The Snow is Going

There is a layer of ice on top of the snow, since we had rain one night. 

There are these wild "ice flakes" laying across the rotting snow in the ditches.

Scott has been pointing out how quickly snow melts as soon as a spot of dirt or anything dark appears. This dry brown leaf has absorbed enough heat to sink a deep hole into a tire track.

Everett Was Our Popcorn Man

After Everett moved out to go to NAIT, popcorn-making had to be negotiated. Scott thought I should do it. I figured if I held out long enough, he would. Heh. No. I explained what is daunting  enough to stop me from making popcorn of an evening. I suggested a division of duties that would be encouraging. I measure the oil and popcorn into the popper and plug it into the wall. Scott melts the butter and doctors up the popcorn. Works like a darn. Bet we eat popcorn at least twice a week. If I was the only one making it, once a month would be the most.

•••••   •••••


On the 25th, Emil is going to Disneyland with a group from his work.

Emil: "I'm really excited. I'm sure I'll have a good time."
Me: Yes you will. Absolutely.
Emil: "I'm sure I'll have a blast there."
Me: Yeah.
Emil: "Mom. What is a blast?"

I sat in the truck for a few minutes this morning waiting for Scott to come out of the service station in town. 

Thtuff

You KNOW I am going to have to change this blog's template again before long. Even I can't figure out what's where, half the time.

We went to our niece's Ukrainian dance festival yesterday afternoon. Two hours of brightly coloured costumes on the move, and lots of sprightly accordion music. Some of the toe and leg work reminded me of wee Grandma doing her Highland Fling all over the Margo countryside.

It's coming up to two years since she's been gone, and I miss her. She was one of a kind, and very occasionally she got on my last nerve and I told her so. But I'd put up with any of her cranky Bartleyness (all you Bartleys may kick my ass at the next family reunion) to have her back.

At the festival yesterday I talked with a friend about signs that our loved ones are still around us. She has had some convincing experiences. I've had one or two, myself. When they happen, you know absolutely who or what it was. It's afterward that you begin convincing yourself it was coincidence and wishful thinking. That there was a strange power surge that made your sound system start up loud in the middle of the day, by itself. That that warm, affectionate hand on the back of your neck was just your imagination.

Oops -- gotta bolt -- going to relocate a barn cat to the other farm.

Make It and Lie in It

Every morning when making our bed, I think of Mom. She made the quilt we use for a bedspread, and I helped some, and am so grateful to have it. I also think of her because she was fussy about how beds are made, and my bedmaking wasn't up to snuff. It still isn't to her standards. Nor does it have to be; it boasts a beautiful quilt.

Ducky is also fussy and goes to great lengths to get his blanket just so. I haven't quite figured out what he's aiming for, but it's a real production sometimes.

HodgePodge

Ahhh... another week's work done. I'm a little behind with the dishes, but not too far. Will get caught up  tomorrow. Emil's coming tonight; looking forward to seeing him.

I have a hankerin' for chocolate chip bran muffins. Might/could make those this weekend. Should be getting this office sorted out instead, I suppose.

Hang in there, I'll find the office picture. 

Here it is. What a mess eh. I've been paper challenged for a month or two. 

Surely I'll do both.

It is definitely spring. Yes there's lots of snow, but it's melting from the inside out. There was water laying on top of the Rubbermaid birdseed container when I went for a walk this afternoon.

 I did the whole half hour quite briskly and my back didn't complain even once. Yay! That felt fantastic. And: not only sans ski pants... sans long underwear! I was doubtful there, for the first while, but warmed up soon enough. It's good to feel normal again.

Alas already I catch myself bending to do things in the house, instead of squatting and rising straight up and down. When your back feels right, these things aren't an issue (till they are). It still has to be rested several times a day after standing at the kitchen counter, but as long as it gets those few minutes of respite, all is well. I hate being limited but don't have a choice. Back is boss and will heal completely in its own good time.

Gotta start doing yoga again. Actually, I'm soon going to have time for it every morning — the best time for it, because you enjoy the benefits the rest of the day and night — since one of my jobs has been made defunct (or something), and I'll finish on the 25th.

If I'm smart I won't wait till then to get started. The bod does love its stretches.

This Apparently is Spring

Still plenty of snow. This is the entry to our driveway.
It's so bright!
Patches of brown grass have begun appearing around the yard. I went out in the late afternoon and because of the wind didn't walk as far as I normally would.
There are now seven mule deer that come looking for something edible, every day. It won't be long before they won't bother with us and our oats, birdseed, or cedar trees. I hope. Thinking of my flower garden.
I've got another hour's work to do tonight, and it's time for my PJs and my reading in bed. Best get a move on.

Heather and Her Brood

My cousin Heather said she wanted to have a big baby, and that's exactly what she had. This one was half grownup already when she was born! What was it she weighed? Hey this smartphone is handy when you aren't in the habit of clearing out the texting logs. I texted the weight to Joan (my sister, for those who don't know everything; I always assume we're all old friends): 9 lbs 14 ounces. Oy.

She looks exactly like her big sister, from what I can see.
Her granny says she is sweet and content, just like her mother was.

I babysat her mother when she was about six months old; best baby to look after, ever. Just a-smilin' the whole time. Here she is with my first-cousins-once-removed:

Heather is still smiling. Baby's name is Haley Jo, and that's her big sister Kendra looking on. A matched set, these little ones, that look like their dad. 

I'm sure glad to be done with the baby-havin'. What an ordeal that whole thing was. Every bit worth it.
But now it's all new little surprises coming into the family. Cousins once removed, great- nieces and nephews. Fun.

Wayback

At age 18 I was attending the university of Saskatchewan. Late one evening I was still in the university library, but instead of working I was writing in my journal.

"Concentration and immersion in studies might do me good but it's hard to settle down. I can make myself sit here, surprisingly enough, but one thing I cannot do is make myself constructive. These carrells have some earthy graffiti. I spend my 1st ten minutes in each one reading that. Here's a cute one, right here in front of me:

'Here's to that moment
Of sweet repose
With belly to belly,
Toes to toes,
And after that moment
Of sweet delight
It's back to back
The rest of the night!'

Someone else has replied 'Not so when a woman is with a woman. 652-0972. Marilyn.'

All kinds:

~OH GOD I WANT A MAN SO BAD!~
~ME TOO!~

and

ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE JUICY SUCCULENT YOUNG THINGS THAT STRUTS YOUR DESIRABLE BODY DOWN THE AISLE? DO YOU REALIZE HOW NICE IT WOULD BE IF YOU WOULD STOP FOR SOME SEX?

Then there's an epic poem on the rewards to the male species of clitoral stimulation during intercourse.

And PEANUT BUTTER DOESN'T STICK TO THE ROOF OF MY MOUTH BUT EVERYTHING ELSE STICKS IN MY CRAW

and

DONALD DUCK GOT GOOSED

and

OLD DUTCH POTATOE SPUDKIN

and the inevitable

FOR A GOOD TIME PHONE 244-6411.

I think that # is 'time' and I've been seeing it everywhere."

Who Doesn't Love a Saturday?

For those who know Joanne, we have had an email from her today. (See the link under Pages.) I only had a few minutes with her on Thursday because the hours sitting jawing with Jolene had flown by, and when I thought I still had all the time in the world, Scott was phoning: "Meet me at the front door!"

As it was I lingered as long as I could get away with (not long enough,  Joanne) and met him on his way into the building to track me down.

Yes Jolene is doing great. She was just finishing a physio session in a walker when I arrived, and deigned to do it again so I could see. We had a nice afternoon together, or I did anyway. She was in pain sometimes but you could hardly tell. I probably shouldn't have stayed so long and maybe tired her out.

Emil is here. He is on a restricted diet now, since the naturopath did a live blood analysis and believes Emil has an overgrowth of yeast in his system. You know, that popular diagnosis these days. But we are giving it a try, since the alternative is living indefinitely with ears that feel plugged. So tonight's meal was romaine lettuce with a sprinkling of salt and pepper (which Emil announced was good), boiled carrots, and wild rice from the lakes of northern Saskatchewan with a few dabs of butter. This menu would never satisfy Scott as it has no dead animal in it, but he went to Kelvington to eat with his grandma, so everybody's happy.

Dessert will be made later: popcorn. We do love us some popcorn 'round here.

First glimpses of green

Walking north toward home this afternoon. I know it's really spring because I could do this without my ski pants.

Big Ring Circus

I've introduced you to a lady in the southern states (her webpage is Bless Our Hearts), who has introduced me to someone she likes, who says:

"I learned from the owner of that place, and my friends there, that it was not enough to refrain from persecuting gay people, but that an active role in the advocacy of their rights and protection was a moral obligation, and that choosing not to do so was persecution itself."

You can read the rest of that entry here: Big Ring Circus. And I am going to add that link to my blogroll. Thank you, Ms Moon!

How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels

Found this in my internet travels for work today:


From the National Film Board of Canada.

The Canadian Encyclopedia's article about the NFB includes links:
click here to read it.

Nature Isn't Always Kind

A few miles from here I saw this young moose. It has hardly any hair left and looks like it's suffering from too many ticks or some kind of parasite. 

Home Decoration

An overnight trip to Saskatoon put us in a hotel near this house with its religious statuary. Normally I wouldn't take a photo of such a thing, but since it was Easter on the day we drove past it, I figured what the hell: blog fodder.

Much to Be Thankful For

Jolene's sister Heather's baby was due, and late, so her doctor was going to induce her at the Yorkton Hospital. After making the two-hour (or so) drive there on Thursday morning (Mom's birthday; we thought that would've been nice), the hospital turned her away. They had no beds. 

Meanwhile, Jolene was languishing impatiently in a hospital bed in Regina, where she'd been sent by bumpy ambulance so that a specialist could look at her broken foot and do surgery. He decided there is nothing to be done; they put her through that torturous trip for nothing. But there was still no bed for her in Yorkton till yesterday. 

Heather and her husband Lionel had to get up and drive back to the hospital around 2:30 in the morning and when they got there she was already well on her way to delivering her 9 lb, 14 ounce baby girl ... Hailey Jo. Imagine the very different situation the baby came into from the way things would've been if her auntie hadn't made it alive out of the vehicle below.

Jolene, who still has a lot of pain, says it's as well she didn't have any visitors down in Regina because "It's hard to keep up a good front all the time." She sent pictures; all her cuts and bruises are on her legs and internal. In moments of feeling sorry for herself, she says, she looks at the pictures of the vehicle and remembers how lucky she is to be alive. 

Happy Mom's Birthday

What is all this complaining I'm hearing about the snow? These are beautiful days.
And dagnabbit, I'm going to get out there in the sunshine this afternoon somehow, deskwork nothwithstanding.

Today is Mom's birthday. She'd be 72. I would have liked to see her at 72! Would she have started ageing by now? She would be losing sleep over Jolene's condition, that's for sure; and our family friend Joanne's.

What could I have bought Mom for a gift this year, I wonder.
Every once in a while I see something in a store and think "Mom would like that" and then remember ....

Queen Jolene

It must be spring, because gravel was showing in patches through the snow on the gravel road today!

I haven't been for a proper walk since my back began making an exhibition of itself, but this afternoon I got 15 minutes down the road and turned around at the seventh twinge rather than risk overdoing it. Can't wait to get back to normal. Shouldn't be long; almost there. So grateful to have a healthy back again, I can't tell you!

In other news, those who know my cousin Jolene (Neil's daughter) may or may not be aware that she was in a bad accident on Friday afternoon that she was lucky to get out of alive. She is banged up pretty good, with broken ribs, breastbone, pelvis and foot, bruised lungs and a lacerated spleen. And god knows what else; it's quite a list. She ran into a semi or under one or something, or it ran into her. She thought she was a goner, and so did everyone else at the scene. She will be on her back for a month or so and is still in a lot of pain -- almost vomited when they got her up for physio today, she said.

But she will be all right. She is a very feisty person and she will need all that feistiness, too, over the next while.

Everett, my son: I will be so busy texting Jolene to help her keep occupied that you may get a break from my texting "jokes" for a while! Or maybe not. Cross your fingers.

Jolene and I spoke on the phone a couple times today. She is, even flat on her back, telling her husband what to do and how to do it re looking after their 9-yr-old daughter, taking care of business, and so on. Like a queen, I said!

Meanwhile, the deer are still coming into the yard; there were six today, including this little one:

Ate all the birdseed under the feeders. What else is there?

Dishwasher Training

This is Joanne and Gerald Bohl's granddaughter. Her mother Erin turned around and saw that she had help ...

To SunnyBoy

How's school? Anything interesting happening?

My life =

Well, today Emil and I went for a lovely adventure. We were headed to Neil and Rose's without phoning first, but we only got as far as the Kuroki highway before the power steering belt was knocked off from hitting snowdrifts on the road, so we turned down the highway to kuroki and toured the town and then hightailed it home only to stop at the fishing lake gas bar at kylemore for some windowwasherfluid as i was right out and that's never good but figured mightaswell get gas too. Thing wouldn't start after, and the reserve maintenance man (my new friend) fudzed with it at least half an hour if not an hour and another guy had to come with wrenches and they got it and then i needed a boost. all this just as scott drove up, answering my call for aid. The fellow didn't want to be paid but said I could buy him a pack of smokes, so I did. I'm going to take him a batch of fudge too. 

That's my first time in that store and it's open till 11 every night -- 

Check this out:

http://everylastdrop.co.uk/

-Ma

Found on My Blogroll

The Empress of Dirt tells her readers about a man in Japan's danger zone who stays to care for the animals, long after everyone else has gotten the hell out of there.

Bless Our Hearts is prolific so it's a struggle to keep current, much as I try. BOH is a fine writer and I don't want to miss anything.

For a look at a wide variety of tarot decks, go to Quirkeries where there is a daily card draw and interpretation related to Sharyn's life; I always learn something.

Is there anything this man can't do?

The Chicken Song

What Sunnyboy sends His Mother: