served as a deterrent in case the
beasties, herded several miles to their home pasture,
should decide to bolt down the wrong road instead of following the hay wagon

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Little sister Joan was calling from Kelowna one morning when she mentioned that she hadn’t been feeling very well lately.

“Oh?” I said. “You’re getting a cold?”

“No, it’s something that will last a little longer than that.”

My antennae went up in instant concern, but I tried not to sound worried. “Like what?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“You’re pregnant? Wheeeee!” I squealed and hooted, forgetting the tender ear on the other end of the line. A new baby! Then came a deep twinge in my heart: Mom isn’t here. It would have hurt her to know she wouldn't be.

She would be so happy, so excited. Even when Mom was alive, we’d already stopped thinking Joan was likely to have another child and, like my sister and her husband, were content with our little Jordan.

The phone call was several weeks ago, and Joan asked me to keep the news to myself until she reached the 12-week point. Now she has, so I can make my dancing-auntie announcement. It’s a fair bet that sister Karen and I will be making a trip to Kelowna in late May to hold the little sweetheart in our arms.

I remember Mom telling me, not long before she died, about a dream that had upset her. I don’t have the courage right now to flip through my journals of the year of her illness in case I recorded it, but what I do recall was that in the dream, Mom was talking to a little boy and said, “Don’t you know who I am?” She was shocked when he didn’t, and told him she was his grandmother.

Perhaps the dream only reflected Mom’s pained regret at missing a possible future. But to me, now, it seems prophetic.

Funny how I can believe Mom is around, and be sad that she’s not, at the same time. This was played out in a TV episode of Medium last night, where the psychic Alison discovers via newspaper that her highschool boyfriend has recently been killed in a freak accident. Even though she has this very day seen and talked to him “in spirit,” she still cries when she finds he is no longer in the physical. I thought “that doesn’t make sense,” but if you think of how attached we are to the physical bodies of our loved ones, maybe it does. My friend the Wise One has said we grieve for their bodies, even while we are still in touch with their spirits.

I have been thinking a lot of Aunt Jean, as Tuesday marked one year since she passed.

~Night Table Notebook~

From an architecture interview on The Arts Tonight on CBC radio:

“Too much order, things get dull;
Too much liberty, you get chaos.”

I just purchased a CD online today and got this confirmation letter. Really, more businesses should use one like it.

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Shipping Address:
K. J.
Box ///
SK, CA

Qty Description
=== ===========
1 ANNABELLE CHVOSTEK: burned my ass
Price $9.00
Total $9.00

Sub Total $9.00
Shipping $3.25
Grand Total $12.25

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, November 15th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.

Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music

www.cdbaby.com

Gotta love that.

The creek I walk past most days is trying really hard to freeze, but having no luck. The mercury is hovering around O degrees Celsius.

Last week I took the boys with me to Saskatoon for a medical appointment for Emil. It was a "swallowing test," which I watched from behind a window. Two technicians handed him spoonsful of banana, muffin, and various foods. They gave him a milkshake to drink with a straw. The path of his consumption could be observed, as could his teeth, tongue, and spine, xray style. I wished Everett had come into the room with us, to see it. Turns out that Emil does not always get his food and drink directly down to his belly; instead it sometimes moves forward and sits in his throat, causing him to cough while eating.

What can be done? He can pay more attention to what he's doing, and he can swallow twice. Woo hoo. Now we know. High tech.

The next day I took Emil to Bud's on Broadway, which is a bar/restaurant that features live music. On Saturday afternoons there is always a jam, and Jeff, one of Emil's "dear ones" (people he admires and wants to spend time with), had suggested we meet there. We had also contacted a young lady that Emil met several years ago at Camp Easter Seal, and invited her to come down. She did, and Emil was thrilled to pieces. He insisted on hugging her before we left, and that's the photo you see above.

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Yesterday afternoon I decided to spend five minutes tidying up the office. It was the only way I could bring myself to start, for the idea of how long doing the job completely would actually take was too daunting. I did not want to spend the entire day at it.

I stayed at it for over five hours. The office is now clean and organized for the first time since the basement flood in early April. I'd show you a picture -- oh yes, I'm proud of myself -- but Scott was transferring photos to the new computer this morning when I got out of bed, and now I can't find the one I took of my new, improved workspace. Ah well! It wouldn't be half as exciting for you as it is to me.