An Untraditional Christmas

Christmas is one of the most traditional times of the year.  The music we listen to, the foods we prepare, the way we decorate our houses, the stories we tell, the family customs we observe - almost everything we do at the end of December has some kind of ritual symbolism attached to it.  Whether you're in it for the Santa scene or the Nativity scene, chances are the way we celebrate the season tends to repeat itself year after year - not in a boring way, but in such a fashion that we feel content with the comforting traditions that trigger happy memories.  Humans seem to need to punctuate their lives with holidays and festivals, and Christmas is the biggest one of all.

Every family writes its own storybook on what they consider important: which treats they love most to eat, the kind of gifts they tend to give, where the celebration takes place, whether their trees are decorated with precious family heirloom ornaments or done in ultra-modern colour coordination with the wrapping paper theme of the year.  Some families keep it small and simple, some have the whole fam-damly for a huge gathering.  Some insist on turkey and plum pudding, some go all crazy by never having the same menu twice.  Some count Christmas's success by how many gifts are under the tree while others spend the day serving others at a soup kitchen.

This might sound like I'm going to get up on my soap box and give a morality lecture about the meaning of Christmas, but no, I'm just saying everyone does it differently.

I've been thinking about this tradition thing quite a bit as we approach the Christmas season this year because there are so many things that will be different in 2017 for us.  This is not the result of any momentous decision to purposely alter how we observe the holiday, it's just a myriad of small things that all seem to be happening the same year.

Like, for instance, I already have my outside Christmas tree decked out in lights.  I didn't plug it in until after Remembrance Day but it's been up and ready since October 25th.  That's right, the Procrastinator-in-Chief is way ahead of the game, not because of any grand scheme, but because it was a beautiful day and I was looking for something to do outside.  It looks magnificent in the hoar frost.

The inside tree will be breaking with tradition, as well, and given my plans for it I could probably go ahead and decorate it right away too.  For a normal Christmas we usually buy a natural tree (bent, crooked, or lop-sided if it's me that picks it out - another tradition) and I decorate it mid December because if I do it sooner it will be needle-less by the big day.  A running sub-plot to the tree decorating performance is that the peanut gallery always wonders why I haul a tree-sized house plant out of the living room to fit another tree in.  2017 is the year I take his advice and I will be decorating the umbrella plant - and with the money I save we will travel to Australia!  Well not quite, but they are related.  I'm keeping Christmas super simple this year because we will be in Australia by New Years Eve.

Another tradition being phased out is the family gift exchange.  We've done it forever - drawn names amongst three generations of family - more to keep us connected across the miles as the family grows than anything else.  This year, after much discussion, it was decided to let it go.  On the one hand relief - it means less gift buying to do.  On the other hand regret - sad to see it go.

In another twist of Fate, the hostess of the big feast this year is of the next generation.  Again with the two hands ... on the one hand, yay, this is a good thing to pass the torch.  On the other hand ... this means Christmas dinner is more than an hour away!  Up until now it was the young folks who had that drive to come to our house.  Talk about a double edged sword!  It's not like we can put some kind of distance caveat on who gets to cook the turkey, and the only daughter-in-law who would qualify might get mighty sick of the honour.

And because of where Christmas Eve supper is happening this year we will be doing a Christmas sleepover at the grandkid's house instead of the other way around.  The menu for the 25th also is likely to be not-a-turkey.  After all, why stop the "outside the box" thinking?  We are on a roll here.

Well, okay, some things show no sign of changing: I am only barely started with my gift shopping and can only think of more ideas for the people who I've already bought for - that's very normal.  And so is the desire to get on with the holiday baking ... so that we can eat it all ... so I can make some more ... so I can eat some more.  It's very traditional for me to struggle with this every year.

All this thinking about breaking with tradition has side-stepped into considering if this will have some effect on our future too.  I know, it's kind of superstitious, but what if keeping our rituals has an impact on what happens in our future?  Our usual tradition is to watch the fireworks over the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia on our TV; this time we will be there.  In person. 

It makes me wonder, what does 2018 hold for us?

THAT Kind of Day

You know that the day ahead might be a bit challenging when first thing in the morning you can't figure out what's wrong with your hair until it occurs to you that maybe you forgot to rinse the conditioner out.  On the one hand the problem is easy to fix; on the other hand you can't help but wonder if you should go check what your horoscope says.  Maybe it would be a good idea to just crawl back into bed for the day.

There are two ways to look at it.  My sister and I have discussed the random brain farts we have experienced, and how at our age the possibility of dementia lurks at the edges of our consciousness.  Believe me, finding the milk in the cupboard and the salt shaker in the fridge is something you want to blame on an occasional bad day, not a developing pattern.

That morning it was back to the drawing board - rinse the slimy-ness out of my hair, dry it, and carry on with my day.  Although I wasn't too sure what I wanted to tackle: I had a couple jobs lined up but if my powers of concentration were such that I couldn't organize a shower, maybe I should keep it simple for the next 24 hours.

With my 'that kind of day' experience fresh in my mind I happened to be talking to a young mother later in the week.  If there was such a thing as a Bad Day Contest, she took the gold medal, especially if there was a sub category of 'The Grossest Day Ever'.

Her day had begun with a baby with a head cold.  You know what that means - an over abundance of colourful mucus, an aversion to Kleenex, little baby hands that rub gross yuckiness into their hair and all over their clothes, and great bubbly sneezes that make a person gag a little when they have to wipe up the mess.  That was yuck number one.

Which seemed kind of like a merry stroll in the park when confronted by yuck number two.

The dog barfed.  In the living room.  The only room in the house that has carpet.  Put the snotty baby down, toss the dog outside, and go to clean up the warm, gooey, smelly mess. 

Oh, wait!  Look at this!  Why is the  dog barfing?  Could it be a case of worms?  Gross!  Gross!  Gross!  Do not add to the puke.  Do not add to the puke.  Call husband to get dewormer before he comes home from work.

And not just for the dog.  Need to be proactive about a thing like this.  Yuck.  Yuck.  Yuck

After completing an intensive sterilization ritual on the carpet and putting the baby down for a nap she decided to tidy up in the kitchen.  In sorting through the fruit bowl she found an over ripe banana, not enough for banana bread so she went to throw it away only to discover it was REALLY over ripe and had liquefied in the bottom of the bowl.  If she hadn't just had to deal with the mess in the living room this would have been a minor thing. 

But, she had just dealt with hideous dog vomit; the slimy banana just about did her in.

At this point she probably would have run away from home but her vehicle was in the shop being fixed.

The Fates weren't through with her yet, though.  Toward the end of the afternoon she got an email from the playschool teacher reporting that a case of head lice had been discovered in the student population.  Of course!  This was only natural.  The perfect ending to her perfect day. 

Well, not quite.  Right after the dog got her worm pills she also got a flea bath.  You want proactive?  She'd show you proactive!

It left me wondering what her horoscope had said that morning.

As for myself and my day that started out wonky - I decided to tackle doing books in preparation for income tax.  I know a lot could have gone wrong with that picture but it didn't - I'm all caught up, it's a great feeling.  I also have very soft, shiny hair.

The other job I had on my slate for that day was to reinstall a duvet inside a freshly washed duvet cover.  I didn't push my luck that far.

                                        Angels: The Good, The Bad, and The Furry


He's at it again.  Darned dog!  He's laying there at my feet with his best beyond-pathetic expression on his face, his way of lobbying me for a walk.  It gets harder every day.

Back in the good old days - like from April through September - it wasn't nearly so difficult to motivate his human for a mile or two down the road.  It is no longer the good old days; it's c-c-c-old out there, the refreshing breezes of summer have taken on all the things I don't like in moving air - speed, cold, and the ability to cut through to the marrow of my bones.  It takes a lot of motivating to even get me outside these days.

But he is of Eskimo origins, he has Husky heritage, he has a three layer fur coat ... he rejects all my excuses and procrastinations as flimsy.  We both need the exercise, he says, we both need the fresh air.

He won yesterday.  I completely ran out of reasons why I couldn't go, and I was lulled into some kind of false sense of security because the view out my front window was one of sunshine; it was actually even what I would call warm on our south-facing deck.  I put on my shoes (which is like entering into a rock-solid contract with a dog who knows what that means) and went looking for an end-of-October type of coat.  Before I left the house I hunted down a toque, just in case.  This may well be the reason I didn't freeze solid.

There is a predictable pattern to our adventures.  It begins with me setting foot outdoors; Turbo jumps to attention. 

Does his human have her purse?  Is she headed for the car?  NO! 

Oh wait, is she carrying any of those nasty, boring gardening tools?  NO! 

She's coming down the steps!  She's heading down the driveway!  OMG!  OMG!  OMG!  We're going for a walk! 

By the time I have walked the 100 meters to the road he has covered 400 meters, back and forth, around in circles; such is his joy.  It's not his sadness when I don't go that guilts me into these winter walks, it's this crazy happiness that gets to me.  I wonder if he knows this?

Regardless of his joy yesterday, the minute I stepped out into the open I regretted my decision - my sunny, peaceful yard had deceived me; it was c-c-c-old out there!  I couldn't face disappointing the dog, though; like I said some kind of unspoken commitment had been made by putting on my runners.  The next step was to choose my route.

It's always the best idea to start out against the wind, that way the trip home is with the wind at my back, kind of like a reward.  I turned north and leaned into that nasty wind.

A normal walk for us is one mile out, and then back.  On nice days I up the distance.  Yesterday my aspirations immediately began to contract in the cold.  The whiny bad angel sitting on my left shoulder demanded we go home, the good one on my right shoulder coaxed me on ... "At least make the half mile before you turn around." she pleaded.  "Think of poor Turbo!"

I risked freezing my eyeballs to look for the dog - sure enough, there he was way out in a field, no doubt sniffing coyote poop - he's got to stay on top of who encroaches on his territory.  "Why does he even need us?" my lazy angel asked.  "He won't even notice if we go home."  We all knew that was a lie.  I kept going.

They say hypothermia causes a person to make poor choices.  Maybe that's why I got all stubborn at the half mile (the compromise distance the good angel and I had come to) and kept on going.  It was like the Little Engine Who Could - I just kept putting one frozen foot in front of the other so that I could do my Rocky victory dance at the corner of SW21-8-31-W1st.  Both angels rejoiced with me - one because we had made it and one because we could go home now. 

The thing about walking as an exercise is that there is no quitting halfway through.  Once you've walked a mile away from home, you have no choice but to walk back.  Even with the wind at my back yesterday that mile was a long one.  I could have used mitts.  I needed a Kleenex for my runny nose.  I wanted to get home so I could sit in my car and turn the butt warmer on. 

The whole adventure only took 48 minutes.  The dog laid off his guilt tripping for the rest of the day.  I proudly logged another two miles.  My good angel gave me a pat on the back, but in a fit of spite my bad angel encouraged me to go stand on my bathroom scales.  She's a mean one, that one.

Turbo doesn't know it but that contraption in the bathroom is his best ally.  At this time of the year I need all the incentive I can find.

Skipping Seasons

All the people in the world not lucky enough to be from Canada look at us from afar and think cold, snow, and perpetual winter.  Those of us who actually live here know the truth - that we have four distinct seasons, and there are many times when we can experience them all on the same day.

"We're made of tough stuff." I said to myself as I hung sheets and towels out on the line on the weekend.  The grass I was standing on was still summer green and there were two valiant dandelions blooming still by the edge of the garden.  The day before I had almost succumbed to the temptation to get the lawnmower out, just one last time, and that morning I had decided it looked nice enough to hand laundry on the line.  I had been a great plan when the sun was shining but by the time I got outside clouds had rolled in.  It was cold.  And I couldn't be entirely sure that I hadn't felt the odd snowflake land on my face.  Two days before had been shirt sleeve weather.  Two days later it was again.  That, my foreign friends, is the real Canada.

It makes us a 'seize-the-day' kind of people.  If the weather app on our phones points to a limited space of fair conditions the smart among us jump right on that window of opportunity to get stuff done.  There's nothing like the threat of an approaching rain storm to force an unwilling body into a day's worth of weeding garden.  I'm one of those people who always does better with a deadline. 

And the older I get, the smarter I seem to become.  I am especially pleased with myself today; I am a full two months ahead of myself.

The Weather Network began the week sounding the alarm about wind, cold and a possible snow storm for Thursday.  It's late October - nothing out of the ordinary there.  Hallowe'en trick or treaters can enjoy wandering the streets in light jackets one year and need full snowsuit gear the next.  But, it wasn't Hallowe'en that was worrying me; the threatening storm might be only a few days away, but I was thinking Christmas.  I was thinking spring. 

I had been to the city on Monday and was the proud new owner of seventy more tulip and daffodil bulbs, and one more string of outdoor lights for the big Christmas tree I decorate in the yard every year.  If winter was arriving on Thursday I had me a deadline. 

It was absolutely necessary to get the bulbs in the ground, this might be my last chance.  And, I know from experience that it's way less dangerous to be climbing ladders with no slippery ice and snow to contend with. 

It's pretty late in the year to be planting anything - even fall bulbs.  As I planted them I wondered how they would do.  That's the thing about planting anything though, a person does it on faith.  Will they grow?  Will they bloom?  A gardener puts these bits of Mother Nature's magic in the ground and then has to wait a half year for the reward.  We do it all on faith, I guess.  Faith that the flowers will bloom; faith that we will be there to see them when they do.

That done, I put my digging tools away, had a bowl of soup for dinner, and tackled the next job.  For this a series of small miracles had to happen.  I had to remember where I put the other three strings of lights - miracle #1.  Also, the good ladder had to be located - miracle #2. 

And, we have a long extend-a-pole thingy that is instrumental in reaching the top of this tree.  I looked for it where I thought it was - no luck.  I looked for it where I thought someone else might have put it - no luck again.  My expectations were very low when I sent this someone a text asking if he knew where this instrumental tool was - 1) he doesn't usually know these kinds of things, and 2) he is notoriously bad at answering texts when he is at work.  But the gods were with me: he knew and he did - miracles #3 and #4!

So, here it is - October 25th, a full two months before Christmas, and I have my lights up!  In true Canadian fashion I have done a fall cleanup of my flower beds, decorated a Christmas tree, and planted spring flowers all within a few days.  The grass is still green, the water is still liquid, and like I said ... those dandelions are still blooming.

Maybe that's the best way to describe Canadians: we're as tough as dandelions. 

Downwind

I've always joked that 'Saskatchewan' was probably the Cree word for 'hang onto your hat!' 

This reputation we have for being nothing but flat is misleading as heck - our Cypress Hills, the Qu'Appelle Valley, the Big Muddy Badlands, the Great Sandhills, the North Saskatchewan River, the Moose Mountains, and the forests, lakes and rivers of the top half of the province provide a frame for the tabletop smooth Regina Plains, but if a person never ventures out of that city or off the #1 Highway they are never going to see our hidden treasures.

We are a good-natured people though, we laugh along with the flat jokes and the gap jokes.  We wear bunny-hugs and serve jellied salads.  We shake our heads at our neighbouring provinces, always tinkering with their clocks to 'save' daylight.  We sport T-shirts with the slogan "Saskatchewan: easy to draw, hard to spell".  Our devotion to our football team, whether we are actually sports fans or not, is legendary.

We are also a sturdy people.  We have to be, or the wind would blow us over.

I have read somewhere the reasons behind this - something about being in the middle of a huge land mass and the way the Jet Stream directs weather systems - but the bottom line is whether it is a light zephyr, a stiff breeze, or a gale force plow wind, our air is almost always on the move.  A day when there isn't any wind is spooky for a Saskatchewanite; we tend to call this anomaly 'the calm before the storm'.  It's a pretty safe bet that the wind will pick up again, and everything will be back to normal.

As used to the wind as we are, though, every once in a while there is a hum-dinger.  Like Tuesday and Wednesday this week: that was a hum-dinger.

There were all the normal warnings from The Weather Network: put the outdoor furniture away, anchor the trampoline - maybe to a tractor or something, batten down the hatches, and make sure the house insurance is all paid up. 

Monday the wind started to pick up, but it wasn't too bad.  The dog still managed to guilt me into a walk.  The main problem that day was that the seed heads on the cat tails had burst open and the air was full of their fluff - it was in my eyes, ears and hair.  I didn't dare open my mouth against the wind on the way home.  After four days of this the west side of our evergreens look like they are coated in wool and there are shallow 'snow' drifts of fluff across the lawn.

Tuesday afternoon I talked to my sister in Calgary, their day had been very windy.  We weren't supposed to get the worst of it until midnight.

Later that evening we came to understand just how bad it was.  Time and time again the Emergency Alert System broke into the TV show I was watching to announce evacuation of one town after another in Alberta and on into the western side of our province.  Power lines were toppling in the gale, sparking fires that took off at 100 kms per hour - farms, yards, towns, cattle - all in grave danger.  My generation grew up hearing stories about the wild prairie fires of the past, but farming and cultivation have relegated these things to history - or so we had thought.  We went to bed that night, safe where we were, but in awe of the danger presented when fire marries wind.

The aftermath isn't on the scale of the fires taking thousands of homes and dozens of lives in California but any loss is felt on an individual level by the people mourning who or what they have lost - numbers don't matter at a time like this.

We are sturdy.  We are resilient.  We are resourceful.

One thing you do see from #1 Highway, off to the south around Gull Lake, is mile after mile of wind turbines along the hill tops (yes, you heard me right - hill tops).  This is the people of Saskatchewan virtually harvesting power from thin air; harnessing a simple fact of life in this province and transforming it into a valuable asset. 

And to quote another long-standing prairie joke, we need never worry about running out of wind ... because Manitoba sucks and Alberta blows - it always going to be windy in Saskatchewan!

It Takes a Village ...

On the global scale of things, with human population measured in billions and cities claiming head counts of multiple millions, our little prairie community with it's population of approximately 1,000 people just barely tips us into the designation of town status.  Any smaller and we would be a village.  Smaller yet is called a hamlet, and believe it or not the Saskatchewan government has come up with 'Designated Service Area' to describe what is all too common in our landscape - places so low in population that in order to continue managing basic services like water treatment and road maintenance are being absorbed into the Rural Municipality in which they are situated. 

There are most certainly some larger family farms with a higher people count than what appears on a map as a bona fide town.  I doubt that anyone from New York or Hong Kong or Rio de Janeiro could even comprehend the space and isolation we enjoy, but that's okay - I have no desire to experience their lifestyle either.

The thing about humans, though, is that the concept of community is not measured in numbers.  It does not matter how many bodies you have to do the work as long as everyone is focussed on the same goal. Whether we live in a huge metropolis or a little town, we all strive to strengthen what we have and build towards an ever more prosperous future.  We see a need like a hospital and recognise that we have a role to play in its success.  A city has to plan for maybe 800 beds, a town only 12, but neither will come to fruition unless these communities step up to the plate.

Large cities have Philharmonic Orchestras - towns have school bands.  Cities build huge stadiums for their big franchise teams - we support our hometown teams in our little arenas.  They have their large theatre companies - we have the local drama club.  The desire to have things like play parks for our kids, safe streets, and healthy Chambers of Commerce is the same throughout human populations, and we all work toward these goals.  I can't help feeling though, that the per capita involvement in little towns is way higher.  We don't have the luxury of many many hands.  Instead we tend to wear many many hats.

Autumn (once the growing season in our farming community is behind us) is our busiest social season.  Between now and Christmas there will be three big fund raising events: one in support of our Health Foundation, one sponsored by the local branch of the Wildlife Federation - a major contributor to local endeavors, and one put on by the local Arts Board.  Each event will offer food, entertainment and prizes donated by local businesses either raffled or auctioned off throughout the evening; all proceeds going back into community projects to improve life for all of us.

Although it's not within my usual comfort zone I find myself helping out the local drama club for the Health Foundation evening.  Last night was dress rehearsal and as our group worked to pull together our black light theatre production the foundation group were wrapping up what had to have been a full day of setting tables, decorating, and placing and labeling prizes. 

The thing that struck me was how many of these people would also be at the core of the other two fundraisers - so many of us are interchangeable that way.  The hockey players are also in drama, the Lion's Club members running the bar also have kids in 4H, the executive of the Foundation donated one of the trailers that make up the stage.  The guy running the sound system is also in the theatre production and will be helping to serve supper.  If you drew a line connecting everyone contributing to the evening the resulting diagram would look like a spider's web.  Or a better description would be a safety net: we are all our own safety net.

It could just be my plain old civic pride but being a part of this makes me appreciate our just-barely-a-town status all the more, and I'm reminded of something I've been observing for years - the smaller the town, the bigger the heart.

Don't Look Ethel!

Not too long ago, listening to my usual Golden Oldies station in the car, I heard Ray Stevens' silly song, The Streak.  For those of you not old enough (or those of you who are old enough but have blotted it out of your memory) this song's verses were a series of Action News reports at various venues where a streaker had just been seen.  Each time the same man is interviewed and he recounts where the streaker came from and what he did, always ending it off with how he tried to protect his wife, Ethel, from the trauma of seeing the spectacle by yelling "Don't look Ethel!"  She always looked anyway.

At the end of the song she is even drawn into the action and joins the streaker in his crazy game.  It was one of Ray Stevens' best - he was great at telling silly stories.

Life seems to be very busy for us these days.  We are at retirement age but all that means is that we work at what we want to, not what we have to.  I no longer go to town to earn a paycheck but my yard and garden are a fulltime summertime job.  My husband is employed in oilfield construction but work is slow so he is working for a neighbour during seeding and harvest.  His year has been busy with re-roofing and siding his workshop and other improvement projects around the place.  My extra time is tied into volunteer work with our local tourism board and helping out with grandchildren.  Let's just say that, as to yet, there hasn't been any time to sit on the front porch in our rocking chairs. 

This past while it has been even busier with canning and freezing and now this week, cleaning up the flower beds and putting planters away.  There is a hospital fund raiser coming up that has taken extra planning.  I am in the midst of finalizing our plans to visit Australia this winter, and that ties into planning Christmas before we go, and that leads to thinking about Christmas gifts.  And it's not even Hallowe'en yet ... and come to think of it, we need to pick those pumpkins before they freeze ....

At least I don't have to worry about hosting the Thanksgiving feast this year - my daughter is throwing the party instead.  They have just moved into a new house and have knocked themselves out to be ready for company in time for Thanksgiving.  I can hear the excitement in her voice every time I talk to her; it's her first time to host the family.  She is thrilled.

And I am thrilled for her.  There's only one small problem: she lives an eight hour drive away.

And that isn't such a bad drive for us old people, but her sister, brother-in-law and their three small children are also going - the little guys may not like the drive so much.

And plans have had to be modified further - Grandpa is staying home to combine because it will finally be dry enough to go by then, and Daddy has to take his own vehicle because he is scheduled at a seminar right after the weekend and will not be traveling the same direction as us.  On the one hand grandpa's staying home solved the "What are we going to do with the dogs?" problem.  On the other hand we had to get their dog to our place so he could keep them both.  Who knew having someone else cook the turkey would involve so much planning?

As of this moment we have exactly 24 hours until we pick the student up from school and head west.  There is still packing to do.  I have been making re-heatable meals for the farmer but the fridge needs some rearranging to get it all in.  I have hotel reservations made - a pool is being offered as incentive to tolerate long periods of car seat imprisonment.  We are bringing as many activities we can think of to keep the short people happy.  They have never travelled this far before; we don`t know what to expect.

Because of all of this happening, a full night`s sleep has been pretty elusive this past while.  Sometimes I can`t get to sleep, but more often than not I fall asleep at bedtime only to awaken at something like 3:34 and spend the rest of the night planning what we still need to do because my brain won`t shut off again. 

It`s not like I haven`t played the insomnia game before; it`s both frustrating and infuriating to lay there in the dark knowing how exhausted you`re going to be in the morning.  I also know that if I can somehow keep my mind blank of lists, if I can derail the train of worries, if I can keep from scrolling down to that imaginary next screen ... my chances of getting back to sleep are so much higher.  Once my mind picks up that fateful thread of thoughts though, I'm done for.

So, for those of you who know Ray Stevens`song, you will understand how in the middle of the night last night I muttered the words "Don`t look Ethel!" under my breath.

But it was too late.  I'd already been incensed.