THE LONGEST NIGHT

Everyone has their own idea of what their longest night is.

Ask any parent of a teenager with a fresh new driver’s license out on their first excursion how long the night was.

Actually, turn the parenting clock back a bit further – ask a woman who spends a longest night in labour.  You know, to be rewarded with colic induced longest nights, and teething longest nights, and fevered longest nights, and first-day-of-school-jitters longest nights, and first-broken-hearts longest nights ... all marching towards the afore mentioned first-driver’s-license-night-out longest night.

Of course, this time of year we have the annual too-excited-to-sleep-because-Santa-is-coming string of sleepless nights.  It’s a good thing that kids are cute.

Obviously these are perceived realities.  Just because you are awake to watch the minutes tick by in slow motion on all of these occasions doesn’t mean time is actually moving slower, it just feels like it is.

On the other hand, they do say “perception is the reality”.

I was inspired to look up the word ‘Yalda’ this morning.  Despite my multi-faceted nerdiness in the fields of languages, and traditions, and celebrations, and the seasons of the sun (to name a few) I had never come across this one before.  Not that it hasn’t been around for a while; like maybe 8,000 years, or so Google says.

Here’s another word from the history books: Persia. For those of you not into historical nerdiness this is an ancient Empire that encompassed most of what is Iran today, and the religion they practiced was Zoroastrian, which if I’m not mistaken, was the one cited in the original Ghost Buster’s movie as the source of the evil entity trying to take over New York ... but, I digress.  We nerds do a lot of that.

According to facts that Hollywood hasn’t tampered with, the people of ancient Persia were the first to formally recognize the winter solstice with a ceremony to celebrate the Earth’s wobble back toward longer days.  Not that they would have understood the mechanics of planetary motion, but appreciated that this meant that the gods were giving them another growing season – something they were pretty relieved and happy about.

What caught my attention was that this eastern religious custom was to celebrate getting through the longest night, whereas in western culture we focus on getting past the shortest day.  Well, at least that’s what we do in this household.  I guarantee that by the morning of December 22^nd my resident wise man will announce that he has already noticed a difference in the rising of the sun.  Pretty good for someone who isn’t even up yet when that happens.

I know it’s the same thing ... both are customs acknowledging the winter solstice ... but somehow the idea of staying up all night to welcome the sun on that first day of lengthening light seems more optimistic  than the approach of putting the darkness behind us.  The first feels positive, the second seems negative.  I guess I’m just a ‘cup is half full’ kind of gal.

No matter, it doesn’t change a single thing. Tonight, December 20, will be the longest night, and tomorrow will be the shortest day.  From here on in the sun will climb in the skies and everyone (in the Northern Hemisphere) will rejoice.  It bears saying again ... perception is the reality ... and I perceive that maybe the Persians had it right.

(Note to self – I need to ask Google what ancient civilizations south of the Equator did with the summer and winter solstice ...)

 

 

CHRISTMAS IN THE AIR

I just stepped out onto the deck to sweep last night’s new snowfall away; it’s downright nippy out there.  Yesterday was a totally different story.  It was so balmy and bright I took a few minutes to sit in the sunshine and soak up the warmth.  The weather app on my phone says we will be back to that in just a couple days.  It kind of feels like Mother Nature has been partaking of fermented apples and can only manage a lurching stagger towards winter ... you know – one step forward, two steps back.

Eventually, though, we will all make it to Christmas so it’s time people start getting ready. By ‘people’ I really mean ‘me’, but go ahead and include yourself in this group if the circumstances warrant.

First on the list is gift shopping.  There are local trade fairs and craft shows to explore and home town businesses to support.  I’m not sure if it’s the age I am or that Covid restrictions have influenced what I think is important, but my sense of what’s necessary is not the same as it used to be.  Yes, there will still be gifts for everyone under the tree in 2021, but they will be smaller and more practical – no one needs more stuff for stuff’s sake.  The best thing about 2021 is that we will open these gifts together.  December 2020 was a very quiet day that gave us lots of time to think about what a dud of a day it is without the ones you love there to share it with.

The next thing on my list is writing a Christmas letter and getting it away to friends and family.  I know.  I know.  How old fashioned is that?  But, you know?  Everyone loves getting letters and the most effective way to get letters is to send letters.  Throughout my life I have transitioned from hand written pages to photocopied messages to the easiest form of all: a length-and-weight-doesn’t-matter email.  This year I am contributing to my Canada Post pension stability by snail mailing out 80 real, live, physical envelopes because there are photos to share.  They will hit the mail this week; another job done and dusted.

While I was grocery shopping the other day I noticed that eggs were on sale.  I immediately thought to myself that this was a push from the Christmas Baking Angels; it was time for butter tarts and poppycock and puff pastry lemon cheese tarts and mincemeat cookies and a bunch of other things with more calories than ingredients.  Also the boxes of chocolates, Turtles, Toffifee and all the other Christmas goodies are out.  I refuse to buy any of these until we are done the mini chocolate bars from Halloween ... another couple days should do it.

Decorating is done in stages.  On a beautiful day at the end of October I went out and strung lights through the branches of a huge evergreen tree, installed a set of lights around a pole so that it looks like another Christmas tree in the dark, and stapled my two deer to the ground so they wouldn’t blow over.  Everything worked 100% at the time but of course we’ve had that hurricane since then.  My looks-like-another-tree-in-the-dark illusion is half dead (broken wire somewhere) and there are several lights on the big tree that lost their coloured covers in the wind.  Because I stapled the deer in place they are still where I put them but I’ve had to go out and adjust wiring so the buck’s head lights up again. 

The next project will be the inside.  This may or may not be a big job depending on whether I can source a tree to decorate; apparently 2021 is not a good year to be looking for a tree.  It’s always a big job to fetch all the ‘trimmings’ from the attic, and even bigger if the grandkids are there to “help” grandpa discover treasures up there.  I may be getting too old for these shenanigans.

But, not all of the shenanigans.  Last year was a season of no shenanigans at all and once was enough for that.  I want the noise and confusion of five cousins over excited for Santa’s visit.  I want everyone complaining that there are too many goodies to be healthy – and eating them anyway.  I want the yard covered in toboggan and quad tracks.  I want the lights twinkling on the tree, and I want mugs of tea and quiet conversations after the kids have conked out for the night.

May we all be safe from illness, travel troubles, and whatever Mother Nature might throw at us.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2022!

 

SEASONAL DISARRAY

The days get shorter and the nights get longer.  Gone are the summer days so full of garden weeding and yard work that sleep comes looking for me, not the other way around.  These days the most exercise I get is vacuuming and letting the cat and dog in and out ... and out and in ... and in and out yet again.  I can’t decide if it’s neurosis or a compulsive disorder, or even who has it – the humans or the pets.

This is a time of seasons in flux.  There’s a little bit of everything out there.

Some days act like it’s still September and I can hang clothes out on the line to dry.  Halloween has come and gone but there is still residual candy around the place because, even though we haven’t had trick or treaters here in probably a decade I continue to buy the candy just in case.  Beginning earlier every year I purchase our supply, refreshing it as need be until the big day.  We wouldn’t want to be the household who hands out stale candy, after all.

So it is that in November there are still a few mini candy bars left – weirdly, the ones we don’t particularly care for – and I keep losing my favorite rockets candies under the wrapping paper as I get a start on Christmas gifts.

I took down the skeleton and spiders a week after I put up the outdoor Christmas lights.

Last week I stuck a poppy in my lapel and wondered how many of them I will lose before Remembrance Day, and how many times I will stab myself when I replace the lost ones.

The lawn mower is finally stored away but the snow blower hasn’t been attached to the tractor yet. 

My flip flops are still out and I don’t know where my snow boots are.  Do I even have some?  Didn’t I throw the old ones away because I decided I needed a new pair this year?

 I should go look.

Nah! I like living on the edge.

Even my flower beds look undecided with where we are at in the year.  Some of the tougher plants still have green leaves and flaunt their hardiness in the shortened hours of daylight while the more delicate babies are covered in straw and await a good covering of insulating snow to help them make it through the night.  Already I dream of what I will plant next year ... because I just really can’t help myself.  (There’s that neurosis vs. compulsive disorder question again.)

Yesterday I sat down to compose the 2021 Christmas letter making it the fourth writing project I have on the go at the moment ... what could go wrong with a scenario like that?  Let me know if this starts sounding like blurb for a vacation guide, okay?

For the first time in my life I am seriously considering buying an artificial Christmas tree.  Is this a sign that I am becoming being frugal? The price of real trees gets crazier every year; it will only take three Christmases to pay for the fake one I have my eye on.  At the moment I am stalled out wondering if Christmas will ever be the same if I can simply plug in the tree and the lights just come on?  It’s a long standing tradition in my family for the mom to go off the deep end trying to get all the lights to work at the same time. 

And, what will I do with all my lights that (mostly) work?  As you can see, this is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Meanwhile I continue to deal with my jumbled seasons.  I will honor the Remembrance Day services, if only on TV, but will also review my Christmas card list.  I’m fighting the urge to buy Christmas chocolates when the Halloween candy isn’t quite gone yet and it’s almost time to start Christmas baking.  On the other hand one needs to think about having all those calories in the house and how it leads to the same old New Year’s resolution I’ve made and broken for decades. (Again there’s that mental stability concern – doing the same thing over and over yet wanting a different result).

Well, enough of that, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.  I think I’ll go hang out in my greenhouse for a bit, the remote thermometer says it’s plus 16 and I know it still smells a little bit like summer.  

 

((HUGS))

The best gifts are the unexpected ones.

I was having a busy day yesterday - company coming today, floors to wash, arrangements for supper to be made – when I got a text that threw one more thing into my afternoon. I was now going to a funeral too.

In the morning I had considered attending this service, but things got busy and with Covid one is never sure whether you should add to the crowd inside a building. As luck, or Fate, would have it the oldies channel I was listening to played My Ding-a-Ling, a novelty song by Chuck Berry from 1972 and I had to laugh out loud. This was the era I knew David from and this song never failed to remind me of him. I think he sang it as his theme song for the better part of a year. There is nothing better than happy memories, no church service was going to do a better job of honoring him so I decided I would carry on with my day and bake cookies.

But there was another unexpected gift to come. My high school girlfriend – the reason I knew David – texted me saying they were on their way to the funeral, was I going to be there? This altered everything again.

Although it’s impossible that this is true, it has been a half century since our high school days. We live way too far apart. Facebook keeps us informed of what’s going on in each other’s lives but that is no replacement for spending time together, laughing together, and sharing hugs. On the rare occasion that this can be arranged we are literally the girls who can sit down and take up conversation like it’s only been a week since we last talked, even if it’s been more like a decade.

The cookies would have to wait.

I may be wrong but I’ve always thought that the most important part of a funeral is the time of fellowship afterwards. We gathered outside the church and in the fresh air could put our masks away and smile and laugh and talk. It wasn’t just my friend, but her brothers and many other faces from a shared past. People who I hadn’t seen in a coon’s age – or several coon’s ages, as was pointed out.

We stood across the street from the school where we all began our lives. So much has happened since we walked those hallowed halls ... higher education, jobs, marriages, kids, travels, and now retirement too. There have been good times and bad, divorces and deaths, celebrations and struggles. One would need a full three day reunion to even scratch the surface on catching up with everyone, but all we had was a few minutes out in a chilly breeze on an October afternoon.

They were precious minutes.

How do you cover all the time that’s passed? The experiences we probably have in common, how we’ve been shaped, how we’ve grown, how lessons we learned together so long ago may have influenced decisions we made later on. There just isn’t enough time for all of that – so you distill how you feel into one, single act – a wordless, yet enormously powerful, bear hug.

Man, it was good to see you guys!

And I was right, waiting didn’t hurt the cookies at all.

 ME vs BUGS

So help me Hannah, if one more maple bug even so much as touches me I'm going to ...

I'm going to ...

Well, I'm going to cringe, shudder with revulsion, and shoo it away as fast as I can, that's what I'm going to do!  Just like the thousand other times they've touched me this fall.

You think I exaggerate.  I do not exaggerate.  A thousand is probably low-balling it.

I'm not a scaredy-cat.  I'm made of pretty tough stuff, actually.  There was a time when I waited for my knight in shining armor to save me from life's terrors but I have become much more self reliant.  I can dispatch a garter snake if I find one too close to my house and I have mastered setting and emptying mouse traps all by myself.  A year ago I got myself a self propelled mouse trap with its own disposal unit built right in - he's the best thing since sliced bread.

Not to damage the Knight's ego I still let him deal with skunks though.  Can't have him feeling like he's not needed.

But that still leaves me battling the insect kingdom.  This time of year it's a full time job.

Wood tick season was short.  Don't know what was up with that - maybe the species is dying out?  Hope springs eternal.

The summer was so dry mosquitoes weren't much of a problem.  They were not missed.

The grandchildren came for visits and in time honored grandchild tradition held the doors open for what seemed like hours at a time.  The little darlings went home and I eventually got the fly population down to pre visit numbers.

The odd bee always finds his way into the house. I have no idea where they come from but I do my best to do 'catch and release' with them.  I know we need them to feed the world.

Then came fall and I picked my tomatoes.  As per usual tiny fruit flies followed them in and infested the house.  I set up a pop bottle/stale beer trap.  At least they die happy.

Next, the barn fly population took a look at their tiny little watches and realized they were supposed to be moving in for canning season.  Instantly the windows and doors were covered with the free loading buggers.  I honestly have no clue where those icky, yucky, squishy striped flies come from but they now outnumber the regular flies two to one.  I loath them all with equal passion.

I wish I could say that was the end of it, but oh no, there were still the maple bugs to come.  I would rather deal with spiders. 

All decked out in red and black and creeping forward in their slow, insidious, mindless march they have infiltrated my house.  Google says they are looking for a warm place to bunk down for the winter.  I say they invade my personal space with the single purpose of grossing me out.  Google also says they are harmless.  Google hasn't seen what happens when a maple bug lands stealthily on my shirt and then makes its way up to my collar.  I tell you, what happens when I feel something that big crawling up my neck, well it's NOT harmless.

I know it's a lovely fall.  I agree that still having flowers in bloom in October is something to enjoy.  I also wish it would snow.  Like a ton.  Maybe three tons.  Just to make those creepy bugs go away

Until then my weapon of choice never leaves my side.  The guy who invented the vacuum cleaner is my hero.

 

LOLLYGAGGING

The first thing the Farmer said to me this morning was “Another day, another dollar.”

This is true, even this year of extreme heat and hap hazard rains, because we no longer put our own crop in.  The secret to making money at farming is to rent your land out to someone else and leave the expense, gamble and stress to them.  If you enjoy working the land and the feelings of pride and fulfillment associated with putting in and taking off a crop (which he does) it is easy to get a job doing just that.  The really neat thing about farming this way if you get a guaranteed pay check for your work without having to worry about the futures markets, crop insurance or the latest insect or disease to come along and cost a crazy money to deal with.

They are well into harvest, the swathing and combining and baling and fixing goes on day after day, but he will get his dollar – it’s a sure thing.

That’s not to say he isn’t getting worn down with the long hours and demanding pace.  There is no such thing as a day off when the weather is good in September.  He leaves the yard by 7:30 in the morning and I don’t see him again until after dark unless I’m called to help him move to the next field.  I have explained the concept of retirement to him on several occasions.  He doesn’t get it.

As we lingered over our second cup of coffee he asked “So, what are you going to do today?”

I listed off a whole bunch of things on my agenda: we are having company overnight so I had bedrooms to prepare and a supper to plan, it’s the Labour Day weekend when I usually wash windows, the gardens all needed clean up, I should go into town and visit his mother, the grass needs mowing again ...

I ended off with “Any or all of these may or may not get done today, who knows?”  I’m retired and actually understand the concept.

“So, you’re going to lollygag then?”

Well, that’s not the way I would have described it, but okay, maybe I am.  As I said, I am retired and have a good grasp of what that means.

He’s been off to earn his dollar for two hours now and so far I have made up the beds, decided on the supper menu, cleared up the breakfast dishes, wandered around the flower beds, weeding as I went, and now I find myself at the computer writing this blog – something that wasn’t even on my list.  I also spent some time scrolling through Facebook (that genuinely is lollygagging).  It’s not as much fun as usual with all the election propaganda these days and there is only so much time in the day to spend deleting the anti-vax posts.

I am left pondering what my next move will be.  I just got a text saying my company won’t be here till suppertime so I have a good block of time to get something done, or I could carry on with my lackadaisical lollygagging.

I kind of like the sound of that.

 

ALL OVER IT

Remember, way last spring when the blush was still on the rose, so to speak.

Remember how I couldn’t wait for the snow to melt?  How my big front window housed a double decker plant table so all the babies I started had a clear shot at the strengthening sunlight?  How I went through my garden seeds multiple times, making sure I had enough of everything? How I monitored the night time temperatures constantly, hardly able to wait until I could trust the safety of plants in my little greenhouse?

I was all over that like white on rice.  I couldn’t wait to get my hands into earth, watch things grow, plan where things would go.  So exciting!

And then, do you remember how I couldn’t wait till my farmer got out there and tilled my garden?  And how satisfying it was to get the potatoes planted?  And then the rest of the garden?  And how this year, for the first time, I didn’t try to do all my deck planters the same day?  How much easier that went?  And how, while it was sad that not one single foxglove made it through the winter, it was fortunate that they were already dead because they would have been trampled to death anyway when we revamped the deck.  That would have made me even sadder.

Do you recall how happy I was when the rows started pushing through. Straight lines of lettuce, swiss chard, peas and beans ... and those 12 hours of radishes before the flea beetles found them.  Do you remember the very next day when the weeds all showed up too?  I can’t say that I was all over that, but I was on top of it ... for one day.  I think it was June 13^th.  That was a very good day.

Do you remember how lush and green everything was back then?  The grass was soft to walk on and it smelled so good when I mowed it.  And there were tiny purple violets everywhere.  And there were hummingbirds and orioles at the feeders. And there was no stagnant water to breed mosquitoes?  Ah!  Those were the days.  I was all over that too.

It was a little worrisome though - the dry conditions - but my farmer came through with a watering system from the dugout that he’s been talking about for a couple years and had started last fall.  With no threat to our well I was able to water to my heart’s content.  I tell you, I have been all over that!  While other gardens were stunted in their tracks my flowers bloomed, my vegetables thrived.

Then the extreme heat set in.  It was time to work on the deck and the heat was just ugly out there.  The grass went crunchy, water or not the vegetable leaves began to curl and flowers dropped their blossoms, plants desperate to propagate the next generation cut their life span short and went to seed immediately.  The only things left green in my lawn by the end of July were dandelions and they smell awful when you mow them.

We’ve been lucky enough to get a couple rains but you won’t remember me talking about them – it feels like bragging when so many others have received nothing wet from the skies all summer long.  Crops are stunted or dead, watering holes are all but empty, pastures nibbled to the ground, and feed depleted.  The sale off of beef herds is as inevitable as it is heart-breaking.

This next week I’ve been invited to go camping with some family members for a kind of mini reunion.  When we came up with this plan it sounded like a great idea – girl time, lazy meals, away-from-the-maddening-crowd stuff.  I was all over that kind of break.

Because I’m officially on to the other kind of all over it as far as my yard and garden is concerned.  I’m over weeding – you should see the mess I’ve got going on out there.  I need the tractor and tiller to swipe through again.  I’m over everything but cucumbers, tomatoes and corn.  The planters have either baked to death or bloomed themselves out.  Yep, I’m pretty much completely over the summer of 2021.

And, talk to me after a week camping at the lake ... the temperatures are supposed to soar to new heights for the next three days.  I’m betting I will soon be over holidays too.  Maybe a person should start Christmas shopping ... in air conditioned malls.

I could so be all over that.

 

COOL, PRECIOUS COOL

The first thing I do every morning is get up and lock the cool in.  It’s the most important job of the day.

I can’t remember when this hot streak started (I think my brain is a little baked) but the ‘normal hot’ days have been few and far between.  Mostly it’s been day after day of unrelenting abnormally high temperatures and smoke haze from forest fires over a thousand miles away.  Locally we won in Mother Nature’s where-should-I-scatter-my-thunderstorms-this-year lottery.  Whereas almost all of the prairies are parched, crispy fried, and crawling with grasshoppers, small pockets here and there are green again because they got rain.  We live in one of them.

Also, there are fields that are black again.  That’s what happens when the moisture from above doesn’t fall in liquid form.  A hail storm can bash a crop right back into the ground.  Whether this is a good or a bad thing depends on how much hail insurance was purchased for that field.  If you are a farmer there is no need to travel to Vegas to gamble big money.

As this heat wave goes on and on I’ve been trying to come up with some coping skills to get through the torture.  Some things not to try would be building a deck on the south side of the house, or ignoring the weeds in hopes that they will go away on their own.  I try the weed experiment every year with the exact same results every single time.  I think I may be a slow learner.

2021 is not going to be a stellar year for garden harvest.  The peas are done before the end of July and the beans are only half trying.  The carrot and beet crop look plentiful, the corn loves its heat units so the few seeds that germinated are doing great and the potatoes got over watered and then rained on – half the plants are dead.  Who saw that coming in the middle of a drought?

On the other hand, the two watermelon plants I bought on impulse and plunked in the ground think they are in Mexico and are growing like mad.  It’s really hard to tell what’s going on in my tomato jungle but I think there will be quite the harvest there too.  My pumpkins are coming back from the hail shredding their leaves – if Halloween comes at Christmastime we’ll be fine.

That’s life on the outside.  Whenever possible this summer, I’ve been hanging out inside.

This may explain how the weeds got so big on me.

The second thing I do every morning is check the weather forecast.  Well, no, that’s a lie.  First I need coffee, and then I check the weather.  Not just what’s going to happen that day, but how many more days of hideous heat are still to come?  Just so you know, the long term goes as far as mid August with no end in sight.  And as important (and depressing) as those daytime temps are, the night time temps are even more crucial.

You see our house doesn’t have air conditioning, all we have is a very large ceramic tile floor which is a very inexpensive way to cool a house as long as the nights are cool.

 The last thing I do every day is open all the windows and let the cool in.  Ceramics are a fantastic conductor of heat and cold so the cooler the night the cooler the house is the next day. 

While I sip my precious coffee I check out the outdoor temperature.  Anything lower than 15 gets a little happy dance.

 

 

SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR JULY 2021

I remember the good old days ... past summers when other places in the world made the news because they were stuck in a heat wave they couldn’t shake.  While I listened to the news reports about checking on elderly neighbours and drinking lots of water I would always be thankful that I wasn’t where ever the heat was.  I don’t do heat well at all.

If you want proof come and visit me  – I will be the sunburnt puddle of sweaty goo waiting for the sun to go down.  I’m pretty sure Turbo, our Husky/German Shepherd cross is dealing with this heat better than I am – and he’s wearing a full fur coat.

Due to my brain melting I am not quite sure when this blast furnace began but I think we’ve been at it for two weeks.  And during those two weeks we did renovations to our deck ... on the south side of our house ... in a yard that protects us from prevailing winds – even when you’re dying for a breeze.  You know that you are down to appreciating the basic necessities of life when moving air from the south or the east feels heaven sent.  Come to think of it, maybe it was.

As the heat doesn’t seem to want to leave I am compiling a list of things to keep us alive until it snows.

First of all: WATER.  We buy our drinking water and I usually have a 3 bottle rotation going on.  During the deck building period we were up to 5 five gallon bottles on the go over the same amount of time.  True, we had company helping us with the deck project and the drinking, but still.  I couldn’t believe how much water we went through.

 And ice cream. 

And freezie pops.

 And iced tea.

 And Gatorade. 

And propane.  Like heck I was cooking anything inside!

I heartily recommend having A/C in your house.  We don’t, but I highly recommend it.

Sadly we were unable to cool down grandchildren with a sprinkler or pool, which led to the happy discovery of Toonie Tuesdays at the Redvers pool.  It’s amazing how out of touch a grandma can be.

 Water is on everyone’s minds these days as we all wonder when the well might go dry.  We are not down to rationing showers yet (thank goodness because people get to smelling a bit off when it’s this hot) but with no rain in the forecast these things are beginning to worry me.

I admit my worries about dishwashers and laundry and showers pale in comparison to herds of cattle with bare pastures, no hay to cut for winter and no water to drink.  I sure feel for those in the cattle business, this is serious stuff.

I wish I could say I had a strategy to overcome heat and drought but humans have been trying to entice or appease the rain gods since time began without much luck.  I’m not opposed to a nationwide rain dance ... and I’m sure I read somewhere that they are more effective if done in the nude ... but how about we play it safe and apply Covid rules?  Dance nude all you want ... in the privacy of your own home.  Possibly wear a mask – the dignity you save may be your own!

But, good luck on drumming up rain.  You’ll be everyone’s hero if you manage that!

 

THE GREAT AWAKENING

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – in a former life I just know I was a bear.

I mean, their whole lifestyle appeals to me: the wandering around in scenic, natural settings, the not being judged for growling at people who annoy me, and eating everything in sight all summer so I can sleep all winter and wake up skinny.  What’s not to love about that?

What’s got me thinking about this now, though, is the feeling of déjà vu as we are being released from the restrictions we’ve lived with for the past year.  I am positive that I’ve felt this before. 

It feels like the long, drab isolation of winter is easing off.

It feels like the promise of sunshine is once again warming our world.

It feels like the dawn of a new day as we stumble out of confinement, gripping our coffee mugs and squinting while our eyes adjust to the light.

Yep, I am certain that this is how it feels to come out of hibernation.  I have been here before!

It’s interesting to hear people talk about what they are going to do with this new found freedom.  There are those who can’t wait to get on a plane and go somewhere far away.  There are grandparents who just want to go one province over to see their grandkids before they’ve all grown up.  There are those who have been waiting for elective surgery and are praying their delay in treatment is almost at an end. 

Parents are rejoicing that the threat of home schooling will not be hanging over their heads.  Doctors and nurses are can hardly believe they made it through  ... and I won’t say unscathed.

Restaurants that have struggled to hang on are dreaming of just having a regular day with regular staff serving their regular menu to a regular crowd at their regular tables and – hallelujah! – making a regular income.

Employees and employers are assessing what going back to work means after all these months of working remotely from home.  The future of the work world may end up being a hybrid of home and office that works better for everyone.

There are gardeners and bakers out there who would have never learned they had such talents had Covid not forced them to try.

There are the people who kept the food delivery system rolling, and the transportation system moving, and the public safety system in place at grave danger to themselves and the families they went home to every night.  It has been a learning experience for us all to realize what an essential service it is to pick and package fresh produce or drive a bus or stock grocery store shelves.  Be sure to smile and thank them ... won’t it be wonderful to see smiles when we can finally take off our masks?

And, let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands of people who are no longer with us.  This past year has been restrictive and unpleasant but we’re still here to talk about it.  We are the lucky ones.

Yes, as I sit in the warm sunshine just outside my den and wait for my eyes to adjust to the light I reflect all that has gone on during this winter of our discontent and ponder what I will do with these fresh new summer days ahead.

 I will have a ceremonial obliteration of a bottle of hand sanitizer.  I will decommission the last facemask I had to use and press it between two pages of a big book like they used to do with souvenirs because that’s all I want it to be.  I plan to stop and chat with people not from my own household in the middle of grocery aisles less than six feet apart and going the wrong direction ... just because I can.

But one thing I think I will leave off my summer ‘to do’ list.  I will not be showing off my beach body.  For some reason Covid hibernation didn’t work like regular hibernation does.

What happened to the ‘waking up skinny’ part?

 

FAMILIARITY

The proverbial ‘they’ say that familiarity breeds contempt. 

While this may be true, spending time and getting to know others can also be hilarious.  I’m talking animals here, humans are too complicated to be trusted.

I’ve mentioned Turbo before.  He’s a beautiful dog: smart, loving, gentle, tolerant, but he’s not without his quirks.  For one thing, he doesn’t trust doors.  The wide open kind are okay, and the fully shut ones are safe too, but the half ajar ones are to be avoided.  Even if his food dish and water are on the other side he’ll hang back and give us his sad eyes treatment but won’t try to get past it on his own.  He was two years old when we met him – it’s always makes me wonder, somewhere in his puppyhood did he lose a battle with a door?

Another idiosyncrasy is due to genetics.  He’s part Husky and apparently they are very concerned with keeping their pack together. If either one of his humans has failed to return by sundown he lies at the garden doors and watches for them to return.  If they are away overnight he’s a very anxious dog.  I guess this makes sense for a breed expected to pull heavy sleighs around – you would want the whole team there to help with the work.

He’s not much of a hunter though.  Oh, he thinks he is.  Any time the farmer goes out to bring the gopher population down Turbo’s out there like a dirty shirt, running from one hole to another, digging wildly, snorting dirt up his nose, catching nothing and scaring away anything that the farmer might have had a shot at.  Once when we were out for a walk he actually got one.  I don’t know who was the most surprised – me, the gopher, or the dog – but the triumphant march home was like a victory parade at the end of WWll.

Because of Turbo’s feeble hunting skills and the fact that mice like to move in for the winters I decided last fall that we would expand our pet population by one cat.  We acquired Thundercat in late summer – a black, nondescript half-grown kitten - hoping that he would take his job seriously.  The cat set about claiming the house as his own and tormenting the dog with way too much purring and cuddling.  Or  sneak attacks while he was sleeping.  Many times have those sad puppy dog eyes asked me why we needed a cat.  Much as I hate to hurt his feelings I have repeatedly explained about unwanted varmints and his lack of prey drive.

By this spring the newly renamed cat (Turbo’s choice, can’t be used in polite company) had earned his ‘you get to stay’ papers and rated a trip to the vet for the shots to keep him healthy and the surgery to keep him home.  He is never not hunting and there are mouse carcasses delivered daily: I like that in a cat.

In fact, I’ve kind of grown to like him.  So much so that when he disappeared for a day I was quite concerned that a coyote might have made lunch out of him.  It wasn’t just the $100.00 vet bill, I actually liked him.  I looked, I called, I asked Turbo – nada. 

Almost a complete day after his last sighting I went to get in my car to go to town.  I opened the driver’s door and looked across to the passenger’s seat at one very disgruntled cat.  He stood up, glared at me, and uttered a meow that unmistakably translated into “Where the #$@& have you been?” and stomped (yes, stomped!) out of the car. 

Talk about mixed emotions! Joy because the lost was found.  Terror about what 20 hours of an angry cat locked in a car might mean.  Cautiously I stuck my head back in and sniffed.

 Nothing. 

I now love that cat.

 

 

AN ACCIDENTAL FRIEND

A funny thing happened the other day.

There I was sitting and scrolling through Facebook, no doubt procrastinating some chore that needed doing, when up popped a friend request.

I have to confess here, when I was new to Facebook my friendship door was pretty much wide open.  If you asked to be my friend the answer was almost always “yes”.  I have since learned to be much more discerning.  I don’t do politics.  I don’t do religion.  Except for my grandchildren I don’t ‘friend’ kids.  I block ads, and have had to unfriend a few folks who don’t understand that being friends means that they should be friendly.  Nowadays my friend list grows much slower than it did before.  This keeps Facebook being one of my Happy Places.

So, when a random, unknown request comes to me the chance of a ‘delete’ response is pretty high. 

I’m not sure why this didn’t happen last week.  Was it because there was nothing on TV and I was bored with no one to talk to?  Was it because Covid has curtailed so much of my human contact that I had a deficit to fill? Or, did I just have a premonition that this was going to be a good thing?

I didn’t answer yes immediately.  First I went creeping on her – this random stranger – and found that she was well educated and lived in Saskatchewan too, which meant that we probably had things in common and that she quite possibly belonged to one of the Facebook groups that I did.  I think it’s the first time I’ve ever accepted a total stranger, but I said “yes”.  I also decided to be totally upfront and asked her if I knew her from somewhere – I was curious, why had she picked me to ask to be her friend?

Her answer completely put my mind at ease – she had hit the friend button by mistake.  I knew at once she was ‘of my people’.  I can name a half dozen people who are my friends because of the exact same move on my part.  Personally I call it the Fat Finger Syndrome.

Now this could have gone nowhere.  We could have acknowledged each other’s existence and just gone on with our lives, but that’s not what has happened. 

Sometimes you just hit it off, you know? 

I think she just might have the perfect amount of nerdiness to complement mine.  We share interests in bird watching and gardening, we both have experience in the role of a Saskatchewan farm wife and I think our second conversation was all about recommending our favorite books and authors to each  other. 

Except for today there hasn’t been a day since we ‘met’ that we haven’t had an ongoing Messenger conversation, and I suppose there is still time.  I’ve been out in my garden all day, and I bet she has been in hers too.

She’s into research and has sent me numerous links on subjects that we’ve been discussing.  She’s even researched me and knows I wrote a book and talked to Peter Mansbridge once.  The Internet never forgets a thing!

She teaches English as a second language and tends to post grammar and vocabulary advice, I tend to need grammar and vocabulary advice, so that works out nicely too. 

Ours is a friendship born in the Land of Serendipity.

It’s not that I’m likely to start gathering new friends in from the unknown because this one time worked out so well, but I have to say that this experience has been the perfect antidote to Covid isolation.  I hope she feels the same way.

 

 

 

A MASTER TASK-MASTER

My Fitbit is so proud of me!

I’m not sure when it became a thing to want to impress electronic monitoring devices, but I seem to have turned that corner.  Possibly I spend so much time alone that any ‘pat on the back’ I earn is something to celebrate, but I have to tell you when I feel that happy, prolonged buzz on my wrist and look down to see the fireworks graphics signifying 10,000 steps I know that the rest of the day is just gravy.

We didn’t start out this way.  I got my fancy watch as a Christmas present in the dead of winter when it’s not easy to come by even 3,000 steps without putting on three extra layers of clothes and braving the elements.  I found out very quickly that the company that makes Fitbit is building and marketing extensions of our consciences.  Instead of a little angel sitting on my shoulder encouraging me to do the right thing I now wear a fancy watch on my wrist that buzzes me at ten minutes to the hour to remind me to “get up out of that chair and do something”!   

It has taken on the roll of a task-master, always bossing me around.  It is amazing to me that an hour can disappear so quickly when I am engrossed in something that I am reading or writing, but I do respect its efforts to help me shape up a bit. 

During that nice spell in January/February I was making both the dog and the watch happy by getting in my 10,000 steps, but when Old Man Winter decided to double down that ground to a halt.  Then I slipped and tried to break some toes – my step count plummeted further.  Once you break your stride it’s really hard to get back to it.  My records (because, of course Fitbit keeps records!) March and most of April are dismal.

About the time my Fitbit was preparing to declare me dead spring happened.  Not that I began taking walks for walk’s sake, but there were now things to do outside.  It’s nothing for me to take three trips around the yard per day checking if any of my perennials are up yet.  We bought some beef calves to feed out over the summer and I am repeatedly invited over to the corrals to ‘see how fast they are growing’.  As well we are installing a water line from the dugout to the garden which required a couple of my afternoon’s worth of work.  Instead of forcing myself to ‘one more mile’ to earn my 10,000 steps fireworks I was being pleasantly surprised with that reward while setting the supper table.

The warmer it got the more time I spent outside.  I put some early potatoes in.  I cleaned up my flower beds.  I moved my seedlings out to my greenhouse, and then back in, and then out, and then back in – and so it went until my heaters could handle the few degrees of frost we were still getting.  I planted a few more things and inherited the evening chores because the man is gone seeding till after dark.  Every day my Fitbit fireworks happened earlier.

On the weekend I planted all the rest of my vegetable garden – fireworks by 3:30.

On Tuesday I hauled (what seems like 14 miles of) garden hose out of storage with the help of four year old feeders who thought I was there to give them chop, and unspooled said hose to set up a watering system – fireworks at 2:15.

Thursday I watered all my perennials and then filled all of my deck planters – fireworks at 12:28.

I have to put bedding plants out in three different gardens next.  There’s no telling when fireworks time will be.

But, to put this all in perspective, I have to give credit where credit is due – if that crazy man’s alarm clock didn’t go off at 5:00 a.m. none of this would be possible.  He’s the master task master. 

 

COVID COPING SKILLS

Back in the ancient past – you know, pre Covid – when we took everything for granted, I was a different person.

For starters I was 15 pounds skinnier.  Well, if I’m being honest here, ‘skinnier’ is a misleading word to use.  There have been a few short windows in my life where ‘skinny’ might have applied - 1980 for instance, but you know what I mean – this sitting around with nothing to do but bake has not been a good thing.  I try to look on the bright side: it’s made me a more cuddly Grandma.  On the downside it’s not healthy, super cuddly Grandmas probably have a shorter shelf life.

On the plus side, my bank account has gained weight as well.  The fuel bill is a shadow of what it was pre Covid and my car still doesn’t need a second oil change in over 15 months.  Add to those savings the other expenses we haven’t incurred ... restaurant meals on our way to and from destinations we never went to, things we would have bought when we were there, and our usual DQ indulgence we treat ourselves with on the way home.

I won’t even mention the tropical beach holiday that we were due this past winter.

I’ve always considered myself comfortable with my own solitude, but I now realize there is a limit to this.  There are folks who have to be around others all the time.  They thrive in bustling crowds and seek company and companionship constantly.  This was not me until about halfway through 2020. I revelled in the peace and quiet of my yard and gardens and enjoyed books and listening to music in my very own TV room.  I could spend countless hours typing away on my computer, lost in time.  Then Covid restrictions told me that this is what I had to do.  Apparently when it is my idea it is okay, when it is someone else’s rule it begins to feel like a prison.

We developed mild paranoia over which items might disappear from store shelves.  At the height of the toilet paper insanity I took a long hard look at what my pantry needed.  I went on to buy flour and yeast before that crisis hit, and plant a huge garden.  We still have carrots and potatoes in the cold room and the frozen fruits and vegetables will last us until this year’s crop is ready to pick.  I don’t know which is better – the fact that we were self sufficient or that it gave me something to do all summer. 

 We are an adaptable lot though.  Throughout this past year we have been educated in things we never saw coming.  Thankfully my age let me off the home schooling hook, but I heard lots about it.  The second bout of it went much smoother because of the experience gained by the first time ... and it was only two weeks long like they promised!

I have a couple new talents I never dreamed would be a thing before Covid.  At the beginning of mandatory masks I had trouble figuring out who people were with only half their face showing.  Not any more!  There must be part of our brains that likes to ‘fill in the blank’ and this Covid time has given it the exercise it needed to develop its world class face recognition software.  Now, if I was any good at remembering people’s names I would be unstoppable!

I have also been transformed from someone who doesn’t care to go shopping to someone who just wants to wander through a mall and buy stuff ... like for a whole darned day!  Maybe two!  Partly because after a year of buying nothing but groceries I am down to my last two pair of socks and have been wearing sweat pants all winter because they are so , ahem, comfortable, and partly because I JUST WANT TO GO SOMEWHERE!!!!!

But if I think I’ve progressed, the other half of this dynamic duo has taken a giant step forward.  I admit the ground work has been laid over the past decade: he can handle a cell phone, he texts, and he knows his way around Pintrest and Google.  Last night was a whole new ball game though.  He decided he wanted to watch Battlebots with all four Canadian grandsons at the same time.  He knew he needed a Zoom meeting for that ... and he knew the right people to get it done.  His daughter had to set up the meeting and his wife had to log him on, but it was his idea.  He gets full Grandpa points for that one.

 It makes me wonder what else there is to learn out there if this lasts much longer.  That’s not a challenge, mind you.  I don’t actually need to know.

 

FUNNY: NOT FUNNY

Hear ye!  Hear ye!  I will now call this assembly to order.  Please be seated, there is much to discuss.

So, Howard, would you like to set up your flip charts and show us what the numbers are today?  No?  What’s that you say?  You’ve had to order larger charts because the numbers are too big to fit on the old ones?  Can you see about borrowing some from the finance department?  They’ve got some that can handle up into the trillions.  God help us if we go over that.

Okay, Geraldine, while we wait for Howard to work that out, could you explain what you are doing?  Measuring the room?  What on Earth for?  What do you mean there are too many people per square foot?  It was the biggest room we could get.  Would you rather meet out in the open?

No!  No!  No!  I didn’t mean that we would try an outside meeting!  Settle down, I wouldn’t subject you to that.

Can we please just get on with this meeting Geraldine?  Everyone is wearing a mask and was hosed down with sanitizer as they walked through the door.  That should do the trick.

Who is next?  Floyd?  Do you want to speak on the state of small businesses?  Ha Ha, very funny.  No one actually wants to speak on this topic, but it is your department.  It’s why you’re at this meeting.  No, no, go ahead, take some antacid.  How many ulcers are you up to now?  My doctor just spotted another one for me the other day, and he says the trembling isn’t Parkinson’s.  Just a nervous tick; probably go away in a year or two.

Mabel?  How about you?  How is the restaurant industry doing?  Awe!  Please don’t start crying.  There there!  Can someone give Mabel a hug?  A virtual hug, mind you!  Keep your distance everyone!  Mabel, I know this snowstorm isn’t your fault.  Everyone was just getting moved out to their summer patio space and feeling good about this one small thing and then winter came back.  We can’t be blamed for the weather too!

What’s that you say Frank?  We can?  Says who?  Right wing media?  Conspiracy theorists? Ah!  Of course.  Never mind Mabel, sit down and compose yourself.  We’ll come back to you.

Has anyone seen Howard?  He was just about ready and then got a whole new download of numbers?  Poor guy.  Personally, I don’t know how he keeps them all straight.  I’ve seen so many numbers over the past year they have lost their meaning.  Statisticians sound like the teacher in Charlie Brown comics ... whah whah whah ...

How about someone from the medical community?  Oh, I see.  They drew straws to see who got to attend this meeting and the guy who won is curled up in the corner fast asleep.  Probably the first sound sleep he’s had in days.  No just let him rest, we all know how bad it is over there.

I’m sorry people.  I know this is hard.  It’s not like we knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this government gig.  Anyone who thought it was just going to be an ego trip has had that bubble burst, and the rest of us who felt that we had something to give to our constituents are beginning to think there is probably a clause that says “every single decision you make will be wrong” in tiny print at the bottom of our contract.

The thing is it doesn’t matter what people say, this isn’t over yet.  We are close.  We are rolling out the vaccinations as fast as we get them, aren’t we Sally?  Oh, by the way, has anyone got any ideas on how we can motivate more people to get vaccinated?  This business of individual rights putting the overall public at risk can be so frustrating!  Yes, yes, I know ... that’s not our call.

Oh well, we may as well get to the reason for this meeting.  We all know how bad it is out there.  We know people will be angry about what has to come next ... well, except for those who have lost someone to this virus.  It’s such irony that the number of deceased is both too high because of the loss, and too low to impress the healthy and unaffected at the same time.  We will have to forge ahead with what we think is the best course of action.

Please don’t start crying again Mabel.  We’ll get through this.

The vote was taken last night and it has been decided that it is best to leave the rest of the school year in distance learning mode.

I know that there are at least 101 things wrong with this plan.  We can only hope that there are 102 things right.

We have arranged for Sasktel to announce they will be dropping data charges until end of June.  It’s kind of like putting lipstick on a pig, but it’s the best we can do.

 

A TAD BREEZY

I’ve stuck my nose outside a couple times today – my weather app is correct; it’s a tad breezy out there.

I had plans (note the past tense).

Good old March – the old lamb/lion or lion/lamb month is going to live up to its reputation in 2021.  It started off pretty chilly, yet quiet, but now as the end of the month nears those in the business of weather predictions are warning us to anchor our outdoor possessions if we ever want to see them again.  Apparently things are going to get ‘blustery’ tomorrow – you know, as opposed to the light breeze we are experiencing today?  It’s hardly windy at all today.

I had thought I was going to go out to do some yard clean up this afternoon and enjoy the warm sunshine on my shoulders.  Turns out the cat might be right – sunbeams are better enjoyed on the couch.

There’s an old story about Saskatchewan’s constant state of windiness.  Something to do with us being sandwiched between two provinces that either ‘suck’ or ‘blow’.  Not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings I won’t say which is which but our predominate wind direction is west to east so you can work it out for yourself.  Our personal claim to fame is being the straight-sided ‘Gap’ province in the middle – you know; flat and boring, nothing tall enough to slow the wind down. 

It’s an inside, middle of Canada kind of joke.

So, so much for raking and cleaning up the straw we used for insulating the well and covering the roses last winter; that will wait for a calmer day.  The same goes for cleaning up the deadfall branches in the tree shelterbelt – no point in doing a half a job.  With at least 24 hours of promised gusts up to 85kph my guess is there will be more to pick up by Wednesday.

It’s a pity to waste these lovely temperatures though.  This would be the perfect Sunday afternoon to enjoy a socially distanced outdoor glass of wine with my neighbour on the deck, but today there’s no blaming Alberta for this gentle zephyr we are experiencing, this one is compliments of North Dakota and our deck faces south.  Another plan that won’t happen today.

As per usual, we are being warned to put things away or tie them down.  I have only two things out on my front lawn – the two Christmas deer that are mere wire frames which the wind will blow right through and are never-the-less still anchored into frozen lawn.  I’m more concerned about our big old trampoline/wind sail that likes to flutter threateningly in front of the picture window when there’s a big blow.  Unfortunately it has melted free of its icy winter tether.  It has only actually taken flight once and no one was here to see it, but the fact that our chimney bricks were scattered across the back yard and the trampoline was in a heap in the trees kind of told the story.  As a trampoline is hard to ‘put away’ I will just cross my fingers and hope for the best.

The only other outdoor plan I had for the day was to barbeque steaks for supper.  The ‘breeze’ has gone down a smidge as it prepares to change directions and ramp up for tomorrow’s gale so there is a possibility I will manage to get the fire lit. 

It will be nice if at least one thing goes according to plan.

 

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR CAN MAKE

Apparently this time last year was our last normal week, and it was totally wasted on us because we were oblivious.  You know, just drifting along thinking that life was dull and boring ... and maybe we should look into a week on a beach in Mexico to liven things up a bit.

Ah, those were the days!  There’s nothing like a twelve month dose of house bound and constrained to make dull and boring look good.

Wide eyed and innocent we heard our government officials say words like ‘pandemic’, ‘shelter in place’, ‘lockdown’ and ‘quarantine’ – strange, alien terms that couldn’t possibly apply to regular folks like us.  Only, of course, they did.  Apparently that’s how pandemics work.

Borders were slamming shut faster than windows in a rainstorm.  So much for a trip to Mexico!  And all those snowbirds - high tailing it north as fast as they could get there, sanitizing every gas pump and door handle they came in contact with all the way home.

They were better off than the poor people on cruise ships, floating Petri dishes of infection turned away from port after port, thinking they would never get home.

I will confess here, I was busy getting my kitchen renovated and wasn’t paying a lot of attention to what was going on.  It all seemed so far-fetched and surreal until the day my daughter called me, panic in her voice “They’re closing the schools on Friday!  The kids might be home for six weeks!  What am I going to do?!”

Six weeks.  How quaint was that?

And then we were into the thick of things. 

Toilet paper; remember the toilet paper insanity? And the worldwide shortage of yeast?  And everyone who had a square foot of dirt deciding to plant a garden? And the mask/anti-mask fiasco that still rages on?

As time went by our vocabularies were stretched too.  Not so much by new words but by new meanings for old words.  Remember when ‘bubble’ meant something that expanded and contracted out of a toddler’s nose while you went to find a Kleenex?  Now we live in them, with our closest friends and family – but not too many.  The only good bubble is a small bubble.

Who, outside the medical profession, knew what PPE stood for before 2020?

And remember when ‘remote learning’ was flipping between two documentaries on TV?

In the beginning we watched the provincial health updates in a kind of competition to see if our province could claim the lowest case numbers.  As time wore on we watched in horror as the numbers kept climbing – didn’t people understand what social distancing meant?  It’s a giant game of Keep Away!  The winners don’t get sick!  If we play it right only the virus dies!  If we didn’t know how to read a graph before, we sure do now. 

A ‘next wave’ isn’t something a surfer looks forward to at the beach.  ‘Zoom’ isn’t the sound a car makes when it goes by real fast.  ‘Mandate’ isn’t meeting your boyfriend for dinner and a movie.  And the designation ‘essential workers’ covers so much more than the medical and policing professions – apparently grocery store workers and meat packing plant workers are kind of important too ... along with the bus drivers who get them to work.  It’s been a steep learning curve.

So, here we are in 2021, and although there were days it felt like we were stuck here forever, the light at the end of our tunnel is getting brighter each day.  I can only imagine what it was like for our grandparents living through the Spanish ‘Flu epidemic of 1918, but because of what they learned then and how that science has been taken seriously and carried forward, researchers were ready with vaccine experience that only needed to be tweaked for this particular virus when it inevitably popped up.  As much fun as this has been, it could have been so much worse.

We began 2020 oblivious to how our world would wobble off our comfortable old normal.

2021 finds us on the cusp of freedom to roam as we please.

May 2022 be the year that we move past wanting to punch anyone who uses the term “our new normal”.

 

THE GREAT AWAKENING

These past few days I’ve been experiencing the subtle yet irresistible feeling of awakening.  It probably has something to do with going from 50 below zero to watching the snow melt off the deck, but I think it’s more than that.  The news programs are shifting their reporting from the number of cases and deaths caused by Covid to the number of vaccinations accomplished: it feels like we are putting two winters behind us at once.

As is always the case, I am fighting the urge to plant seeds because I know it’s too early and my house will look like a jungle long before I can move those spindly plants out to my greenhouse.  Mother Nature doesn’t germinate anything for weeks to come so I would be wise to hold off a little longer.  The urge to see life and the colour green is strong, though.  I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.

Also, the load of laundry with sheets and towels in it almost made it to the clothes line on Monday.  I long for the heavenly scent of fresh air to fall asleep in, but common sense won out – they would have needed finishing up in the dryer anyway.  But soon, very soon!

I swear I saw a gopher run across the road on my way home from town yesterday.

All the dog bones and deer hides are resurfacing in the front yard as the snow recedes ... and I actually look forward to going out and cleaning up that mess because it means something to do outside.

And, the anticipation to sleep with the bedroom window open is powerful.  This privilege is the counter balance of my loving spouse insisting on flannel sheets during the winter months.  In retrospect I can see there are certain things that should be carefully negotiated into a prenuptial agreement.

All of these things are the annual harbingers of the season of spring that everyone in the Northern hemisphere rejoices in by mid February.  The end of Covid winter is so much more magnificent.

Yesterday I received a phone call from Sask Health to set up an appointment for my 100 year old mother-in-law to get her vaccination.  Although I had been waiting for this to happen, even expecting it to happen, when the call finally came it felt a little like being told she had won a lottery.  It was exciting news.  I drove to town specifically to tell her, partly because she doesn’t hear well over the phone, but also because it seemed like a celebration was in order.  The news was bigger than just her appointment, it signalled that we are moving past the front line workers and into the general population – Covid spring was on its way!

On the horizon is the precious treat of just dropping in on a friend for coffee – in their own kitchen, the more the merrier.  Soon we will be able to converse with random folks anywhere and everywhere without spending the first five minutes trying to picture the bottom half of their face so we know who we are talking to.  Just think of how much fun it’s going to be to go to in-person auction sales and ball games and dance recitals and community fund raisers.  Won’t it be nice not to have to limit who can pay their respects at funerals, or who can come to Christmas dinner?

I have a friend who lives in Manitoba.  We normally get together for lunch, laughter and a girl talk therapy session a couple times a year.  Obviously it has been forever since this has happened – never was the need for this kind of therapy been greater, or more ill advised.  Our next lunch is liable to be an extra long one!

It hasn’t been all bad.  I have been educated in the ways of Zoom meetings and all this isolation time has me writing more.  We have saved all kinds of money – our fuel bill is way down because we don’t go anywhere, our vacation fund is untouched, and I haven’t gone shopping in over a year. 

I know that the time line for putting our masks away is not a short one, and with the new variants popping up there may be some adjustments to make, but we are on the right path. 

In some ways we are kinda back to normal – aren’t we all watching curling like good little Canadians?  Maybe by this time next year we can do it the way we like to ... in person.  Or even better – on a tv set in Arizona.

 

JUST US, GOING CRAZY

DAILY JOURNAL: FEBRUARY 12, 2021

ME:  So it’s another day, another dollar again, eh?  Well, I guess it’s probably more than one dollar.  I should really divide my pension check by the number of days in the month and see.  And bonus!  It’s February!  28 days!  Best write that down though, while I look for my calculator.

DOG:  So it’s another day out there.  Come on somebody!  The sun’s coming up and I need to go outside!  Not to pee, I’ll save that for later.  I just want to stand at the edge of the deck and growl at the blinking light on the school bus a mile away. 

CAT:  So, it’s another day, eh?  I’ve been thumping on this door for an hour making it sound like I’m desperate to get out of the laundry room.  Ah, there!  The door is open ... I will now pause, stretch, wash my face, and sashay over toward the deck door to pretend I want out that one too.  The dog beat me to it.  I will wait until he’s back inside and all the humans are sitting down.

ME:  And the pandemic didn’t go away while we slept last night so I guess we should sit down and listen to the latest statistics.  I will just take my mug of coffee and my iPad and go sit in my comfy chair ... darned cat!  That’s my chair!  Move! 

DOG:  How come that stupid cat has furniture privileges?  No fair!  I’ve been here for years and I’m not allowed on any furniture!  Ha!  He just got the boot.  Serves him right being all high and mighty!  Oh no!  He heard that ... stop that!  Leave my ears alone!  I don’t play cat games! I must not wag my tail!  Don’t wag my tail!  Don’t give the jerk a moving target to play with!

ME:  Eenie meenie miny mo – vacuum first?  Or laundry?  Or dishes?  If it wasn’t 50 below zero I would go for a walk.  Oh crap!  Did I say that out loud?  The dog is looking at me funny.  Can he read minds too?  I AM NOT GOING FOR A WALK!

CAT:  Well, this is boring.  I need to liven things up a bit.  What shall it be?  Shall I dig in her house plants?  Get in behind the TV and play with the wires?  Torment the dog?  Insist someone refill my food dish as it is only one quarter full?  Decisions, decisions.

DOG:  The woman is demented.  There she goes again.  Up and down the stairs.  Over and over.  Nobody can forget what they went for that many times in a row!  Hey!  It’s a dog bone!  You went for a frozen soup bone for good old Turbo!  Would I lie to you?  Don’t wag my tail!  Don’t wag my tail!  Stupid cat!

ME:  The eternal question – what to make for supper?  We should all give up food for lent.

CAT:  Hey!  Somebody let me out of here!  I’m in the porch closet!  Why would anyone shut the door while I was in here?

DOG:  Hehehehehe

ME:  I am being stalked by both the dog and the cat.  They smell thawing hamburger and feel entitled.  If it wasn’t 50 below zero I would banish them both until after supper.  I just tripped over the dog and the cat is on his third crazed stampede from one end of the house to the other.  We are all going shack wacky.

DOG:  Look who’s judging the cat for unnecessary trips to nowhere, crazy stairs lady.

CAT:  Man that dog is dumb!  Here I am distracting the human so he can grab the meat and run.  And all he’s doing is standing there, drooling all over the floor!

ME:  Should I make a dessert too?  So many calories, but we really enjoy a sweet treat after supper.  Let me check my Fitbit count.  Not too shabby!  Well over the 6000 steps so far and ten flights of stairs.  You know if I do 15 minutes on the elliptical, or maybe 10 more flights of stairs I’m good for a bowl of rice pudding!

DOG:  Now what!  That woman is nuttier than a fruit cake.  She’s looking at that pretend walker again but that’s where the man always hangs his coats and it’s full.  And so, away she goes with the stairs again!  A bone!  A bone, I say!  Look eager and happy.  She will want to reward me if I am happy!  Pant!  Smile!  Wag my tail!

Oh god!  DON’T wag my tail!  Stupid cat!

CAT:  Hehehehe

ME:  What’s this sticky note all about?  A dollar sign and the word ‘February’.