BLIZZARD BLISS

I went to bed last night listening to the roaring prairie wind blasting its way through our shelterbelt trees and throwing loose snow against the side of the house with all its might.  It made me snuggle further under the covers and smile.  I love nights like this.

Now, before you call up the nice people with straight jackets and have me hauled away, hear me out.  Don’t question my sanity just for a silly little thing like enjoying a good, old-fashioned blizzard every once in a while.  I’m prairie, born and raised.  We’re kind of an extreme life form.

First of all, please note that my embracing of the storm was done from the inside of my house.  A house with central heating and excellent insulation.  Furthermore, I was tucked into my toasty warm bed and under a down-filled duvet.  And, most important of all, I knew that everyone I loved was home, safe, and warm, as well.  I didn’t need to worry about a single person or thing.  I could relax and listen to the wind howl its one, long song, feeling its power pushing against the walls but trusting that my shelter was up to the task of protecting me and those I care about.  The louder the wind, the cozier I feel.

 This morning dawned with bright blue skies, dazzling fresh white snow and the wind still blowing, it kind of looks like a Christmas card picture out there – very pretty, but nasty cold.  We were at the southern edge of the storm so we got a major part of our precipitation in freezing rain throughout the day yesterday.  Although the videos of kids skating on city streets and other people throwing curling rocks down stretches of pebbled highway are fun for the novelty of it all, the potential for concussions and broken hips are important factors to consider before a person ventures outside.  So far today I’ve made it across the yard once, sticking to where the snow is deep so that if I do slip on the ice underneath there will be that fresh powder to cushion my fall.  You gotta think ahead, you know.

At the moment we haven’t tried to leave the yard yet.  The man says he figures the 4X4 with the studded tires could probably make it but he also is planning on spending the next few hours clearing the driveway out.  There’s lots of light, fluffy snow to push around but the lack of traction underneath might make the job a little more challenging than usual.  This is not my problem; it’s a man thing.  I stay in the house and make soup; that’s my job.

As much as I enjoy the fierceness of prairie weather; the wondering of ‘how bad will it get?’, the photographing the aftermath, a blizzard also likes to rearrange schedules.  School buses don’t run, hockey practises and games are juggled to new times, Christmas concerts are cancelled.  Hair appointments are rescheduled (thank the Lord, and halleluiah!  No one wants to go through the holidays looking like a haystack).  It looks like the two Australians’ flight will be landing in Regina this afternoon as has been planned for weeks.  Sure glad their reservations weren’t for yesterday.  I’m pretty sure they would rather witness the Northern Lights than participate in a blizzard although both have a bragging rights quality to them, don’t they?

The next week is going to be full of company and food and visiting and family gatherings and a hockey game or two.  I have several lists of jobs to do and groceries to buy on the go.  Most of my baking is done, all of my cards and letters are sent, by tonight the guest beds will all be made up.  Once I’m completely ready Mother Nature can send another storm our way.  As long as everyone is safe and inside I really do love a good blizzard.

 

ONLY ONE DOWN, BUT IT’S A START

It’s the end of November people.  There is less that a month until the big day when Santa does his thing and we all eat turkey and chocolates until we nearly explode.  There is SO MUCH TO DO before then!  And I haven’t even started.

Well, actually, that’s a lie.  I have started.  Recently I woke up to my usual let’s-worry-about-things-I-can’t-control time of just after 3:00 in the morning and selected as my ‘worry de jour’ the fact that I hadn’t even begun my Christmas letter yet.  I know that this is an antiquated custom, but it’s a really nice one where folks keep in touch and share their family’s news with a Christmas card and letter every year.  I know I’m an oddity in 2025 to keep this up but I have a small fan club who look forward to my annual news and season’s greetings.  I don’t want to disappoint.  Realizing that I wasn’t even started this letter in the last week of November sparked a tiny flame of momentum.  I would get right on that in the morning.

I confess, it wasn’t the very next morning, but I did get it done.  All I need to do is proof read it and hit SEND and I can cross that job off the list.  Except for a few elderly folks who get hard copy letters they all go by email.  I know I am eating into my Canada Post pension by not buying stamps but my ‘fan club’ membership is over 100.  I have to be frugal.

That’s one job down, about a thousand to go.

The next one better be getting gifts in order.  I was inspired back in August and found something that I think the youngest grandkids will enjoy.  I bought them.  They are only a partial gift so I can’t even wrap them, let alone send them, but they sit in a box of my inertia awaiting lord only knows what … divine inspiration, I suppose?  It better happen pretty soon.  A lot of my family lives on other continents and I’m already late. (See? Canada Post still gets a sizable chunk of my pension back!)

My outdoor decorating has been sizing itself down over the past decade.  As strings of lights die I haven’t been replacing them.  I’m down to two deer and a pole Christmas tree.  I have them out in place on the front lawn and will march across the yard to plug them in on December 1^st.  That will be job #2.

Baking.  Ah!  That baking thing I do every year.  Gingersnaps and puff pastry/lemon cheese tarts, mincemeat cookies and butter tarts – some with raisins and some with pecans. Other cookies with macadamia nuts and cranberries and some with white chocolate chips.  How we can go through that many crazy calories in such a short time makes my head spin, but I’ll make them again this year and they will all disappear like they do every other time.  Best not to start that too early though – a person wants some of them to still be around to serve guests on the big day.  Meanwhile I will probably make at least three batches of poppycock.

This lots-of-baking thing is especially important this year because I believe it’s my turn to host the feast.  I haven’t done a potential head count yet but except for the Covid years a gathering of our clan tends to number at least 20 and quite often almost double that.  We have a decent sized house but the term ‘bursting at the seams’ applies.  It’s noisy and happy and fun to be together and I’m always glad when it’s not my turn for another few years.

The one thing I am looking forward to is decorating the tree.  I love to do this all by myself, with Christmas music playing softly in the background.  Sorting through the ornaments and memories of all the other trees I’ve decorated in my life.  In 70 years that’s a lot of memories … of my mom and dad, my siblings and our intense excitement over what gifts we might be getting. And later of having my own young family and seeing the ancient magic through their eyes, and now being the grandmother carrying these moments forward to share with the next generation.  The most magical moments in December are sipping my early morning coffee, bathed in the twinkle and glow of Christmas lights – just me and the tree.

The glass of wine to celebrate finishing decorating it is a close second.

There are the other periphery treats too: twinkle tours around town  to enjoy the pretty lights, phone calls from people who don’t write letters but like to stay in touch anyway, and ridiculously saccharine Christmas movies with their happily-ever-after story lines to name a few.  It’s all part and parcel of this festival time of year.

May we all find the peace and promise we are seeking.  For me it begins on December 21^st when our wobble back towards longer daylight hours begin.

 

 

DEJA-VU, ALL OVER AGAIN

You know that feeling that you’ve been here before?  That, somehow, when you walk into a building that you already have your bearings?  You know where you’re going to go sit?  And who you are liable to meet there?  And where the kitchen is?  The memories are a little fuzzy around the edges but you just know that you’ve been there before.

It looks like we will be hanging out at the Redvers Rec Center a lot this winter.  Except for social functions on the curling side and the swimming pool on super hot days in the summer we haven’t been there much since the end of our previous minor hockey days at the end of the last century (that’s about how long ago it seems).  But, as of the beginning of October 2025 we are once again lining up equipment, scheduling in practice days, paying ice fees, and doing fundraising.  This morning I’m washing a game jersey because team pictures are tomorrow night.  I never imagined this to come up on my bingo card but here we are, and it’s a good thing.

The Rec Center isn’t exactly the same as it used to be.  The main lobby has had a facelift, the inside seating has had an upgrade, the menu has evolved and the washrooms have migrated across to where the little mini-ice surface used to be – remember that?  That’s how old I am; I remember that. 

Lord help me but the first hockey player I drove to practices was my little brother in 1971.  I can’t even recall if there was a kitchen then, probably because I didn’t have any money to spend there.  The addition to the lobby decor I like the best are pictures and posters honouring the people - the athletes who put Redvers on the map, and the local hometown heroes being recognized for their contribution to recreation in our community.  This is an excellent idea and I like it a lot.

It's kind of weird/strange/funny, but it appears we have been away from the Redvers hockey scene for exactly one generation.  I know this a small town and we are going to know the people we meet at the games, but in a super focused delivery of Deja-vu some of the people at these 2025 practices and games are exactly the same folks who attended the games in 2000.  Only now, the players that were are the parents today, and the parents of before are the grandparents.  This should not be so confusing.  After all, we are the grandparents this time too, but I keep forgetting which generation I’m in.  It’s like the intervening 25 years never happened because we weren’t there for them.  The coach today was Mitchell’s team mate back then.  Everything is a little out of whack in the time/space continuum.

People tease us that ‘this will keep us young’.  For sure I will have to renew my ever-sketchy knowledge of hockey rules and learn a whole roster of players by how they skate and their style of play.  I must say that jumping in at the U15 level with a roster of kids you’ve never met is challenging.

It will also keep us on the road.

And probably broke buying rink burgers (that part will be just like the good old days).

In the meanwhile, if you happen to run into me at the rink and we strike up a conversation be prewarned I may wander in my time line orientation, and almost inevitably I will refer to my player by his uncle’s name (a sad/happy occurrence that happens regardless of hockey). 

At our ages these slip-ups could be blamed on senility but I’m going to lean towards it being a simple case of Deja-vu overdose.  Be patient with us; we’ll get it all worked out by spring.

 

BE THE REASON

I have been reading a book.  Well, actually, I have several books on the go.  There is a whole stack of them on my bedside table, all with bookmarks carefully placed so that I can pick up where I left off weeks, months, and possibly even more than a year ago.  Maybe my life needs to be a little less busy or maybe I just need a better light to read by, but I just seem to stall out in a book these days.  Luckily, I own them all so I don’t have to deal with library return dates.

But, back to the one that inspired me to write this.

Written by Rhonda Byrne, the same author who wrote The Secret, and The Power, her new book The Magic expands on her life themes of ‘sunny side up’ and ‘cup half full’ philosophies.  It gets a bit sugary at times but I’m not going to say she is wrong – optimism beats pessimism any day of the week.

I have to say that this kind of inspirational book is not my normal pick.  I like stories.  Well written stories with believable characters and a strong story line.  The Magic is not that kind of book so who knows why I picked it up and spent my money on it, but I did.

When The Secret came out (and spent 190 weeks on the New York Times best seller’s list) a friend of mine sang its praises and told of how much it had impacted her life.  So much so that my curiosity got the best of me and I read it and was introduced to the idea of the law of attraction.  That we can and do attract what comes into our lives; if you believe that good things will come, they do.  And likewise, by expecting bad you will attract bad.  Of course, that is an over simplification of the book but it’s an uplifting read and opens a person up to a new way of looking at things.

I’ve never read any of her other books but something must have caught my interest on The Magic.  Everyone needs a little magic in their lives, maybe I was looking for some in mine.

The premise of this book is even simpler that the first.  Basically gratitude – being grateful – has immense magical power.  Somehow, she stretches this theme out to fill 254 pages but the bottom line is “if you are thankful your life will be blessed”.

She looks at ancient scripts and finds references to happiness and gratitude.  She quotes famous philosophers.  Teachings of several different religions are used to show this universal truth as well, her point being that humanity’s most potent survival tactic was just to be thankful for what we have, and that showing gratitude to others is a powerful form of magic.

The book is set out like a exercise book with a chapter to read and then an assignment of sorts to help the reader apply what they have read to their own lives.  I admit that I didn’t stick with the homework assignments I fell off the wagon but that’s not to say I didn’t get anything out of the book, because I did.

Did you know that you can’t feel anxiety or sadness or disillusionment if you are feeling grateful?  Gratefulness takes up all the emotional space you have if you let it in.  And there is always something to be grateful for.  That was one of the assignments – to spend the last few minutes of your day before you went to sleep naming ten things you were grateful for.  Even writing them down and then saying them aloud because repetition gave them more power.  Or you could simply go over your day and pick the best thing that had happened all day – another way to identify what you were grateful for.

The lesson that stuck with me the strongest though was the advice to show gratitude to others.  I think I’ve always been pretty good at saying “thank you” but after reading this book I make a point of making my words more meaningful.  Whether someone has held a door open for me or taken the time to help me in a store, or given me advice, I try to let them know how much I appreciate their time, effort, or kindness.  It makes us both feel like something wonderful has happened.  You should try it.

There are days when it seems like the world has gone sour and we are left feeling that there is nothing we can do to fight the darkness.  But we can. 

Be grateful.  Express gratitude.  Treat friends and strangers alike with the feeling that they are appreciated.  Be the source of warmth and kind-heartedness.

Set out to be the reason someone has a good day, and in doing so your day will be better as well.

Simple magic.

 

DOING BIRTHDAYS IN STYLE

Many years ago, my farmer husband explained to me in his typical stressed-out-about-harvest voice that if I had wanted parties to celebrate my birthday I should have known better than to be born in September.  I mean, this was a life-long handicap what with being both a farmer’s daughter and then choosing to be a farmer’s wife.  I really shouldn’t be surprised to have my birthday barely acknowledged between filling bins and fixing combines. 

I’m not, really.  This girl isn’t one of the high maintenance variety.  Besides, I have scored a few significant birthday memories over the years.  In 1982 he actually took a whole day off and we went to Brandon to pick out an engagement ring.  Looking back, having only known the man less than a year I can only say that this astonishingly atypical behavior was lost on me at the time.  The term ‘false advertising’ certainly applies.  

It’s too late to do anything about it now, though, I think the statute of limitations on that crime has run out.

I think it was the very next year, as a newly wed, that he gave me a blank I.O.U. to be redeemed after harvest.  He was probably thinking that meant taking me out for supper or some such easy thing.  Imagine his surprise when I called that debt in and insisted on a clothesline.  It was a whole day’s work and I never got another I.O.U. but it was so worth it.  I love my clothesline.

The years have rolled on by and luckily I have continued to have birthdays.  The kids got old enough to bake the cakes and make or buy the presents.  Like I said, I’m not high maintenance so it’s worked out okay.  He remembered to wish me a happy birthday without being prompted this year, so that’s something.  It’s a low bar but he aced it.  By that time he was on his 5^th or 6^th swather knife repair and more than a little on edge.  It’s all good.

This year other plans had been made.  2025 brings me to one of those significant ending-in-zero birthdays and the womenfolk of the family decided that this called for a spa weekend in Moose Jaw.  Who needs husband input when you can gather all the sisters and an assortment of nieces/daughters together for a two day spa visit?  As a bonus there was also one tiny grand daughter for us to all fuss over; she and her mom are kind of a package deal at the moment.  When the family is spread out from Calgary to Redvers there aren’t all that many opportunities to get together.  It was a great time.

We didn’t do anything fancy.  We talked about doing one of the Tunnels of Moose Jaw tours but never got around to it.  A few of us bought souvenirs as we wandered through the downtown shops, but nothing too much.  We treated ourselves to two lovely evening meals, enjoying the food and the atmosphere … and teased the sister who had “forgotten” her wallet mercilessly.  We spent time in the mineral waters pool – especially in the outdoor pool under the stars on a very warm prairie night, but no one took time for an actual spa treatment, we had too much visiting to do.

The best times by far, though, were sitting around our suite sharing a carafe of Tim Horton’s coffee with muffins and fruit and cheese, telling stories of our kids and grandkids, our gardens and animals, the holidays we had taken and the places we still dream of going. 

You know, the kind of things that womenfolk talk about.

We gifted stories from one generation to the next, honoring the mothers and sisters who are no longer with us. Hopefully the two month old baby was soaking it all in as she slept; there was a lot of familial ambience in that room.  She and her generation will be the ones who carry this magic forward.  

We told stories from long ago while making fresh memories for the next time we meet - which we should probably do sooner rather than later.  Those ending-in-zero birthdays get a little more serious as time goes by.  It’s not the zero that scares me anymore, it’s the number in front of the zero that is concerning.

 

 

TAPPING OUT

Here we are in the waning days of August.  The swathers and combines are chewing through the acres and municipal roads that don’t see traffic for months on end are major trucking routes.  My grass needs cut again but 30 degrees is just too brutal for this girl – it will have to wait.  Sometimes a person has to know when to tap out.

Some crazy lady (who looks a lot like me) planted her usual too-big-for-two-people garden in May and I have been dealing with the consequences of that rash act all summer.  Germination was pretty fair except the yellow beans which were a complete failure.  My cucumbers also struggled to give me a measly four plants.  It’s funny, in June this concerned me greatly because that didn’t seem to be enough.  Then one of them died and I was down to three.  We like our cucumbers so this was very concerning.  It is now the end of August and I have been giving them away by the bag full only to have another twenty ready to eat the next time I walk past the pickle patch.  Obviously poor germination has no bearing on productivity if the rain and heat come at the right time.  It’s getting to the point where they need to tap out.

The strawberries started out the year producing very well and have moved on to spectacular.  They seem to be taking the name ‘ever bearing’ very seriously.  I was still picking asparagus until the end of June, and the raspberry crop was phenomenal.  I had to discourage my peas from further productivity by yanking them out of the ground.  I’ve never had better success with corn, and I even got most of it into my freezer before a few very rude and greedy raccoons wreaked havoc one night.  Let’s just say they won’t be back next year.

Zucchini are playing their usual trick of being eight inches long at 10:00 in the morning and two feet long and weighing 20 pounds by suppertime.  Any beets I have left out there are the size of soccer balls.  The dill has all gone to seed.  Luckily the pigs love Swiss Chard … and any portulaca, redroot pigweed, and sow thistle that happens to be growing where it’s not supposed to be.

The onions don’t have root rot.  The potatoes are prolific and not rotting from the inside like on some years.  We have been eating, pickling, and giving away carrots for a month now and I still have two twelve-foot rows to harvest.  What was that lady who looks a lot like me thinking in May?  Oh yeah, I know what she was thinking … She was thinking “There’s only half a package of seed left, I’ll make another row.”  That’s what she was thinking.  Somebody needs to tap her out.

It's the pumpkins that are the winners this year though.  Remember that hail storm with the hardball -sized ice bombs from the sky on July 4?  Not sure that I’ll ever forget what that sounds like under meatal roofing or the way the yard looked like the inside of a popcorn machine or the ground being covered in deep pock marks for weeks afterward.  It was a doozy.  Luckily our yard was at the edge of the worst action; no windows were broken and most of the garden dodged the damage. 

The pumpkins took the brunt of it with their huge leaves out there like catcher’s mitts, and yet they came back swinging!  Those plants must cover one quarter of my garden space and are spreading another ten feet daily.  There is fruit of all sizes under those huge leaves and the canopy is so tall you could lose small children in there.  If we have a late frost there should be enough jack-o-lanterns to supply southeast Saskatchewan.  No need for them to tap out – I’m curious to see how big we can go!

And, the pinnacle of garden satisfaction?  What we’ve been waiting for since I picked those baby tomato plants up at the greenhouse?  The reason bacon exists?  Today, finally, there were tomatoes ripe enough for toasted bacon and tomato sandwiches for lunch. 

I wish I could say “My work here is now done” but of course we are only about to start the everything-to-do-with-tomatoes soup/salsa/sauce season.  They’ve been so slow to get going it will likely be mid October before I see the end of them.  Before I can really tap out for 2025.

Meanwhile, I’m going to have a very stern talk with that lady who looks a lot like me about next spring.

 

                                                         THE BEGINNING AND THE END

       Way back in the early days of my farm wife life I would be asked out on ‘dates’ to go crop checking.  Please note that the quotation marks are around the word ‘dates’ and not around the phrase ‘crop checking’.  We were farmers genuinely going out to check our crops and truly it was as close we ever got to a date.

       Depending on what we were checking for, these dates took place at different times of the day; Wheat Midge was an early evening thing, Bertha Army Worm have an all-day-long window, Canola’s readiness check for swathing could happen any time, but a hot dry afternoon was best to grind heads of wheat out in our hands to see how far off harvest would be.

       My favourite times, though, were the crop emergence checks.  These were always done at either sunrise or sunset – my farmer explaining to me that this was when the light was just right to see the bright new green shoots against the rich, dark earth.  He was so right.  What was crystal clear in that first hour after dawn was nearly invisible at high noon but would show right back up just before night fall.  A trick in the intensity of the light and the angle of the shadow made the colours stand out, the landscape unforgettable and quite beautiful.

       It was this image of exquisite clarity that sprang to my mind while listening to the homily at a funeral I once attended.  The speaker compared a human life span to the duration of a day.  “Sunrise, sunset.” he offered, “Birth and death.”  His point wasn’t about the amount of time measured with clocks or calendars that either a single day or a lifetime took, but rather the intensity of focus we devote to the beginning and end of them.  How it was these singular moments at each end of a lifetime that humans seemed to devote the most attention to.

       “Just as when a baby is born, something comes to be that was never here before, and at death something is gone that will never be again” he pointed out, “just so no one dawn or dusk is exactly the same as another.”  He felt that it seemed irrelevant how long a person lived or what they accomplished in that life; it was at their birth we rejoiced most loudly and at their death that we mourned so deeply. 

       He went on speaking but by this time the memory of those early morning crop checks had filled my mind and I found myself wondering if this is why we examine life in much the same way.  At our dawn is the light just right to envision how much this tiny human might do in their lifetime?  And at our sunset do we not naturally take a look back along their row to see how well it grew?  I remembered how those brilliant green rows would fade with the high sun light and yet in the evening how they would be visible again.  Is that what happens to us in the middle of our lives?  Does what we do - how we live – disappear in our daily busy-ness?  A photographer once told me that there was no bad time to take a picture with our amazing prairie light, that the trick was just about taking the time to capture it properly.

       I love how serendipity works.  Within a day or two of this funeral I happened to read an essay written by a mother whose sons had grown and gone away.  She wrote her thoughts of their growing up years.  She had been diligent throughout their childhood building photo albums of all their milestones – birthday parties and sports events, Christmas mornings and Hallowe’en costumes – but now that they were gone she realized the things that she missed most, the memories that stood out, were the moments no one would ever think to take a camera out for.  Her list was very long and included things like lost teddy bear hunts, failed tooth fairy mornings, skinned knees and grass stains, having to share the last ice cream sandwich, homework woes, rained out holidays, a first brush with heartache, the didn’t-make-the-team milkshakes, the fine line of giving them space and still watching over them.  She now lived in a house where the fridge was full, the rooms were empty, and her photo albums didn’t begin to tell the story.

       My brain has sifted through this new perspective; I feel there’s a piece of wisdom in all of this to be learned and lived.  Maybe it’s this:  that no matter how beautiful or poignant the extreme ends of our days and lives are, the stretch in between – whether it be minutes, days, or years – needs to be captured and treasured in its own light.  Don’t think that each moment we have isn’t significant just because it’s hard to focus when the sun is high in the sky.

 

 

50 YEARS

50 years is way shorter than it used to be.

And, they are making old people way younger these days too.  It’s weird, I know.

Case in point:  this past weekend we were invited to a 50^th Wedding anniversary.  It was a lovely laid-back affair in a big back yard.  A tent-type gazebo for shade, ample lawn chairs to go around, little children playing games, snacks and beverages of all kinds – a summer lawn party for all ages.  Technically speaking a few of the people there had to be over 50 but in that kind of a setting, with all the conversation and reminiscing and laughter, the passage of time loses its grip.  We were just the same group of people who had been there to celebrate their wedding.  The fact that our grandchildren were also present just gave us more to talk about.

Compare that to how a 50^th wedding Anniversary went down in my grandparents’ day.  A church hall was rented and the womenfolk baked up dainties for several days in advance.  I recall all the cousins being in attendance and family pictures being taken.  We all had brand new dresses; everyone from Grandma, mom, me, and all my sisters.  Not store-bought dresses either!  Mom would have tailor made each and every one, probably between batches of daities, in the week leading up to the big day.  I can’t believe how I undervalued such luxury when I had it, and how I longed for store-bought clothing like my friends had – but that’s another story for another time.  A 12 year old’s sense of values is pretty tacky.

The tables were set with actual tea cups and saucers, the family meal served after the ‘come and go’ part of the day was surely served on China, the head table graced with a table cloth and a centerpiece, fine China and napkins.  There would have been fancy cards and speeches.  The word ‘formal’ comes to mind.

The thing that really sets these two occasions apart, though, is how OLD my Grandmother and Grandfather were at the time.  Like, they were ancient!  Grandma’s hair was snow white, her dress old-fashioned.  Grandpa wore a suit, white shirt and tie.  They look like museum pieces in their photo.

Intrigued, I have done the math wondering how much older they were than us at the time.  Zero years.  Strangely, humans who get married in their 20s and manage to stay married for 50 years all end up in their 70s at that milestone. 

Saturday’s bride in her sundress and the groom in shorts and a casual summer shirt were basically the same age as grandma in her mid-calf length, high collared, long sleeved dress standing formally beside her man in his suit.  Both couples the same age but from different centuries.

Obviously the only thing that has changed is the perspective of the observer – me.

Really, what has changed in the half century between these two celebrations?  The venues were different but the activities were the same.  There was food and visiting, laughter and reminiscing, grandchildren and games at both affairs.  Pretty sure that the beverage choices were limited to coffee, tea, and kool-aid in 1967 and a buffet of pulled pork and baked beans set out in a garage would have been shocking to the ‘church ladies’, but the whole idea of hosting and serving a meal for a special occasion is identical.  Sharing food and gathering in celebration is part of the human experience, and will be until the end of time.

Just to add depth to our summer anniversary afternoon party my sister sent me a few photos of their grandson’s wedding happening in Regina the same day – two generations further into the future.  A newly minted couple who look like they shouldn’t even be old enough to graduate high school yet wearing fashions that their children will groan and roll their eyes at in 10 to 15 years (this is inevitable, every new wave of teenagers does it).  Young love and happy smiles … food, music, friends and family.

50 years down the road they too will celebrate as we did on Saturday, and grandma and grandpa did in 1967.  The dress code will have altered.  The menu will be something new and trendy for 2075.  Who knows where the party will be held?  And the guests (depending on which generation they are from) will either think the couple looks ancient or contemporary. 

Age is all in the eye of the beholder, I guess, and it helps if you colour your hair.

 

 

 

LIFE OR DEATH

“What should I make for supper tonight?”

It’s an age-old question, asked at least 18 billion times over the eons.  Whether the options were mammoth stew or fish soup over an open fire in front of a cave, or a sophisticated ratatouille or fancy chowder prepared on a state-of-the-art convection surface, the woman seeking menu inspiration will be left hanging.  Of the 18 billion enquiries there have only been 2,681 helpful answers (this is not verifiable given the time lapse, but highly likely given my personal experience.  The last woman in my family line to actually get a definitive answer was a gal in the Middle Ages who had to then go catch a rabbit to roast for him, but at least the decision part was over).

It’s 1:25 on a Saturday afternoon.  I own three deep freezes (Covid consequence) which hold countless meal options.  I own 53 recipe books, a small file box stuffed with my favorites, and I have been known to ask Google for help in a pinch, as well.  My kitchen is well stocked in cookware, utensils, and gadgets for use in my oven, microwave, stovetop, or air fryer as the mood strikes me.  I have a BBQ and a smoker at my disposal.  I am an incredibly lucky person to live in a first world country surrounded by such wealth and privilege … but would someone please tell me what to make for supper?  I’ll make extra if you want to stay for the meal.

I know part of the problem is that I’m not hungry right now.  I reheated a little KD and a leftover hotdog an hour ago and really couldn’t care less about eating at the moment.  Honestly, if there weren’t other people around here expecting an evening meal I would probably have toast and maybe an egg and call it good. 

And there are some radishes ready in the garden.  Are radishes considered a vegetable?

Isn’t it funny how time slips away?  We are now mid afternoon and inspiration has yet to strike. Weirdly this shortening of the timeline is playing in my favour. 

A couple hours ago I had so many more choices, but not so anymore.  By sheer procrastination I have ruled out long term projects like roasts and stews.  Wasn’t that clever of me?  Fewer options can be a good thing!

Excuse me while I go get some hamburger out and stick it in the microwave on defrost.

Just the other day a bunch of us girls were sitting around discussing this very I’m-so-tired-of-cooking dilemma and the alternative of Hamburger Helper came up.  I don’t know who invented this last-minute-dinner-in-a-box but I gotta say, you’re my hero.  It’s not fine cuisine.  It’s probably not all that nutritious unless you serve it with a salad or a couple sides of veggies, but, will the whole family consent to eat it? Yes!  It’s protein and pasta in a sauce and will keep people alive until you come up with another meal tomorrow.  Some days that’s all you need for a win.

I’ve pondered this for a while: where in the marriage vows does it say “you’ll be responsible for meal plan/prep/serving/clean-up, forever and ever, amen”? 

Is this a Life sentence?  Or a death sentence? 

Is there tiny print at the very bottom of the marriage certificate that you can’t see while wearing the rose-coloured glasses of love?  Should all future brides be warned?  And, if they were warned and took heed, would society as we know it collapse?

Okay, now I’m delving into philosophy … this is pure procrastination, Jocelyn style.

It’s time to go hit Google up for some ideas on what to do with a couple pounds of ground beef.  Better not do Hamburger Helper twice in the same week.

 

 

WHEN IT’S SPRINGTIME IN Saskatchewan

Here we are at the first of June, still technically spring but feeling a whole lot more like summer. 

My ancestors came from the misty cool highlands of Scotland, I am genetically unequipped to deal with summer on the Canadian Prairies but here I am anyway – already sporting sunburned arms and a peeling nose.  I have two natural colorings in the summer – either the pasty white of mushroom soup, or the vibrant red of Campbell’s tomato.  I do manage to develop something that looks like ‘tan’ but only when compared to other of my body parts that never see the sun at all.  There was a time in history that women were supposed to have milky white skin.  I hope my forebears made the most of it.

My reluctance to participate in the heat and glaring sun of summer is overridden by my desire to have a garden and enjoy my yard, though.  After spending winter longing for green and warmth I’m as anxious as any farmer to get outside and start things growing.  I don’t even wait in fact, I plant seeds in the house about mid March so I can see them either grow spindly and weak or just keel over and die depending on their individual descretion.  Some actually make it to the garden, usually just in time for the last frost, but the effort keeps me busy and my livingroom looking like a mini greenhouse for a couple months while we wait for the snow to go away.

Time seems to pick up speed around the middle of April.  Farmers get antsy to get out on the land.  Their wives get antsy to get the men out of the house.  I take up a daily walk around the yard looking for signs of life … a first green blade of grass, the first buds on the trees, even a fist dandelion makes me happy in April; anything that shows proof of life.  Last fall I went crazy with over 100 tulips bulbs so spring was very colorful and rewarding this year.

Our front yard is a natural basin so there is always a period of flood with the snowmelt in the spring.  ‘Lake Hainsworth’ had been and gone enough for me to mow 80% of the yard before Mother Nature decided everyone needed to take a break from seeding and gave us three inches of rain in May.  Seeding was stopped for two weeks and I am now back to mowing around smelly swamp.  The moisture was welcome (especially for those of us who got their gardens in before it came) but it could have been better timed.  I say that like Mother Nature cares what I think; she does not.

Another sure sign of spring is our rise-and-shine time.  In the dark of winter I can manage to ‘sleep in’ until 6:00 or 6:30 somedays.  I know.  I know.  This is a dismal fail for a retired person but I literally can’t help it.  And, as if that’s not bad enough, when the sun starts getting up earlier, so do I.  This past month it’s been more like 5:00.  My mom always said it was the most peaceful time of the day and it turns out she was right … about just this one thing, of course.  I love my solitary coffee and game of Wordle.

These past few weeks I’ve been awakened even earlier – like 4:30ish - by my phone buzzing that there is a text.  It kind of spooked me the first time it happened because there is an unwritten rule in this house that you don’t call after 9:00 or before 8:00 “unless someone has died, someone has been born, or a house is on fire”.  Apparently, there is another allowable circumstance – If you’ve just spent the morning touring Italian towns and are sitting at a quaint little streetside café having lunch, this is a perfectly acceptable time to send pictures to your sisters in Canada.  The first morning it kind of freaked me out but after that it just gave me something more to do after I poured my coffee.

Sadly, the surest sign of summer has arrived.  Forest fire smoke stains our skies, makes us cough, and hurts our eyes … and we are hundreds of miles away from the real damage and destruction.  I sure wish Mother Nature would brew up another three inches and send it north.

 

THE SOUND OF RAIN

There is nothing quite as peaceful and soothing as the sound of rain falling outside your window.  Unless, of course, it is the heavenly scent of rain - petrichor.  They announce to your soul that all is well with the world.  That plants will grow, that we will have shelter from the trees and food from the fields and gardens, that animals will be fed and watered.  That our lives will be filled with abundance simply because water falls from the sky.

We woke to that sound and smell this morning.  It wasn’t a surprise, the weather people had been telling us it was on the way for several days, but it wasn’t quite as much of a blessing as we would have liked.  If the predictions are true this rain is too early and way too much.

At first they were talking about only a half inch for today.  That would have been perfect for the middle of May.  Seeding has been going great guns for two weeks – some farmers are almost done, some are halfway, and some just nicely started.  A half inch would give them a day of maintenance time for both human bodies and farm machinery, but the downtime would be short-lived.  They would be rolling again in no time. 

This newer forecast of 4 inches over 5 or 6 days is a whole other matter.  That much moisture will stop fieldwork for two weeks; you can’t plant in the rain or in the mud, and if we get 4 inches there is going to be a lot of mud.  Everyone in our neighbourhood worked late last night trying to get as much planted as possible.  If this plays out as predicted there will be two distinct harvests in the fall of 2025 – the crops that were planted pre rain, and what went into the ground after it was dry enough to go again.

Farmers weren’t the only ones pushing to get done though – gardeners play by the same rules for the same reasons.  Knowing that the rain was coming I put in some long, physical hours to get my garden tilled and planted.  Except for tomatoes I can call that job done, and I have the sun/wind burn and sore muscles to show for my work.  It’s not perfect and I got a little devil-may-care rebellious with my farmer’s expectations of straight rows toward the end.  Heat and wind and mosquitoes (who knew that all three could exist at the same time?) weakened my give-a-damn on all rows after the onions.  He can worry about perfection on his own rows.  It’s hardly a level playing field though - he has GPS on his tractor and my method and tools pretty primitive in nature; two stakes and a length of bale twine.

It's not raining at this moment and the little voice in my head keeps telling me that I should be out getting some bedding plants and dahlias planted.  A slightly louder voice insists that if it rains 4 inches that flower bed will be under water for a week and everything will be drowned out so my work and the plants will all be wasted.  I’m listening to the loud mouth because I just want to be lazy today.  I anticipate regretting this decision at some time in the not-too-distant future.

Instead I will spend my afternoon happily tapping away at my keyboard and then make an actual sit down meal for supper where we eat together at an hour typically associated with the evening meal, and then have the dishes done before bedtime. 

It’s funny how it’s the little things that make a person happy.

Like waking up to the sound of rain gently falling on the roof and the scent of petrichor on the wind.

It’s not the desired amount for this moment in time, but the sound is still soul-cleansing and the smell is divine.

 

 

JUST LIKE GRANDMA USED TO MAKE IT

A while ago I received a phone call from my daughter asking for my recipe for cheese cake.  Although it neither ‘my’ recipe, nor is it actually ‘cheesecake’, I knew what she was talking about and went to dig out the recipe book it’s in.  It’s been a while since I’ve made that dessert so it took me a bit of a search.  I have a full shelf of old-fashioned, spill-stained, dog-eared, beat-up recipe books and could only remember the one I was looking for was a local fundraiser project I had inherited from my grandmother’s belongings.  I had the idea it was the one the Redvers Lodge of the O.O.R.P. put together in 1967 but that’s the one that the banana bread recipe is in.  Turns out the PHILADELPHIA CREAM CHEESE CAKE is in ‘Kitchen Kapers’, a book compiled by the Golden Age Center back when their address was where The Optimist Café is now. 

Obviously my recipe book shelf is a historical reference site.

Anyway, back to my daughter and her request.  Her son had chosen grandma’s cherry cheesecake for his birthday cake.  Of course he thought that meant it was my cake but we need to go back at least one more generation to get to the rightful grandmother and yet another generation to the original owner of the recipe book.  I know my mom used this recipe because it’s her writing that says the cup of icing sugar is too much - the first modification in it’s journey to 2025.

To begin with I was going to just snap a picture of the page and text it to the cake baker but thought the better of it when I realized the deletion of icing sugar was only the beginning of the alterations.  I have tweaked it a few times myself.

I don’t use a whole box of graham crumbs – that’s way too much.  I use 2/3rds of a box and then and let the rest go stale in my cupboard. 

The ½ cup of melted butter is actually margarine. 

The 8 oz package of cream cheese is accurate, but the womenfolk in our family use real whipping cream – Dream Whip just seems wrong for people who grew up on a dairy farm. 

As far as the can of cheery pie filling goes, I never feel that one can is enough but two is definitely too much.  I know this because I tried it; who knew too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing?  Using only 1 ½ cans of cherries would have a ½ can going bad in my fridge and that seems like more of a waste that a 1/3 box of graham crumbs so I settled on just the single can.

I suppose, if I got all thrifty and technical I could use a bigger pan, all of the graham crumbs, and two full cans of cherries but then I would need more margarine, cream cheese and whipping cream … I can’t remember which (or how many) of my teachers told my sceptical younger self that I would need math and fractions in my adult life, but here we are.  In the end, for practical purposes I choose not to build a bigger cheesecake.  It would only result in a cake that wouldn’t fit in my fridge, and eventually to me not fitting through doors.  Best to leave that part of the recipe unaltered.

It's funny; when I looked over the list of ingredients and the method to put them together it was obvious that sending the next generation a copy of what my book said would be totally misleading.  The words printed on that page are more of a list of suggestions than actual instructions.  Each line is reminder of what has been changed and sometimes a note to show who changed it. 

Besides, I knew she would be writing down what I gave her in her own notebook.  You know, the one she’ll go find when her daughter calls her someday for Grandma’s cheesecake recipe.  I wonder what it will look like by then?

 

 

GOLDEN

I know it’s cliché, but when they say that the best music originated in the ‘50s and ‘60s they are dead on correct.

 Well actually, ‘they’ don’t say it, ‘we’ do.  It’s my generation that says that.  I’m that old.

But, I’m also correct.  The musicians, singers, song writers and producers who experimented with sound and talent after WWll ushered in a new era.  They pushed the envelope of never-heard-before musical innovation and opened the doors for performers like Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly to earn their rightful place in history and our hearts.  Every time I read about or watch a documentary covering those artists in their early days I’m always amazed how they all knew each other, how they toured together, they wrote songs together and admired each other’s work.  The crucible that was the birthplace of rock and roll was very small but the cultural growth that it generated was enormous.  In fact, it took over the music world.  By some lucky stroke of fate this was the generation I was born into.  I was there when it happened. 

Well, actually, I was a little late to the party.  I was born in the mid ‘50s and probably didn’t pay much attention to the music scene for a decade or so.  There is no doubt that I owe my introduction into that world to my sister’s record collection (LPs and 45s) and of course, the fine-honed talent of knowing how to weight the needle arm on the turntable with a penny to keep it from skipping. 

That, and The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights.   

Old Ed prided himself of presenting “A really big show!”   He was the one who gave Elvis tv time – but would only allow him to be filmed from the waist up.  Elvis was too provocative for a full screen, but too good not to have him on the show.  Huge controversy back in the day and a night to remember.  Probably massive ratings numbers too, come to think of it.  

There was also the night Nancy Sinatra performed These Boots Were Made For Walking, and the night The Beach Boys played Good Vibrations (I was home alone that night and nearly blew the speakers on our poor, old tv set).  And, how about the night The Beatles preformed She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah. with teenaged girls swooning and fainting all over the place? 

There was one other of his shows that sticks in my memory.  Sometime in the ‘70s there was an act on that speculated what music would sound like in the 21^st Century.  Being in the middle of this musical revolution and loving it all, I recall being intrigued with this offered glimpse into the future … until they played what they envisioned.  Instead of the warmth of guitars, drums, and pianos there were machine-generated synthetic noises, no vocals, and no drum beat to tie it all together.  I was appalled.  I realize that this shows me to be a cranky old coot at a very young age, but how dare they degrade my music into something so awful?  I was pre-old.

Thank goodness for Sirius XM with their channels sorted by decade.  I can choose whether I want the birth of rock and roll, it’s adolescent Hippie years, or a mix of soft rock or ‘80s country music that it matured into.

But as good it is to have my favourite music on demand, there is absolutely no substitute for a live, in-person show.  Sharing the experience with a crowd is electric, the instrument-playing talents of the musicians always blows me away, and the power of the music stirs my soul.  The opportunity for live music is rare but still possible: two of my ‘also old’ besties (sorry girls) attended “Walk Right Back” a tribute to the Everly Brothers in Regina this weekend.  It was so worth the ticket price, the long drive home, and even having to explain to our waiter at supper who the Everly Brothers were (we gave up and told him to ask his grandmother).  The show was a step back in time to the pure sound of rock and roll’s childhood.  The evening was golden.

To make it even more special I happened to run into friends I hadn’t seen in ages.  No surprise that they would be drawn to this concert – they’ve been playing music all their lives and live right in Regina.  They said they were spending their retirement playing music at seniors homes now and were busier than they had ever been playing some of the very songs we were hearing at the show.  This was the music that made seniors happy.

On the one hand that gives me pause … playing rock and roll to old people?  It seems to upset my space/time continuum.

On the other hand, old people are much younger than they used to be, so I guess it’s okay. 

Maybe it’s a new way to explain “The Golden Years”.

 

 

DAYS OF WINE AND HUMMINGBIRDS

When you’re retired every day is wide open.  Every morning is a fresh new decision on what to do with your time. 

Gone are the solid, regimented, industrious days of gainful employment.  No longer am I safe within the boundaries of a prescribed schedule, meeting deadlines and commitments for a paycheck, working for ‘the man’. 

Ah! Those were the days!  It’s so much easier now that my main reason for being is to decide what to make for supper.

I wonder, how does one retire from making supper?  (asking for a friend)

But I’ll leave that quandary for another day.

Meanwhile, back here in the middle of March, my decision-making processes must be applied to what to do with today’s sunshine.  We all know about March’s lion and lamb.  We also know how untrustworthy this is.  Sure, we began with a lamb but what does that prove?  It’s just something to talk about while dithering about whether if it’s safe to exchange winter snow boots for spring rubber boots yet.  Like, how many times do you really want to haul them up and down the basement stairs until Mother Nature tires of her game? 

What’s that you say?  Just leave them all spread all over the porch floor until Easter, just in case?  With the boot dryer plugged in at the ready?  Besides, the resulting chaos is great cover for the inch deep layer of mud all over the floor.  Win/win, for sure.  I’ll do it!  That will take care of the porch until the end of April.

What about the rest of the house?  While I’m pondering my next move I pick up my vacuum cleaner hose to hunt down the morning’s collection of little stripey flies and fugitive maple bugs.  Their Zombie Awakening is one of the clearest indications of spring so far as they stumble out of their winter hidey holes to test my insect hunting skills.  They will disappear about the time mosquitoes begin the show up.

My insect hunt has taken me to my windows.  They were so clean last fall; they are so not clean now.  I am not prepared to do anything about this today, but hey … my window policeman isn’t home this afternoon … an hour or so of fresh air couldn’t hurt anything …  

And the fresh window air will nicely complement the freshly aired bedding I washed and hung out on the line this morning.  That was one of my very first decisions today; bedtime is going to smell like heaven tonight.

As always I have a list of things I need to do – I better confess to the jobs I am avoiding:

·         Dog poop patrol … for the obvious reasons.  There’s fresh snow on it at the moment thank goodness!

·         Take down the last of the Christmas decorations and put them away.  Some of them are still frozen in the ground so, awe gee, can’t do anything about that!

So I find myself back on my deck, surveying my kingdom.  This is where all my best decisions are made … like what flowers to plant this year, where to put them, and who to share them with.  It just doesn’t get any better than this.

I have marigolds and zinnias already sprouted, dahlias to bring out of cold storage, and over 100 tulips and daffodils ready to make spring 2025 special.  The Internet promises me that hummingbirds have already started North.  What more could I ask for?

Oh yeah, that making supper forever until I die thing …

 

 

I’M PLANTING SOME FLOWERS

There is a meme that surfaces on Facebook occasionally that I feel is particularly, poignantly perfect for the times we find ourselves in this spring.

There are multiple versions of this meme but they all have two people talking.  One asks “Aren’t you worried about what the future will bring?” and the other replies “I think it will bring flowers.” to which the first person responds “Oh really, why is that?”

 “Because I am planting flowers.”

In his farewell address in 1989 President Ronald Regan spoke of the United States of America as “A tall, proud, shining city built on rocks, stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity.” His words being inspired from a bible verse Matthew 5:14.

These are lofty words but they came at a time in history where the men and women whose leadership got us through WW11 and who realized that peace isn’t just the absence of war but rather ‘the presence of justice, of law, of order – in short, of government’ and had put into place NATO and The United Nations to ensure the safety and freedom that we in the western world have taken for granted for 80 years.  It hasn’t always been perfect but it beat the heck out of what is happening now.  We watch in horror as all of Regan’s high ideals crumple like a house of cards at the hands of a man who wants to make it into the history books.  No doubt he will – if anyone is left to print or read them.

But, enough about that.  Sorry about being so dark.  Let me get back to planting flowers.

We are days away (again) from Trump’s threats of tariffs.  Will his fear of crashing the stock market make him back off again?  Who knows?  Is it really the tariffs he wants, or the turmoil and uncertainty that he likes most?  Regardless, we have to prepare for … well, we don’t really know, do we?  How will this affect our lives?  How deep with the economic pain go?  We will hurt, but the experts say so will the Americans.  How this affects regular people, no matter which side of the border they are on concerns him not at all.

At his first threat we Canadians felt powerless, but then someone came up with some ‘flower seeds’ to plant.  His tariffs are all about money, it’s the only thing he is interested in … so let us speak in the only language he understands – dollars.

His threat of tariffs and the insult of making us his 51^st state has galvanized Canadians into the most thorough anti-American shoppers ever to wield a shopping cart.  It’s so ironic that in past Free Trade negotiations it was the USA who insisted on country-of-origin labeling; now the very thing that is making identifying what we don’t want to buy so much easier.  Not that it’s all straight forward, ‘Made in Canada’ is not the same thing as ‘product of Canada’ but there are websites and Facebook pages set up to help you understand what you are buying and advice on where to find what you need.  Don’t think for a moment that you can’t make a difference, those big companies watch their market share and down is not a direction they want to see.  Canadians are known for our ‘nice-ness’ but read the history books – we are not to be messed with.

The world order tipped yesterday, spilling out the security we have enjoyed for so long and allowed evil and greed for power to seep in.  All is not lost, there are still good people in the right places to make a difference, but as we head into this year there is lots to worry about.

Personally, I’m going to plant flowers.  It won’t change the big picture, but at least there will be flowers.

 

SNOW DAY

My early morning routine always begins with a big mug of coffee and a scroll through Facebook on my phone.  It’s not as comprehensive as an actual newspaper, and a person has to be careful about what they are going to believe, but it’s the best that I have.

But on Wednesday morning, before I even got as far as Facebook, I discovered a message from Australia.  It was a screenshot, actually, an announcement of cancelled classes and campus shutdown for the college in Coquitlam, BC where grandson Shae is going to school.  His Canadian born father (no doubt relaxing by their backyard pool and maybe enjoying a mango off their own tree) was the one who sent it, along with his comment “Shae just got his first Snow Day!” 

It gave me a chuckle too: snow days are pretty rare occurrences for Australians.  I had seen the news coverage of the winter mess Vancouver was getting and wondered how the boy from Down Under was enjoying BC’s version of winter.  He’s a pretty happy-go-lucky guy and adapted well to the ten days he and his Aussie girlfriend spent here over Christmas holidays.  I think she struggled a bit more with the intense cold.  There is no way to prepare first timers for what to expect at 40 below zero. 

I’m sure the question “Why would anyone choose to live here?” went through their heads.  Truth to be told, it goes through ours too from time to time.  When the air hurts your face and drawing breath in freezes your nostrils shut, it really does make you wonder what you’re doing here.

But, then again, it’s not so bad.  If our ancestors managed to survive in sod shacks, burn buffalo chips for fuel, haul wood by horse teams from the Moose Mountains, and do it all without wifi! surely to goodness, we can weather a few months of, shall we say, a hostile environment.

And, those of us who live here know that winter isn’t boring.  It has many faces. 

Today is a beautiful day: even though it’s minus 15, the sunshine is strong enough to melt smaller patches of loose snow on our south-facing deck; our dog is out there soaking in its warmth.  The sky is a dazzling blue. 

Also, yesterday’s new snow is sifting along the ground from west to east, polishing roads out in the open but in the shelter of our yard the wind and the snow are collaborating to form banks and drifts only to reshape them again and again as the breeze changes directions.  Today’s windspeed is minor so the banks are staying soft and fluffy, but should Mother Nature take a notion to turn it up, we will be treated to spectacular snow sculptures.  She does fantastic work blowing snow through trees at 90kph.

Over Christmas Jack Frost put on a fairyland display of fog and rime frost, decorating every surface with dazzling, white crystals.  As I drove home with one of our Australian guests on her first day in Saskatchewan I asked what she thought of what she was seeing.  Of course, I was expecting her answer to be an echo of my opinion of its beauty, but with her fresh eyes and unique perspective, her reply was even more profound.  After a moment of quiet thought she said “I feel like I’m in a black and white movie.” 

She is from a place where the sky and the sea are always blue, the grass is always green, and there is never a time when something isn’t in vibrant bloom.  She must have felt she had been abducted to an alien world.

It’s February now, the worst of winter’s darkness is behind us.  With each morning it’s a little bit brighter.  This is Canada so the snow days might be done for this school year, or we might be just getting started.  I’ll let you know at the end of March.  Better make that April.  Can’t really rule out May either …

Thank goodness we have wifi.

 

 

 

 WHAT I DID ON MY CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY

For some time now I’ve been thinking we should downsize our Shaw Direct package.  We don’t watch even a third of what we are subscribed to and it’s not cheap.  Surely to goodness there is a better deal for the farmer and his wife.

As much as this was a good idea in the abstract, it was not to be taken lightly.  First I needed input from the primary tv watcher. There was no way I wanted to hear any whining about me cancelling his favorite shows.  I requested a list from him.  And then I requested it again.  The third time did the trick.

Maybe I sounded a little more insistent this last time.  Due to charges on my credit card (that I did not make!) I cancelled it and ordered a new one.  I then went to my online Shaw account and recorded the new card’s number following their prompts.  I considered the deal done until I got the next e-bill and the latest payment had not gone through.  I checked it out and the new number showed at ‘pay method’ so I chalked it up to bad timing and that this would take of itself by the next bill.  I was wrong, it did not.

Strange how you can pay too high a price for tv one month at a time and let it slide, but when you get a bill for three months together, the wastefulness hits a nerve.  Something needed to be done and I required that list from the farmer to begin.  For sure my third request was more demanding.

During my what’s-up-with-my-bill excursions into MY SHAW DIRECT account the website told me how easy they were to work with – like, if they repeated it often enough it would somehow be true.  The only things that are easy to do is signing up for additional services.  Or maybe to change your address; I don’t know I didn’t try that one.  But, if you want to figure out what’s wrong with nonpayment on your account, or want to realign your package to suit two old people – well, navigating that journey requires guidance. 

By a human. 

In an on-going conversation. 

Until all the problems have been resolved. 

If anyone of you who have gone looking to Shaw for this you just sat back in your chairs, snorted coffee out your noses, and said “Good luck with that!”

Beginning with the mystical, magical, all-powerful 4 digit code you need to talk to someone when you call the help number plastered all over their website.  They take you all through who-you-are and what-are-you-looking-for menu and then ask for this code that you know nothing about.  I’ve become very savvy about writing down everything when I talk to these companies and I have no record of any such 4 digit code!  I rechecked these notes and tried again thinking there must be another option, or at least a way to acquire a 4 digit code.  I ran into the same dead end every time.  You can’t pass this door without a code; you cant get a code unless you pass this door.  I quit for the day.

My ire was reawakened the next day when I received a phone call saying that if I didn’t do something about my bill they were going to unplug my tv, or some such threat.  It was just a recording of course, no human to help straighten things out.  No hint as to what my 4 digit code might be either, strangely enough.

Off to my account page again!  On the very same page as this huge amount owed is the proof that I have given them the new credit card number.  Why can’t they just use it to pay the bill?  Under that though, is where you are invited to give them another credit card number.  I’m not about to do that, but let’s just see what’s going on behind the scene?  Would you believe that they haven’t changed the card at all?  Even though the top page has the new number, their records are still clinging to the past.  I paid one month’s worth to see if it would go through and quit for the day.

That was only one problem solved though.  Back to the drawing board on how to downsize our tv plan.  Back to their website for some more frustration.  They offer different size deals with different personal choice options.  This is hardly helpful if a person doesn’t know what they already have.  On top of that, they offer networks and we customers understand channels; it’s like we’re not even speaking the same language.  That is, if we were even talking, which of course we’re not … because, you know, the 4 digit code thing.

There is however, a little chat bubble in the corner offering ‘help’.  I click on it, fill in my who-are-you and how-can-I-help info … and get asked for my 4 digit code.  Of course.  Who didn’t see that coming?  While I sat there contemplating my previous worst customer service experience ever a message popped up saying the ‘helpers’ didn’t work weekends anyway.  Of course.  I quit for the day.

On my next non-weekend day I tried again.  This time, before they closed me down for not having a 4 digit code I filled that blank in with a message stating I didn’t have one.  I didn’t think this was going to help but be darned if I didn’t get a message that I was 69^th in the waiting queue.  I don’t know if I was supposed to celebrate that I had actually made it to a queue, or not.  Mostly I was amazed that one actually existed.  But, at #69 I wasn’t even tempted; I quit for the day.

Randomly, on different days, I would go through the motions:  #62.  #71.  #74.

And then, yesterday at 10:03 miraculously I was given #21.  I poured myself a coffee and settled in for the long haul.  This was going to be my day.

I texted with friends.  I straightened up my desk.  I did a puzzle on my iPad.  I played several games on my phone.  I told the farmer to make his own dinner.  I did another puzzle.  The number continued downward.  11 and 5 took a long time, 10-9-8-7 and 4-3 went fast, no doubt they either gave up or died of old age. 

Finally at 1:13 I was asked what my problem was.  Talk about a loaded question, but I know what it feels like to be yelled at for something I have no control over, I thanked her for her attention to my problems and slowly but surely we unravelled all of the frustration I had built up over the past month and a half.  I am now the owner of a much smaller tv package, I understand how it works, and my payment method has been verified.

I have also been granted my very own personal 4 digit code! 

It's been quite the journey.  As well, I subscribed to Netflix over the holidays, it took the farmer just over a week to discover binge watching.  As for myself, the reason I want tv is for the news and lately I can either watch that or sleep through the night, but not both.  Maybe I should have let them unplug our tv, after all.

But I do have my 4 digit code.