Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!

Dare I say it? The sun is shining!! Okay, forgive me for being a bit excitable over such a simple thing, but this old girl grew up in the sunny southwest, where clouds were a novelty.

Much to rejoice about at the moment. I am not in pain, well, not much pain. I seem to always have some nagging muscles, cranky bones, etc. but the migraine that pounded away at my head for the last week was gone when I got up yesterday morning, and I got to do something really fun.

A very nice woman came in with a cartload of supplies to show "us girls" how to make our own greeting cards. Since I am a sort of unfocused but enthusiastic crafter I had been looking forward to this day since we planned it.

And it was fun. She had a huge stock of all kinds of papers, new and recycled, scissors that cut fancy edges and corners, all kinds of lettering, from foam ones that stuck on to stamps with different messages. Glitter pens, coloured chalks, ribbons, flowers, buttons, photos, shapes and fabric trims. She had a stack of stuff and we had a ball making our cards.

My neighbour Helen made cards for her little granddaughters who have the unusual names of Fenya and Glorianna and can never find the "My Name" doo-dads and sparkly things little girls love. Helen was so much fun to watch as she made her cards. I enjoyed her delight as much as my own. She made some really pretty cards too.

We started at 10:00 and went until 2:00 so we had a pot-luck lunch. I'll tell you, these gals do know how to cook! My next-door neighbour Ruth brought a scrumptious apple crumble. It would have been ill-mannered to run off with it, hide under a table and eat the whole thing by myself, so I restrained myself, but only with difficulty.

Well, the sun is inviting me outside, so I will wake the sleeping cat and take him for a walk.

The Speed of Green

Yesterday we received the first copy of a year's subscription to ReadyMade Magazine, a gift from Zak and Mandy. They obviously know us well. :)

James or Cathy kindly deliver mail too large to fit into our post box. When James brought ReadyMade to the door yesterday he admitted lingering on the way to make a quick assessment of its articles and was as excited as we were by its contents. Guess we'll have to share our copy with them once we've scoured every word several times.

The entire premise of this neat little magazine is reuse, recycle, and green it up. With the continuing media coverage (at last!) over climate change, and some kind of "green project" being discussed everywhere you turn I got to thinking about the evolution of the green movement itself.

I was in high school when I read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Carson could be called the Mother of the green movement, because she was the first to recognize and publicize the harmful effects of DDT, which was used everywhere without the slightest caution by the 1940s. Tony's family lived in North Africa when he was a small boy. His mother said she (and all her European friends) regularly dusted DDT into their bedding, clothing, drawers, kitchen drawers, along every baseboard. About the only place they didn't deliberately add it was to their food.

When I read Silent Spring I felt despair, deep deep despair. I spent a goodly part of my childhood as free as a colt, poking along stream beds, lying flat on my belly peering into pools, wading through meadows chest deep in grass, curled up in or under a tree, laying against sun-warmed rocks. I felt a part of all I explored, as much as a creature of nature as the leaves, fish and animals. I couldn't bear the idea that we were doing them harm.

Reading The Silent Spring made me green, but I didn't realize it at the time. I was never a hippie. While the hippies danced on the streets of San Francisco, shared their joints (and their bacteria) I married, worked, and had a little baby boy who was (and remains) one of the lights of my life. I remember a particular moment. Ian was perhaps six or seven months old. He was damp and sweet from the bath and when I toweled him off and picked him up he threw his little arm around my neck and laid his head on my shoulder and just relaxed totally into my arms. I thought that if I lived 100 years I'd never ever experience again the intensity of happiness I felt at that moment. I have of course, overall I have had a very happy life, but such moments of pure unallied joy don't come often.

My generation has largely sold out. Many feel they can acquire their way to happiness and contentment and have gone about trying to do so. I can tell them that it isn't true, and unbridled acquisition carries a huge price tag. When someone says, "I gave the earth for XXXX", it's often more true than they realize.

It's taken 40+ years for the message of The Silent Spring to finally filter into the consciousness of perhaps half the population. But the green consciousness finally has powerful allies. The greening of the First World has begun despite the resistance of politicians like George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, both under the thumb of oil and gas interests. Both say we can't meet Kyoto targets, while the City government of Toronto, Canada's largest city, has already met and far exceeded the Kyoto target by reducing their greenhouse emissions well below the 1990 levels.

Within a generation Green will be the only acceptable way to be. Perhaps we will rethink our mass consumerism and materialistic standards and realize that we do not own the earth, we are only a part of the symbiotic relationship all creatures have worked out together over millions of years. Moments of pure joy, for all creatures, can continue.

Dripping and Ripping

You know how it is. You iz too tired to even wiggle (which I am) and disaster overtakes everything. Let me back up.

Ian and Julie arrived Sunday evening. We were really looking forward to spending time together, and we did have fun. We ate like piggies, we shopped, we laughed ourselves breathless. We took some pictures....

We'd asked Ian to buy us a dehumidifier in Calgary, since we couldn't find one here, and we were sorely in need of a good dry-out. So they brought a dehumidifier which has turned out to be a godsend in more ways than one.

We set it up and turned it on about 10:30 Monday night and it pulled about 15 pints of water from the air by Tuesday evening. The perpetual film of water on the inside of our windows has disappeared, and I no longer have to towel out the window tracks two or three times a day to keep the water in them from overflowing, or worse, leaking into the wall beneath.

We'd had a couple of busy days before Ian and Julie arrived, shopping, and running a list of errands one day and doing half a dozen loads of laundry the next. The two days they were here were busy as well, so by the time they left Tuesday morning I was very much in need of a rest.

Unfortunately I got up yesterday morning to a flood in the kitchen. Tony went into our wee bathroom to have his shower and left the water running in the kitchen sink. I think I mentioned before that our fourth pressure regulator had failed within a couple of days of installation. That meant until we replaced it we had to leave a faucet dripping to keep the pressure from building up in the pipes.

So, that's what happened this time. Tony left a drip in the kitchen sink so he could turn off the water in the bathroom between applying soap and rinsing, and the stream appears to have deflected along a spoon in a bowl and instead of going into the sink, went onto the counter, onto the carpet, into the cupboards...

We had to unload the cupboards, throw away some very soaked paper products, mop up the water, dry the counter, and soak up as much of the water from the carpet as a monster bath towel would hold. Thank heavens for the dehumidifier! It's busy pulling water from the carpet, as well as the air. I shudder to think how long it would have taken to dry otherwise. Maybe by Mid-Molduary.

After all that I had to go to town for a doctor's appt., grocery shop (why do we eat so much?) and do some other errands. I came back thoroughly pooped.

Ian and Julie had their own kind of disaster in the form of a prolonged trip home. Roger's Pass was closed due to avalanches, so they had to turn around and go back to Revelstoke to spend the night. The road was still treacherous the next morning, and about 30 miles short of Calgary a traffic accident closed the highway so they had to backtrack and take the old two-lane highway into the city. What should have taken 10 hours turned into a 36 hour ordeal.

The Tinpalace is officially a shambles. Tony spilled bird seed on the floor while filling the container yesterday, I haven't washed dishes since yesterday's breakfast, and computer bits are strung everywhere. Ian also brought Tony's big old desk Mac. Since Tony nearly killed my laptop I have beaten him with a hot poker every time he even looked like he wanted to use the Baby Mac. We left his old Mac behind because it takes up so much room, but I decided it was no sacrifice not to be able to use the table if it makes him happy and keeps his hands off my laptop. Baby Mac is no longer new, and was the smallest, cheapest model they made when I bought it, but I keep my research on it and the thought of losing even a day of that gives me the willies.

Though I can hardly wiggle I looked at the drooping paper on the back ceiling this morning and something snapped. I got up on the bunks and ripped all that paper down. I'll paint the ceiling this summer. I don't know where I got the energy, and for the rest of the day I will probably only get up from my bunk to eat and well.... go to the one room in the Tinpalace that has a door. But that's okay. I accomplished something, even if it wasn't what needed doing worst.

Still (Watching) Dancing After All These Years

It is 12.9 C (55 F) degrees and sunny outside!!! Wooooohoooo!!!

Yesterday in about three degrees and with heavily overcast skies I went big grocery shopping, to the pharm, and the PO, so today I weakly. I will overcome and take the cat outside for a good walk! Just gimme a minute.

I've been sitting here watching the local Oliver channel (18), which was running their broadcast of the weekly Oliver Senior's Centre Dance. Last week over 200 seniors attended. Some of them dance like me, stumble, plod - plod - plod, in no particular rhythm, but many of them dance beautifully, with lots of energy, bounce, fancy footwork and precision. The idea is to have a good time, socialize and it looks like dern good exercise too.

The band may not be world-class, and the songs they play may have somewhat indeterminate and wandering melodies, but they have a good beat and you can obviously dance to them! I enjoy watching them all enjoy themselves so much.

But it suddenly struck me funny that, here I sit at 61, watching folks mostly a few years older than myself, dance on television. Fifty or so years ago I was doing the same thing, hurrying home every day after school to watch Dick Clark's American Bandstand, where kids a few years older than myself danced round and round and round...

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Tickety-Boo

It was an adventurous sort of day. Remember back, some weeks ago I landed in the ER? The doctor on call (who has become our new family doctor) was suitably horrified by my wonky EKG which often sends ER personnel into a tailspin. So, today we went off to Penticton so I could visit a cardiologist (heart specialist) and have some appropriate tests done.

The last few days have been three or four degrees above freezing, so the ice and snow we've had on the ground since November has finally almost disappeared, on the valley floor anyway. The mud is drying up and the trees and bushes are sending up tender new growth in a rainbow of colours.

Penticton is 30 miles (43 km) from Oliver, and all along the route we saw the delicate golden green of new willow fronds, rosy-coloured shoots in the orchards so thick that they looked like pink smoke, and along creek beds the cranberry glow of coral dogwood branches. Not a leaf in sight, though the grass in the occasional vineyard or field is greening up.

It was a pleasant drive, if you ignore the 18-wheeler that sat on my back bumper at 90 km an hour in the long no passing section. I was doing over the limit which was not enough for him. We finally hit a wider spot, I pulled to the shoulder and let him fly past, where he sat in front of me, going no faster than I had been, until we came to the government way station and he was forced to pull off the road to weigh his load.

We found the hospital easily. The young cardiologist was very pleasant, and I passed the BP test 110/80, aced the echocardiogram, and managed five minutes on the devil mill. I could have gone ten minutes if need be, at a moderate speed. But when they turned it to "roadrunner" my legs quickly forgot how to work my feet.

The cardiologist asked, "What do you mean you are having trouble making your legs work?"

"I can't coordinate them this quickly! They simply don't work this fast. I sort of have to think about walking anyway and I can't think this fast!"

He pushed me to keep at it 20 seconds more, which I did by hanging onto the bar and supporting part of my weight on my arms. But it was my legs and not my heart that stopped my walk.

My heart is fine, according to him. Like I said, I have a wonky EKG and when my potassium gets low my heart muscle complains that it isn't getting the blood it needs. I have no chest pain with exercise under normal conditions.

Once I was finished we found a restaurant which had been recommended and we had lunch. Then we retraced our steps, enjoying the scenery in reverse. I think my arms will be sore tomorrow but the drive wasn't hard.

The cat wasn't even upset when we got back, which he usually is when we leave him for any length of time. He probably slept the whole time.

Mud Time

The water for which we may have to look
In summer with a witching-wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

Two Tramps in Mud Time; Robert Frost

The snow lies in scattered, broken patches, holding on as if hoping that another blast of winter will come and stop its migration to mud. In between the snow patches are the puddles. At night they freeze up, but it doesn't take much warmth to dissolve the ice.

The cat walks as if he's walking on broken glass. He doesn't stay outside more than 10 minutes, even though it's not cold. He hasn't yet learned to tolerate wet paws. I stump around with great clumps of mud hanging off my shoes. You'd think gravel wouldn't make a good mud, but it has excellent adhesion and more comes in the door than I am prepared to welcome.

Mat count has reached four. A rubber-backed felty thing started out as the principal mat, laid outside the door, but soon sank beneath the responsibility. A black rubber thing was put on top of the grey felty one. The black rubber has lots of intersecting rings, to scrape the shoe soles on. Both disappeared beneath the snow for weeks.

Mat three is ugly and brown, rubber backed, lying inside the door. A drip-catcher, foot stomper mat, bought because it was small enough to fit in the entrance without folding, stapling or mutilating.

Mat four is a ridiculous thing I bought in a moment of nostalgic insanity because we had one like it when I was a small child. It's pale blue and has heavy twists of cotton cording looped into the backing. It shows every spot and while it's washable it takes an hour ($4.00 worth of quarters) to damp dry in the big commercial dryer at the laundromat. It lays beyond mat three, to catch more drips. I've given up on keeping it spot-free and will not wash the dam thing again until summer, when I can hang it on the line, or lay it on the picnic table, to dry.

Despite the sloppy conditions and general muckiness, this is the way the earth forces winter out of its den. Flood it out so spring can move in and coax every living thing awake. Mud time is a time for celebration. When mud time comes spring is never more than a short step behind.

Holy Man

Word spread across the countryside about a wise Holy Man who lived in a small house atop the mountain. A man from the village decided to make the long and difficult journey to visit him. When he arrived at the house, he saw an old servant inside. "I would like to see the Holy Man," he said to the servant.

The servant smiled and led him inside. As they walked through the house, the man from the village looked eagerly around the house, anticipating his encounter with the Holy Man. Before he knew it, he had been led to the back door and escorted outside. He stopped and turned to the servant, "But I want to see the Holy Man!"

"You already have," said the old man. "Everyone you may meet in life, even if they appear plain and insignificant, see each of them as a Holy Man. If you do this, then whatever problem you brought here today will be solved."

Sun, Sleep and Snow

I'm going to take a break from researching and writing stuff that hurts the brain. I'm going to wager, tender reader, that as long as it doesn't affect you you don't give a flying flip that metabolic acidosis is defined as a primary decrease in serum HCO3- concentration and, in its pure form, manifests as acidemia (pH <7.40) and can be caused by a shift of hydrogen ions into the intracellular space during hypokalemia. No, I didn't think so.

So, I'll talk about everything in general. It's 3:30 in the afternoon and the sun has come out for the first time in many days. The warmth spills in the windows and makes it hard to see the computer screen, so I got Tony's ball cap and put it on. I look like a real home boy now.

On the 30th we celebrated Tony's 66th birthday by having lunch at the local Indian restaurant, called appropriately enough Best of India.

Here's a picture of the birthday boy, who always seems to take a good picture, but then he is awfully cute. It was taken at the Park's Christmas dinner by Mandy and Zak's friend Racheal Ashe who came to Oliver with them for Christmas week.

She took a picture of me too, but the camera doesn't like me as much as it does my husband. I always wince when I see pictures of myself. Oh, well. You should be battle-hardened, having seen the odd photo of me before.


Now, where was I? Oh, yes, dreaming of eating chicken curry again! The Indian restaurant glows with the warm, vibrant (but not garish) colours of the Indian subcontinent, raspberry, lime, green and apricot. Gorgeous! There's a border of blue elephants which marches around the dining room. The owners are ever so nice. They are a handsome middle-aged couple who have been in Canada for 13 years. Their son has joined the RCMP and their daughter is a nurse, and like all parents everywhere they are proud as can be of their children.

We enjoyed their incredibly delicious food and the excellent conversation. We will go back. Next time I will take my camera. If you come to Oliver be sure to visit Best of India on Main Street (highway 97), across from the movie theatre.

I don't know why but I'm going through a phase where I wake up anywhere from 2:00 to 5:00 am and can't go back to sleep. Thankfully Tony sleeps as if he's been brought down with a tranquilizer dart, so I can turn on my light and read, watch a video (with the headphones in) or get the laptop, write, listen to music or surf without waking him.

I have looked up some old friends and acquaintances, read up on questions I've had for years and learned that Wikibooks has some great on-line material.

Macs have this great "thing", I don't know the name for it. You click the little icon while you are listening to music and a screen comes up which generates all kinds of colorful fractal-like images, generated by the music. It's rather like a digital kalediscope and soothingly mindless and hypnotic when you are too tired to think, write, read or surf.

Red Chief was shredding the place and being generally naughty, so I forced him outside for a walk in the early afternoon. It was not cold, but we had snow yesterday and he hates getting his paws wet. We stuck to the melted spots as much as possible, but there were places where I had to drag him across the snow. At one point he climbed a tree and growled at me when I suggested we move on.

I picked up some apricot tree trimmings, as James is pruning trees right now. This should have been done a month ago, as there is new growth and green, swelling buds on the trees, but poor James has been so busy shoveling snow I'm sure he hasn't had a minute left to trim the dozens of trees in the park. Anyway, I brought some little branches in and put them in water. They may bloom, what a treat that would be!

I am way past ready for winter to be over. Enough with the snow and freezing days! But surely it won't be long now, the Canada geese are passing overhead in great honking flocks, headed north.

In Beauty I Walk

"In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
It is finished in beauty. It is finished in beauty."
Navajo Prayer

My long-time friend Audrey sent me a beautiful tea set for Christmas, a picture of which is included to the right. The colors match my decor and it looks very nice tucked under the rack which holds our big glass coffee/tea mugs.

This gift got me started thinking about how many of the things in the Tinpalace were either gifts or were inherited from people we love.

Beginning at the front, there are framed photos of our (adult) children, our parents, and both Tony's and my grandmothers. One the table sits a tiny silver tea service. The tea pot only holds two small cupfuls of tea, so it is only useful as a decorative accent. It's dinged up, the silver is completely worn off in places and it desperately needs a good polishing so it looks a lot less loved than it actually is. It belonged to Tony's grandmother.

There's a sturdy basket Tony's mother bought when they first came to Canada in 1951. She kept it on the basement steps, filled with potatoes. It's associated with her and her kitchen, and the many meals we shared on Sunday nights.

Then there are the antique cups and saucers she gave me, one by one. Four different styles, four different color ranges, but all delicate and fit for the Queen herself, should she drop by for tea some afternoon.

There's the quilt my friend Jackie made for my birthday in January 2005, before passing away totally unexpectedly later that year. A tiny doll my friend Judy made and gave me before she passed away a year ago. A wee jointed teddy bear made by Zak a few years ago.

There's a series of three pictures of my beloved kitty Patches, which hangs at the foot of my bed, a gift from Ian.

On a shelf in the back is a a Butsudan (A Buddhist altar) which Tony made. On the altar are a prayer bowl from Zak and Mandy, a small brass bell, and a prayer cloth from my dear friend Iris.

A cloth doll my daughter-in-law made me for Christmas a few years ago and a sock monkey made for me by my sister-in-law when I was a little girl sit in a protected corner.

A silk rosebud, the favorite toy of Fred the cat, is tucked into the safety strap which keeps our 13" TV from leaping off its shelf. He loved these little silk rosebuds. He'd pull the flowers from the stems and carry them around in his mouth crooning to them until he loved them to pieces. He eventually lost interest in red rosebuds and the tattered remnants were discarded one by one. At the age of 14 he developed lymphoma and the day came when we had to take him to the vet for the last time. It was so hard to say goodbye.

The next morning I turned the corner from the hallway into our room and there he sat, sleek and healthy. He was there for only an instant before he vanished, but in his place was a silk rosebud of the kind he loved as a kitten and young cat. I cannot for the life of me say where it came from. But there it was, and I like to think it was his way of saying bye and thanks for all the tuna. Anyway, that rosebud is tucked where I can see it, a reminder of a sweet kitty.

There are shelves of books, old favorites like Wind in the Willows, The Old Man and the Boy, Lydia Bailey, I Heard the Owl Call My Name and The Shipping News jumble together with medical references and puzzle books.

Simple stuff, none of it worth more than a couple of dollars at a yard sale, but loaded with memories. When you don't have someone you love with you, next best thing is to have something they gave you, made, handled, or loved. The energy of that love fills our little space, making it the happiest 157 square foot home on earth. We walk in beauty.

So Sorry!

Terribly remiss of me but I haven't bored you to tears lately with rhapsodical expressions of delight over the birds visiting our feeder.

Let me correct my error.

In addition to the birds noted in earlier posts we have noted in the past few weeks the following visitors:

1. The purple finch. Oh but they are cute! It's hard to count, but I think we have three pairs, as there are three brilliant little males who always come together, accompanied by the plain females who look like a pale sparrow.

2. Just for fun, compare the purple finch to our other red visitor, the hoary redpoll.

3. We have pine warblers as well as the magnolia warblers I described earlier. They are wearing a duller "winter" coat now, but will become bright canary yellow as breeding season approaches.

4. We also have what looks like a little mutant house sparrow. He looks as if he has a little pile of snow on his head. At first I thought he was a white-capped sparrow, but he doesn't have the black bordered white stripe of the white-capped. The pattern of his white colouration was what tipped me off that he might have a mutation. He has a white cap, otherwise the feathers on the left side of his head are white, while on the right side they are brown.

We aren't the only ones with a mutant sparrow. I happened on this Q & A on a nature site:

Q: I have an English sparrow coming to my feeder that has an all-white cap (not at all like the white-capped sparrow). Is this a species or a mutation? This bird has all the markings of the Eng. sparrow but a white cap instead of a gray one. Help!

Bird expert George Harrison answered: The English sparrow (proper common name house sparrow) apparently has some partial albinism in the feathers on its head. This is not unusual among songbirds, including house sparrows.

And of course we're still supporting a small army of California quail, sparrows of many descriptions, the occasional starling, a downy woodpecker, the flickers, and a few chickadees. All of this bird activity just outside the door drives the cat to distraction at times, but it gives him something to think about besides being naughty.

You Get What You Pay For

Tony and the boys always say that I ought to write a book about my family. The classic Buddhist example of impermanence is to say, "In 100 years not a person living today will still be alive."

It hasn't taken that long for me. When I stop to think of it, very few of the members of my huge childhood family still survive. I only knew one grandparent, my paternal grandmother Josie Smith. She died when I was 11. My parents have been gone for almost 25 years, I've lost a brother and a sister. None of my aunts and uncles, on either side survive, and many of my cousins are also gone. What is there left besides memories? How do they live on if no one tells their stories?

My maternal grandmother Molly Hayman, died when my mother was 13. There were still several children at home, including my mom's nine-year-old brother Lonnie. Mother became a sort of surrogate mother to Lonnie, and he lived with my parents after they married.

Lonnie was only about 5' 3" fully grown, and probably never weighed more than 100 pounds. He was dark skinned, big-eared and scrawny but he was Mama's baby brother and we all loved him dearly.

My Uncle Paul drove an ice wagon back in the days before electric refrigeration, when people kept food cold in an insulated box which held a large block of ice. Paul sold 50 pound blocks of ice to the people on his route. This meant he'd have to climb down off the wagon seat, climb up into the insulated compartment of the wagon, haul out a block of ice with a set of iron tongs, lug it up the front sidewalk, up the porch steps, into the kitchen and load it into the ice box. One day he hurt his back and asked if Lonnie would come along and handle the ice, since Paul couldn't afford to lose a day's work.

Lonnie was 14 and weighed about 80 pounds himself, but agreed to help. He manfully hauled ice off the wagon and into kitchens all day. Late in the day they as they approached one house Paul said, "When you choose the ice for this one make sure to get a big piece. She has a scale on the porch and she weighs it. If it's not 50 pounds she'll make you bring it back to the wagon and get a bigger piece."

So Lonnie looked over the remaining blocks and chose what looked to be a big block. He lugged it up to the porch, where his customer stood with crossed arms and a sour expression.

"Weigh it," she said. "I pay for 50 pounds of ice and I'm gonna get 50 pounds of ice!"

Well, the block weighed 48 pounds. She was adamant that it be returned to the wagon and a larger piece brought. Poor Lonnie, with sore arms and back and shaking legs, lugged the 48 pound block back to the wagon and searched until he found a larger piece. He lugged it back to the porch and scale. It weighed 49 pounds.

"Oh, please lady," he begged. "It's only a pound, don't make me carry it back for a pound of ice."

"I gotta pay for 50 pounds of ice, and by gum, I'm gonna get 50 pounds of ice," she said, immovable as the polar ice cap herself.

So back he went, and searched until he was certain he had the largest block in the wagon. He hauled it to the porch and dropped it on the scale, where it tipped over at 54 pounds.

"Well, that's more like it!" The woman said, with a smug grin.

But she had not reckoned on Lonnie's sense of justice. He whipped an ice pick from his belt and, with a close eye on the scale, began chunking at the block of ice, making shards fly off in all directions.

"Here! Here!" the woman cried, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Lady," Lonnie said, drawing himself up to his full and inconsiderable height, "You paying for 50 pounds of ice and by god, 50 pounds is all you are gonna get!"

A Danish Haiku

Much screaming and little
wool, said the woman,
shearing her sow.

Has something ever struck you as so funny that you laughed yourself breathless? This little poem, dubbed A Danish Haiku did that for me today. I know for a fact that at many points in my life, I have diligently sheared the sow, and cursed the fact that her "wool" was more suitable for making a scrub brush than a warm sweater.

It seems to be a human trait. Lots of us, metaphorically, shear the sow when we actually need and want sheep's wool. We consistently use totally inappropriate methods and/or actions - hoping against hope that the act of doing something/anything will work magic and gain our objective. It's as if we were saying, "Hey Universe! Look how hard I'm working and reward my efforts!"

Or we shear the sow because while we say/think we want wool, we really don't, because having wool in the hand means we would have to embark on the long-planned project, which leaves us open to the possibility of failure. Best to look diligent, shear the sow and curse fate that sow's wool is an unsuitable material for spinning our fine dreams.

We sabotage ourselves. We fool ourselves into thinking we're on the road to success, while we wrestle the screaming sow, and with pounding hearts and sweat pouring into our eyes, shear her bristles off. The longer you struggle with the sow the larger and stronger she grows, and the more irritated she gets.

I had this strange phobia when I was in my early 20s. I hated washing dishes. I'd put off washing dishes for three or four days, till every dish in the house was dirty and the counter was loaded. The longer I put it off the bigger the knot in my belly grew, just thinking about it. It kept me anxious and unhappy all the time. Finally some wise person said, "Don't tackle them all at once. Just fill the sinks with water and do only the glasses. Then quit. Later you can do the cutlery. Then quit. Later do just the cups and saucers. Don't do all of the dishes at once, it's too much. Just do one thing. You can do just the one thing."

So I filled the sinks and did just the glasses. But it only took three or four minutes so I went ahead and did the cutlery. But even then I'd only spent six or eight minutes so I did the cups and saucers. Well, you guessed it. Within a half hour all the dishes were done and I felt 100 times better. I learned that I could accomplish a great deal by not allowing myself to become overwhelmed by the scope of the job. I learned that it's better to do the job than worry about doing it. It takes lots less energy.

It's easy to shear a sheep. You get the wool you needed in the first place. It even makes the sheep more comfortable. Everybody wins. The easiest way to get something done is just to do it, not to agonize over it, analyze it, work up to it, or procrastinate over it. Just dive in and get it done. You come up with a double fistful of wool every time.

Wake up!

Pema Chodron says, "Our life's work is to use what we have been given to wake up. ...It doesn't matter what you're given, whether it's physical deformity or enormous wealth or poverty, beauty or ugliness, mental stability, life in a madhouse or life in the middle of a peaceful, silent desert.

Whatever you're given can wake you up or put you to sleep. ...The only way to do this is to be open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. It's going to stick around until you learn your lesson, at any rate...the same old demons will always come up until you learn the lesson, the lesson they came to teach you."

I had to go over to the hospital this week, to get an x-ray, a blood draw and to pick up some records to take to my new doctor. It was an interesting experience. I woke up in the middle of it.

First of all, it never occurred to me that you might need to book an appointment for a blood draw or chest x-ray. And I never thought that the lab would close at 2:00, as it is in the hospital, and there's a lab tech there 24 hours a day. So I arrived at the hospital at 1:50. By the time I stood in line and reached the registration window it was 2:00. Since I've dealt with the woman who registers patients before I wasn't surprised to find that she was busy shopping by phone and she made me wait while she finished placing her order.

She asked if I'd made appointments, which of course I hadn't, but she said, if I was lucky they might do the tests. But the cut-off time was 2:00 and by then it was 2:10.

In the lab the tech simply stuck her head out of the door and said, "I'll be with you in a minute!", but in the x-ray lab, which you could have fired a cannon through without scratching a living soul, the two technicians acted as if I'd asked for a kidney from each of them. After some discussion they decided they could "work me in", but only with rolling eyes and martyred looks.

The attitude at both the front desk and in the x-ray department said, "I'm in charge here, you are at my mercy. You'd better acknowledge my power if you want help."

In the past this kind of attitude made me see red. I'd have raged for days about it. But for the first time I finally saw this arrogance for what it is, a cry for validation, a desperate plea for recognition. "I feel like no one notices what I do!" it says, "please - tell me my work is important!" I thanked all four and told them how much I appreciated their kindness and help. All of them responded with warmth.

If no one tells a person that their work is valuable, that they do matter, they may resort to subterfuge, i.e. employing subtle, or not-so-subtle, power games to get the validation they need. Those who serve in the health care field need to be told frequently that their work matters, that it is especially appreciated when they show compassion and loving-kindness to patients and families. People who serve the ill have needs which are not often met in systems which stress efficiency and cost-cutting. It is not only the ill who are emotionally vulnerable and stressed.

I have a complex medical history, and I've dealt with many physicians and medical systems. Time and time again I have been astonished to find myself faced with rude, arrogant and even verbally abusive physicians. My Buddhist friend Iris says I have bad doctor karma.

From the Buddhist point of view, this recurring nightmare has something to teach me, and I think I may have waked up and realized what it is. I know my illness does indeed baffle (and frighten) a good many physicians. Maybe They are afraid that I expect them to be able to fix my problems. Maybe that's where our conversations should start, with my compassionate assurance that I do not expect them to cure me, but rather need them to act as my coach and advisor, as part of a mutually supportive team.

Time to leave bad doctor karma behind.

House Proud

Once in a while, even in the best of families, things get a little out of hand. Case in point, my kitchen pantry and fridge.

Now you'd think, with three pantry shelves and four cubic feet of refrigerator space they'd behave themselves and stay organized. Not so. The last couple of days we had to stave off an avalanche every time we opened the pantry door and, something in that fridge has gone south. Every time the door is opened a distinctly funny smell wafts out.

I just spent a half hour organizing the pantry. My husband is blind to everything that isn't front and centre of any shelf. If there's anything obstructing a clear view of what he wants he can't find it. I don't think installing a beeper on the cracker box would help. He's deaf enough not to know which direction sounds are coming from. For that matter, so am I.

Our conversations the past few years have degenerated into this kind of exchange;

Him: (or me) Gibble, thing, rattlebox, cinderblocks.

Me: (or him) What?

Him: (or me) Gibble, thing, rattlebox, cinderblocks!

Me: (or him)WHAT?

Him: (or me) Why gibble you rattle LISTEN?

Me: (or him) (By now huffy) I was listening! You don't speak clearly!

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, cleaning the pantry. He sticks everything in the front. It appears to be packed to the gills, while it's actually just stuffed in front with nothing behind.

Yesterday when I came home from the grocery store I couldn't get much of anything in the pantry, so it was time to reorganize. Now, with all the new stuff in, there's still lots of room. But it's in layers, front to back. Soon everything will be poised at the front again, the great wall of groceries. Inscrutable as the East. Requiring an expeditionary force to extract a can of beets.

I'm not complaining. He could drink, gamble or run around with other women. Piling everything in the front six inches of the pantry shelf is a minor vice, easily dealt with with a half hour of organization.

Next I have to tackle the fridge, which is also loaded to the gills. There's a rotten apple in that Denmark somewhere. It will have to be unloaded. Everything is in the front six inches of shelf, except that stinky whatever, which has probably been pushed to the back and forgotten. I'm trying to learn not to cook large quantities, but years of habit engulf me over the stove. I cook too much, we don't end up eating it all and occasionally a leftover escapes to mold comfortably behind the cabbage.

He has no idea what I am writing, but as often is the case, we mirror each other's thoughts. He just said, "It's amazing what we get in here though."

Yes, it certainly is. We want for nothing. We have more than enough. We are soooo happy. We are enjoying our little challenge, though we do wish the weather would warm up! This day after day of cold and biting wind hath no charm. The cat wants to go outside, and so do we.

Beneath the Gaze of the Buddha

I saw my new doctor day before yesterday. His office is very cool! The decor is Japanese, including a toko niche with a Buddha statue and a sumi ink painting of two sparrows on a blossom-laden branch. Lots of plants, trickling water, shoji screens. I'd go just to visit the office, even if I didn't need to see the doctor.

I'm still enjoying Oliver's small town dynamics. In Calgary it was very different. I'd go to the doctor's office where I'd gone for years. The receptionist always treated you like a total stranger, and a suspicious one at that. You could almost see her mentally sizing you up, trying to decide whether to call security or to allow you to sit in the waiting room.

Once past the guardian of the gate you sat. If you smiled or said anything to another of the waiting mass, they edged away nervously, like crabs before a wave. Never were pleasantries exchanged. It was like the waiting room for the torturer's apprentice.

One exception - one day, after a late appt when I walked out of the exam room without my prescription I had to wait until the doctor finished with her next patient. I was the only person there, even the guardian had gone home.

A man came in, and immediately introduced himself, obviously expecting me to know who he was. His name rang some sort of vague bell way back in the recesses of my dim mind. He made grand gestures and talked about the wisdom of a Tibetan monk he knew from Bhutan, who said, "Thisthisthisthis...."

We talked, or at least he talked and I said, "Oh yes," and "Really?". He kept dropping clues about his identity, and even went so far as to say, "I did xxxxxx. You've probably read of me, or seen me on TV." By then I had remembered who he was, but I am perverse. I pretended not to have a clue. This is my only remembered "friendly" encounter in that waiting room in all those years.

Day before yesterday, because I remembered my appt to be at 1:20, when it was actually scheduled for 2:20, I got to sit in my new doctor's waiting room for an entire hour. The receptionist was young and pleasant, friendly, chatty. No forms were pushed into my face. They took my health care number and left the paperwork at that.

Three physicians work from this office so people came through at regular intervals. They greeted each other, and me, and lively conversations ensued; They asked about each other's families, their health, ("What's the matter that you're here today?) told stories about neighbours, holidays and work. "I have this cough, I had surgery, I have MS, my daughter is sick, my daughter's having a baby,"

Surprisingly I was included in all this, "I love your hair!" one woman said, and she got up from her seat across the room and moved to sit beside me! "Where do you get it done. I want mine just like it."

I was questioned in a friendly and curious way, by several people, about where we'd come from, how we liked it here, where we were living, if I was "Native" - first time someone has ever recognized that I have Native blood without being told.

I was told I'd like it here, that I'm going to find it a good place to live. If I hadn't figured that out already I learned it in an hour, sitting in the doctor's office, under the beneficent gaze of the Buddha.

Orion Comes Up Sideways

In the Star-Splitter Robert Frost says:

"You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg across our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney..."

These are the days of winter, when Frost's talk of roaring winds and short days seem all the more pointed. On the few nights that we have had clear skies Orion's belt sparkles as he comes up sideways across our fence of mountains.

We have had storm after storm. The earth is locked in ice, walking is like trying to negotiate frozen surf, choppy, rough, slanting and falling off in every direction. Walking is an adventure in itself, one which you hope won't land you in the hospital. The only way we get in and out of the driveway is by engaging the four wheel drive in the truck.

And the wind! We are shaken like a terrier shakes a rat. The trailer quivers and jumps like a living thing. We were both brought wide awake during the night by a huge crash, but so far we've not seen any damage. Up and down the valley trees are down, awnings and roofs are pried from their moorings and other signs of wind mischief are evident.

At 3:30 pm the temperature is -8, with a wind chill of -16. That's in bright sunshine. The wind is gusting to 50 kmh. Tonight will be bitter. I've thrown out twice the usual amount of bird seed today, trying to fortify my little winged friends for the night ahead.

Confuse a Doc!

In the best tradition of Python, who offered a "Confuse a Cat" service, I now happily offer for a limited time only , my "Confuse a Doc" service, at the temporarily reduced price of $19.95 (plus handling and shipping).

What the heck, if you can do it you can sell it. This is the internet after all! Since I missed the first I-bubble, and failed to make ten M $ off gullible stockholders before my idea of selling ice cream cones on line went south, I figure it's time for my money ship to come in. Nothing quite so much fun as confounding the physician. Buy now and avoid the rush!

Last night my lab tests indicated that I was in kidney failure and a likely candidate for kidney dialysis. Today's lab tests came back absolutely normal. Not just high normal but thuddingly dull normal.

The doctor's immediate response was that last night's readings were a lab error. The lab technician bared her teeth and said, "I ran those tests three times last night, and when the results were so different today I ran those three times. Then I went to the leftover blood from last night and reran it. That result was consistent with last night's readings. Don't ask me how, but today her levels are fine."

So, while I still get to revisit a number of cardiac tests, and probably will not be able to talk my way out of a cardiac angiogram this time, I don't need to see the renal specialist because I don't have a kidney problem.

I just have some very confused doctors.

If It's Not One Thing It's Two!

All the old-timers here say that Oliver is never this cold, never has snow on the ground for such an extended period. As I sit and look at the window at a grey day with a wind chill of -11 I don't know whether to believe them or not. Are they full of hot air? Blowing sunshine up my skirt? Oh please, if only there was some hot air or sunshine, which someone might blow up my skirt!

This time I was smart. Okay, I went to town to go to the PO and buy a few groceries at about 12:30. It's bleeding cold out there. By the time I was checking out at the grocery store my old familiar friend had decided to join me. By that I mean I had chest pain, that fist-in-the-middle-of the-chest pain that runs up the neck into the jaw and down my left arm.

I started taking K-Lyte there and kept taking it once I got home. I didn't want to have to go to the ER again. Frequent fliers are not looked on with enthusiasm in hospital ERs. However, by 5:00 it was apparent that my chest pain was not going to settle and I was getting a bit concerned. I called the neighbours and they graciously brought me to the ER.

The smart part was bringing Baby Mac with me, so I don't die of boredom while tests are run. I deal with pain by distracting myself. Music works, so headphones came along. I got a new CD in the mail today, a gift from Ian, so that was loaded into the Mac and is entertaining me as I sit here.

My potassium level is fine, 4.6, which is smack dab middle of normal. The pronouncement is that, until further testing proves otherwise, my pain is garden-variety angina and I am going to have to have more cardiac tests. I can't say I am all that surprised. My Mother's family has a history of early cardiovascular disease. All of her brothers and sisters had heart attacks beginning in their early 50s. My brother had a quadruple by-pass just a few days ago.

With a nitroglycerin patch and some Plavix I am considerably more comfortable. However the doctor came in with some unsettling test results. I was here November 28th and at the time my kidney function was normal. Now he says I am at the point where if my kidney function drops any lower I will need dialysis. Gulp This has come from nowhere. The Nephrologist (kidney specialist) has been called for a consult, and we will see where this leads. Very strange.

30 minutes later: (Your imbedded reporter types it as it happens!)

The Nephrophologist wants more tests done tonight, then I have to return tomorrow for more tests. I have to wait for the results, which will determine whether I am admitted tomorrow or can wait till Monday to see the Nephrologist in her office. Tony has a dental appt. at 1:30 Monday. I may have to figure out how to be in two places at once.

The nurse just came in and commented that she hopes I have blood left after the lab gets finished with me. That sounds promising. I have to say the staff here is superb. The three doctors we've seen in our visits have all been absolutely excellent. The Rocky in Calgary is excellent too, but god save me from ever having to submit myself to the tender ministrations of the staff at the Foothills again. Aw, we can complain all we like, but we've got a great medical system. None the less you don't like needing it.

My dearly loved Aunt Iva Lee (my Mother's older sister) had a granddaughter named Candy (It was the 50s, sweet was in. No one named their daughter Jackknife or Snotnose back then.) Anyway, dear little three-year-old Candy had a nanny. Nanny had a digestive complaint for which she took a large spoonful of castor oil every night.

Candy watched night after night as her Nanny downed the oil, and somehow got it into her baby head that this must be something delicious, which Nanny was greedily keeping from her. She asked if she could have some, but Nanny said, "Baby you wouldn't like it. It tastes real bad."

"Oh," Candy argued, "I know I'll like if you like it. Just let me have a taste."

"But Nanny doesn't like it, it's medicine. I just have to take it, whether I like it or not."

"Oh, I know I'll like it Nanny, please let me have a taste."

This went on for night after night until finally the poor Nanny could take no more of Candy's wheedling, and she popped a big spoonful of the nasty stuff into the waiting mouth.

Candy swallowed, shuddered, and blanched.

"See," Nanny said."I told you that you wouldn't like it."

"Oh I do like it," the little liar said, "Only I wouldn't want any more."

So, that sums up my recent experiences with hospitals. I appreciate the care, but I don't want to have to have any more. Now there's a new wrinkle in the sheet, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

Guess time will tell.

Cultivating Universal Love

And, having lately spoken of revenge, we balance that silliness with a meditation to begin the New Year, and my New Year, with:

Cultivating Universal Love
And Sympathetic Joy

I now intensely cultivate universal love,
wishing for all conscious beings only true happiness,
fulfillment, peace and freedom from suffering.
I experience great ecstatic joy
at the very thought of conscious
beings abiding forever in equanimity and bliss,
free from every obvious fear and subtle anxiety.
As universal love increases in this mind stream,
harmful forces cannot affect me,
and I become a protector of living beings.

I deeply rejoice in all authentic religious
and moral teachings which have elevated
any person into selfless love.
I rejoice as well in all kind actions
performed by or for even the least evolved sentient being.
I remember constantly that all societies and relationships,
in order to be fruitful, can be based upon
and sustained by loving-kindness alone.

A Mother Can Always Get Revenge!

I resigned myself long ago to the fact that I will never be awarded any prizes for my photography. But you'd think I could take at least one decent shot of each of my kids while they were here over Christmas.

No, in every case eyes were closed or at half-mast, mouth pulled sideways or hanging open, or I caught the top of a head as they looked down.

My camera doesn't take what I want it to, it waits about half a second and then takes what it wants. This is fine for landscapes and sleeping cats, not so good for spontaneous photos of one's ever-active chilluns, unless you want the relatives to look at said pictures and say, "I'm glad ours didn't turn out looking like that!".

But we're holed up recovering from Christmas and New Years, and I was digging through a box looking for something else when I found, in an envelope, a series of photos of our younger son, Zak, back when he was a rock star, playing with a band with the improbable name of Marry Me Lisa

I'm trying to remember the year, maybe 1993 - 1994. Doesn't he look cute in that grumpy face? Heck that was his face, from the time he was born until he .... geez, until last week. hehehe I'm told he's a very charming man now. I taught him that. At least that's my excuse for being grumpy now, "I gave my charm to the kid. He needed it for work."

Wow, lot of water under the bridge in those years! Is this the time for a long walk down memory lane, dragging you kicking and screaming behind me? No, I didn't think so either.

I have some other fish to fry - old Texas idiom for "I got stuff to do". So I'll go do that thang.