Auntie Jean

My great aunt, Auntie Jean, died on Friday at the age of 94.

Auntie Jean was always a figure in the background of my life.  She and Grandma were quite close, my mom and her daughter were best friends, and we spent a lot of time with their family.  My middle name is after Auntie Jean (but spelled differently) and she was very important to my mom.

The main memory I have of Auntie Jean is the time we went to see them in Saskatoon and went shopping at the mall across the street.  I was around 13 or 14 years at the time.  I was embarrassed by every adult who happened to be related to me, but Auntie Jean trumped them all that day.

Mom got the siblings ready to head to the mall when Auntie Jean announced she was coming too.  She was in the middle of perming her hair, but had a 30 minute window before she could take out the curlers and wash out the perm rinse.  So why not tag along?

She threw on a plastic shower cap over her head full of curlers and got ready to go.

I DIED OF EMBARRASSMENT.  DIED.

We went shopping regardless, with me pretending I didn't know either my mother or my aunt.  I found a really cute outfit that day which became my favourite for the summer.  A navy skirt and a rayon, multi-coloured shirt.  A friend that summer got a picture of me.

Oh the 90s. 

Looking back at this outfit and my hair, I wonder if Mom and Auntie Jean weren't more embarrassed of me than I was of them.

They had every right to be.

Company sweater

When I was growing up, the temperature in our family home was always the same.  Day in and day out.  Even before programmable thermostats, Mom was diligent about the temperature.  19 degrees (66 F ) during the day and 16 degrees (61 F) at night.  For as long as I can remember.

Mom was always too hot.  She could be found most days wearing a T-shirt or a sleeveless blouse, a pair of cotton pants (complete with elastic waist) and no socks.  My mother wouldn't wear a pair of socks if the floor was covered in glass.  She loved having her feet free and (despite the fact they were always cold to touch) her feet didn't see socks more than once or twice a year.

The family became immune to the weather in our house.  For us, it was normal.  There was no wearing shorts indoors in the winter.  It was full winter regalia.  If you were cold, put on a sweater.  Fine, put on another sweater.

When company would come to visit (as they did often in our house) it was not uncommon for the woman to be cold.  I don't know what made Mom different (maybe it was early onset menopause!) but she was rarely cold.  Except when she would go outside and then she was allergic to cold, but that's another story.

My mom had a sweater put aside especially for company.  It was called "the company sweater" (apt, eh?) and it hung in the closet waiting for our skinny, cold-blooded friends to come visit.  There were a few who had to ask for the sweater (or would be offered the sweater later when Mom would notice they were shivering and wearing their mitts) but there were a few people who walked in the door and immediately changed their jacket for the sweater.

The sweater was knit by my Grandma years before.  It was some sort of polyester blend yarn and was knit the perfect gauge for warmth.  With long, tight sleeves the sweater hit just past your bum and could be wrapped tightly around you or buttoned together in the front.  It was the perfect keep-you-warm sweater.

The sweater now hangs in my closet.  It waits for the occasional guest who is chilly, but mostly I wear it on days when I am too hot to wear a sweater all day, but need a little warmth.  Mostly, I wear it to be comforted by the memory of my Mom and imagine it gives me a hug on her behalf.

Why working with family never works.

For 4 summers, I worked on a bee farm.  Technically, they are called apiaries, but when you say that to someone they usually stare at you as though you're off your nut.

The first year, I worked for Dave, a retired bee farmer from Florida who summered in northern Saskatchewan.  He and his wife thought it would be a good idea to run a small farm with 400 hives with a 19 year old rookie as their only help.  I learned a lot that year -- about myself, about the joys of manual labour, and about the bee industry. 

I was pretty sure I knew it all.

At the same time, my brother worked about an hour south on another bee farm belonging to a friend of the family.  He started when he was young and worked every summer until he decided to get a real job.  Although, truth be told, it was a real job.  One year, he made more than I did as a crisis worker.

My second summer, I started up to my usual farm.  However, they had a tough year with a lot of hive deaths and didn't need me.  I was crushed.  It had been my oasis and a place to regenerate after a year of classes, school, and practicum work.   The family friends to the south offered me a place on their crew and I accepted. 

Now I knew I would be working along side my brother, but the year before we had gotten along better than ever before in our entire lives.  I figured it would be fine.

Oh, how I fooled myself.

The first day was a cloudy and dreary day.  On my first farm, we were old school.  Nothing but an old smoker and a dream.  It was just me and a 65 year old man doddering around without agenda or too much worry if things took longer than you thought.  That is what I was expecting when we went out.

Oh, how I fooled myself.

With a crew of 6, plus the boss, we headed out to the first field.  The hives were taller, the boxes heavier.  The cloudy, dreary day meant the bees wouldn't move of their own accord, so I expected we would gently smoke them out of their homes in order to collect the honey.  Not so.  One of the crew members slung a "blower" on his back and we went to work. 

The blower looked like a mix between a jet pack and vacuum cleaner.  It violently pushed the bees out of their cozy cracks and crannies so we could quickly steal the top layers of their hives and replace them with empty homes they can fill up again. 

I started with a confidence that I knew what I was doing.  It became quickly apparent that I had no idea.  It was a different pace, a different philosophy, and a different world altogether.  They ran thousands of hives compared to Dave's 400.  I was out of my league.  And it was in front of my little brother.

Like most of our arguments, I have no idea what the fight started about.  But the next thing I knew, we were having a throw down in the middle of the bee yard.  Dressed in full bee suit regalia, masks on, gloves to our elbows, my brother and I stood in front of our coworkers and boss and screamed bloody murder at each other.  We were separated by our boss's stern words and sent to different corners of the yard.  I stewed and steamed and fumed the rest of the day, all the while cursing my parents for continuing to procreate after me.

That evening, I retired to my room exhausted and mortified. I was sure this would be the longest and worst summer of my life.

The next day I was transferred from the yards to the honey house where I saw my brother once a day for mere moments.  I had a great time and found my niche quite quickly.

My brother and I got along well that summer.

The Librarian

Since the beginning of time, or at least the beginning of our lives in this city, my family has been going to the same library.

Every weekend, my mother would bundle the four of us kids up and we would begin the trek down the street to the library.  It was not a far walk, by any means, but it seemed that way to us.  A baby in a stroller, an older toddler, a geeky trouble maker, me (practically perfect in every way), and Mom wandered down the 4 or 5 blocks to the library.

We had certain rules and guidelines before we were let loose in the library.  No running, no yelling, and only as many books as we can carry home.  This usually meant 10 - 15 children's books for me.  It wasn't near enough, but I knew we would be coming back the next week.

Many of the librarians in our library were there from the beginning.  There is the lady who looks like Dave Foley in drag, the lady with the really long hair and low voice, the other lady, and the one who we moved next door to about 15 years later.  They were the staples of our library.  They knew our names, what we liked to read, what grade we were in, and which movies were playing on Kid's Movie Day.

I never really thought about them much.  I knew they would always be there.  I knew that the one with the long hair would sneak me racy Western novels when I was 13 and Mom wasn't looking.  I knew they existed in the library, but didn't think of them in the outside world.  To me, they would just always be there.

This week, I went in to get a new library card.  The long haired librarian with the smokey voice was there.  She instantly knew who I was despite the fact it had been years since I had seen her.  She asked about my sisters, my brother, my father in Ukraine.  She was thrilled that I had gotten married and wanted to know all about it.

We talked about the last time I got a new card (I was 12 and thus allowed to check out books without Mom's permission!) and how many years it had been since I had been visiting the branch.  We thought about it and realized it has been over 25 years.  She laughed.  The first time she met our family, she was 10 years younger than I am today.

Getting older is a bitch.

We chatted for a bit and I carried on my way with a handful of knitting books and a promise to come in and visit more often.  I thought about it and realized how lucky we are.  It is a rare place indeed where the staff of an establishment watches you grow up and becomes such a huge part of your life.

I like how small the world is some days.

The Button Box

Latest story at Buggering Knit Monkies: The Button Box

Our "Button Box" was an old shortbread cookie tin with a jam label on the top. In my mother's handwriting, it read Button Box and that was all. It sat on her sewing table or in a cupboard for most of my life. When I "inherited" all her sewing and craft items, this was the thing I cherished most.

More, more, more than words

When I was about 15 or so, I went on a trip to Oregon for a family church camp.  My own family was not going, so I hitched a ride with a convoy who were heading south to Turner, Oregon.  There were at least two vehicles that travelled together -- one with my uncle, aunt, and their 2 kids, and another with myself, an old lady named Leap Year, and my friend John.

The trip down was a long one.  However, on the way back, it was just John and I on the way back.  There was nothing but friendship between John and I.  Ever.  He was gorgeous to look at (Lord, I hope he doesn't read this) but he had been dating my friend that summer and, though he was always very kind and I adored him, he wasn't much my type.

I preferred guys who didn't like me at all.  But, I digress.

On the way home, I put in a new single tape (yes, I'm a thousand years old) that I had purchased while in the states.  It was More Than Words by Extreme.  I was, just like a million other teens, entirely enthralled by the song.  Now, you have to remember most of my musical taste was along the lines of Michael Bolton and Paula Abdul, so be kind to me.

I put the tape in and we listened.  And listened. And listened.  We loved it.  Each of us picked a part to sing and we sung our hearts out to the beautiful harmony.  Finally, we had had enough and went to take the tape out. 

It was stuck. 

We spent the rest of what felt like 15 hours listening to that song on repeat.  We sang now and again, but for the most part we suffered because we didn't want there to be silence.  When we arrived back in the city we started in, our uncle got out the tape.  I put it in my suitcase and never brought it out again.  I have heard the song on the radio now and again, but never quite enjoyed it the same.

The other day, while going through boxes, I found the tape. 

And I threw that bastard out immediately.

Being thirteen: small fish in a small pond full of big, mean fish

This continues the stories of my life.  The twelfth instalment is here.  The rest can be found here.

In my last year of elementary school, I had to change schools.  No, I wasn't suspended or anything.  The year before, my father and the local parenting association had led a crusade to close down the little school I had attended since we moved to the big city. There were 75 people in the entire school at the time.  Each class was a split of some kind and the school was just too small.

I was told the reason the parents in the area wanted the school to be closed (or felt it was necessary) was so that the students would not have to suffer the shock of going from a small school to a huge high school.  So, I suffered the shock of being separated from all my friends, going to a school I'd never been to, being separated by my former classmates as the only "out of school" person in my split class, and being 13 years old.

Good plan, parental beings.  Good plan.

Now, I don't blame my father.  For this thing.  It turned out to be a good thing for my younger siblings and that was important.  However, my best friend decided to go to the local high school for Grade 8, my other friends were put into the bigger class without me, and I was alone.  Me, two new immigrants, two dweebie boys, a shy girl, and 4 of the meanest girls elementary school had ever seen.  Mix that with hormones of a pre-teen and a newly emerging attitude, the world was a miserable place indeedy.

I started the new school being the 3rd tallest girl instead of tallest.  I was sought out for the basket ball team and the volley ball team, but managed to only excel at running into other players and sacrificing my body for the game.  I was awkward, but had "heart".  That year I won the "Hustler" award.  I think they meant it as a compliment, but I had seen those magazines in the corner store and wanted no part of that.

For some reason, this year in my life is one of the clearest.  That may be because of the big changes it represented, or it may be that it was a year filled with taunting, teasing, and New Kids on The Block.  I remember conversations, crushes, mean comments (like the guy who wrote in my yearbook "You are the ugliest thing I have ever seen."  I still hope he went to jail.), and not fitting in with the cool girls.  I remember new friends, sleep overs, and babysitting courses.  I remember outdoor school, French class, graduation, and the joke that Colby told which got him detention.


How are priests like Christmas trees? Their balls are only for decoration.

Girl Gas Jockey

One of my first jobs was working in a gas station.  It was the early 90s and women working as gas attendants were not as common as it is now.  Especially in my city, where a woman working in a man's job was so stunning you would think it was the 1940s.  


People (okay, creepy older men) would drive out of their way to come to our gas station so a girl could pump their fuel.  They would stand on the sidewalk in front of the building and stare as I pumped the gas, washed the windows, and checked the oil.  (The men were the only ones who ever wanted me to check the oil.)  I was 19 years old, young and fit (I was still playing rugby at this point), and completely oblivious to the world.  I just needed a job and knew how to work hard.

The station was run by the husband of a woman my mother worked with.  He was a short, slight Vietnamese man with traces of an accent.  He was... well, he was creepy.  His eyes always looked me firmly in the chest and I knew I never wanted to be in the same room alone with him if I could help it.  He didn't work at the station, which I was pleased about, but he did drop in now and again to check on his staff and offer suggestions.  One of the few things I remember him saying to me was, in event of a robbery, "Put many cigarette cartons in your trunk.  Fill  gas in cars.  Then call police."  

There were four of us who worked there on a regular basis that summer.  We were all in our late teens or early twenties.  That was about all we had in common.  

Mike* was a tall, barrel of a guy with a simple smile and a mind to match.  He was friendly, but always reminded me of Lennie from Of Mice and Men.  Ben was a friend of my brother's and was the youngest of us all.  He had a great sense of humour, but had never worked a day in his life as far as any of us could tell.  Then there was Joey*.  He was medium build, thin as a rake, and looked a bit like a rat in that his face was long and narrow, he had beady eyes and a goatee.  Joey was the "manager" at 20 years old and spent a lot of time in the parking lot, sitting on the trunk of his blue Trans Am**, peddling his wares to other kids.  I found out later that summer those wares consisted of acid tabs and other drugs.  


Originally, the team was split into me working with Mike and Ben with Joey.  However, after an incident with regular gas in a diesel vehicle, Ben moved to working with Mike as Joey threatened to "beat the ever loving sh** out of him".  I didn't like it, but went with the program.  

I really didn't like Joey much.  He was from the North end, he drove a Trans Am, and he did drugs, so I assumed he was below me.  I would bring books to read during the slow parts of the shift and he would fling things at me with a pea shooter he made of a pen and a rubber band.  If I got up to fill someone's tank, he would hide my book somewhere in the station so I would spend the next half hour looking for it.


One afternoon, Joey had to run an errand, so he sent his little brother to keep me company.  Dallas was a cute kid, about 14 years old, with a quick mind, a shy smile and trouble in his veins.  It was a slow day so we went outside to hang out waiting for someone to need my services.


I sat on the cement step and leaned back against the brick building.  I stretched out my legs in front of me and tried to get some sun.  Dallas leaned forward, arms wrapped around his knees, piling sticks and leaves in front of him.  We talked about philosophical things in the warmth of the day while we listened to the sound of cars passing, birds chirping, and savored the familiar and comforting smell of gasoline.


When Dallas had a substantial pile in front of him, he looked at me and said "Wanna see if we can get a fire going?"  Always one for a love of fire, I said sure.  I grabbed a book of matches from the supply and handed them to Dallas.  We both leaned over the pile fascinated with the small lick of flame appearing. 


We were so enthralled, we never heard the vehicle pull up.  Suddenly, Dallas's Mom jumped from their family van and screamed at us.  "What are you two doing?  Are you trying to blow yourselves up?"  We jumped guiltily, stomped on the fire with our Converse runners and turned to face her.  She had the wrath only a mother can harness and we knew we were in for it.


Sincerely, it never crossed our minds that building a bonfire in front of a gas station (and the 4 pumps in front of it) would be a problem.  His mother became aware of our complete ignorance and let us go with a warning.  Dallas had to go home immediately and I went back inside my cubicle.  


I worked there all summer and never heard hide-nor-hair about the incident from either my boss or Joey.  I figured his mom had kept her word.  Each time Dallas came to visit after that, we had a inside secret smile we shared.  The summer seemed to last a long time and yet was hardly more than three months I worked there.


Years later, I found out Joey became an RCMP officer.  Mike runs his own towing company.  Ben is the manager of a restaurant and has the cutest little boy.  But I never heard what happened to Dallas.  I can only assume good things.

*Names changed to protect the innocent.  Also, I can't remember their names.
** Why did drug dealers in the 90s always drive Trans Ams??


This post is part of Write-of-Passage: The Job

Hosing a b-day party and learning about UFO sex -- Best of 2009

Here comes the time of year where everyone goes through their posts from the last year and picks some of their favourites.  I went through mine and realized, I write a lot of drivel.

Thank you for reading it anyway.  I heart you.

EDIT: I fixed the broken link.

January

• A Dog and Old Man

February

•  The "Ass" in Class 
• The Night Before 
• Trip on Love 

March

• Maddy Magooby
• Beginning of the End
• Alarm Bells

April

• Go Ahead, Eat that Cake Probably my favourite of the year. I love this story.
• The Time I Stole a Car 

May

• Dear Mom
• Wonderfully Made, or "How I learned about sex" Oh, I may have been wrong.  This might be my favourite.
  
• I am a Plumbing Disaster
• Then, I will run you down with my wheelchair

June

• Packing it in 
• Forgiveness and Forgetfulness 

July

• Goodbye, Dear Friend
• Dear People who lived here before us, You Suck.
• Successful Marriages are Built on Freshly Made Beds.

August

• It was a hooker kind of weekend
• Stand by your man 
• More Conversations with Grandma 
• He Likes Fresh Water Is All
• Making My Own Cheer

 September

•  Ten Years in Crisis
• Brush with Fame: Mosquitoes, Boobs and Butt Germs
• Today is My Wedding Day
• The Real Vows 

October

• Things they don't tell you about the first year of marriage
• Books to the Ceiling, Books to the Sky 

November

• Now We Are Six: The year I got in trouble and Lyn ruined Christmas
• Why Dog Groomers Deserve Their Wages
  
• I want to hug all the Riders, some more than others.

December

• Today is a bad day and it's only been 20 minutes 
• The Last Gift
  

The last gift

In October of that year, we were told about my Mom's cancer.  They explained it was Stage 4 Sarcoma Uterine Cancer.  The doctors gave us to Christmas... maybe.  Our family stumbled through the next two months as Mom went through treatment.  We planned for the best, prepared for the worst, and hoped to God.

That year for Christmas, Mom decided she wanted to give us each something "special"; something just from her.  She decided on a piece of jewelry for each of us. When I opened my gift it was to find exactly what I wanted as my last gift from Mom.

A locket in the shape of a heart.  Silver with "diamonds" outlining it.  Inside, a picture of my mom and I when I was a baby.  On the back was an inscription that read Forever, Mom.  I slipped the delicate chain around my neck and let it settle against my chest.  It was light, much lighter than my own heart that day, but it promised me that a part of my mother would be with me always.

I never took the locket off.  I wore it to sleep, to exercise, to walk the dog, to shower.  When things got hard to deal with, I would grab hold of my locket between my fingers and slide my thumb across the engraving.  It comforted me before Mom died and eased my grief after.  I felt instantly closer to her and somehow settled and calm.

The first accident involving my necklace occurred when I was out playing with the dogs (mine and our neighbour's) in the backyard.  I leaned down to pick up the ball and the neighbour's dog snapped the necklace off me.  She grinned at me with a dopey look and swallowed.  I told the neighbour about it and we both spent the next week "looking" for it.

When I found the necklace, I immediately submersed it in bleach.  Then with an old toothbrush, I scrubbed it with bleach.  Only then did I inspect it for damage -- one of the stones was gone and the picture inside was ruined.  Everything else was fine.  I took it to the jewellers, had the necklace fixed and then replaced the picture.  It should have been the end.  I should have put it in a box and saved it.

But I didn't.  I wore it every day.  I had to.  I needed that stability, that promise that Mom was still part of me.

And then one day, five months after my mother died, I went for a walk with the dog.  When I got home, the necklace was gone.  I searched the neighbourhood for weeks, but it never surfaced.  To this day, I still hope someone will return it to me.  But I know.  I know I won't see it again. 

Mom lived two years after that first diagnosis.  But that Christmas -- the one with the locket -- was our last one.  The one we knew was our last.  The others were bonuses.  And this gift, was the last gift.  The one I will remember forever even if it is not with me anymore.  Forever, Mom.

I am participating in Write Of Passage -- The Gift.
So are these people, go read.

The house I grew up in

The house I grew up in was shaped like a milk carton.  It was two stories high with a pointed roof.  It had an attached garage with lower roof that wrapped around the back of the house to cover the deck.  The outer walls were embedded in white and black rocks with bits of clear glass intermingled.  The trim was a shiny black around the windows, the garage door and the upper level.  The garage door was not one that opened over head -- instead it had doors that swung out.  I don't remember a vehicle ever being parked in there, but I remember the doors being open on nice spring days while Dad covered the top of the driveway in tools and wood so he could work.

The front lawn was hidden from view by a large pine tree.  The tree seemed higher than the house itself and stretched across the front of the lawn.  Each year, my Dad would take out his homemade light stringing stick -- two pieces of wood nailed together with a small T at the top -- and wind the Christmas lights as high as he could reach.  He always did this on the coldest day of the year.  It was preferable if it was -40 or if there was a blizzard that impaired vision.  I always had to help.

There was a deep bay window on the left side of the house.  If you were to look inside, you would be looking into our living room.  A real tree would be placed in the centre of the window to maximize both location, outer visibility and the amount of presents we could fit underneath it.  On the far back side of the room, you could see the piano where Mom would sit on a regular basis either just to pass the time away playing or to entice us out of whichever room we were in to sing along with her.

I see most of the house in amazing clarity, but am stumped when I think of Christmas decorations.  I know the living room and music area was decked out in full.  I know that the staircase had a mesh wall painted white that served as a protection against children falling from off the stairs.  This is where the stockings were hung by wire hooks until they were filled on Christmas Eve.  Our handmade decorations made up the most of the decor -- Santas made of old magazines, Rudolfs made of popsicle sticks and red pom poms. 

I remember laying on the floor, amid all the presents, looking up into the tree and breathing in the deep smell of Christmas -- pine, baking, and wrapping paper.  I lay there and marvelled at the beauty of it all.  Then we would all gather downstairs, curled on the couch and pillows on the floor, to watch The Muppet Christmas or Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas and eat goodies until bed time.

This was my childhood Christmas.  In the house where I grew up.

What I would have had in my lunch box if I stayed for lunch

From Grade 2 through 7, my family lived six houses from our elementary school. Out the back door of the school, around the playground, across the parking lot, across the street and the third house was ours. It took less than three minutes to walk home. And that was if I was dawdling.

Every day, just before lunch, I would run to get my crossing guard uniform on (it consisted of a neon sash and a mini stop sign) and I would go out with my crew to usher all the kids across the street.  We blew a whistle, made the three cars in the area stop for 30 seconds, blew a whistle and then went home for lunch.  Even if it was a busy day, we could all get home before The Flintstones started.

My mom was a stay-at- home mom.  She ran a babysitting service for people who weren't that lucky.  They brought their kids over in the morning before school.  The kids came home with us for lunch and then returned home with us again after school was done for the day.  It was a good enough deal -- helped pay for groceries and things -- and it meant there were always kids to play with.  Or, kids that we had to play with.

Lunch was a well orchestrated meal.  We all sat down at the big dining room table that took up the other end of the kitchen.  The plates were all set and we filed in rank and number to our seats.  We were served at the table.  I always thought it was because that's what mom's did.  Although, ours never did it any other time but lunch.  In reality, it was so she didn't have six or eight little kids under foot trying to get to the food.

First came the soup -- usually Mom's home made chicken noodle soup.  I still dream of this soup.  Actually, I think it was more like a stew with some broth.  If I could cook, I would make gallons of it.  There were serious chunks of chicken floating in there.  Egg noodles curled around each piece.  Veggies were in there somewhere, but you were so concentrating on each noodle and chicken piece you never noticed.  Peas, carrots, corn... you name it, it was in there.  There were always a few bones in there too, but Mom said it was good luck.

Second course, was the sandwich.  Usually, it was bologna.  I heart bologna sandwiches.  Which is strange considering we had them ALMOST EVERY DAY for 5 years.  Each of us were allowed to tell Mom what we wanted on our sandwiches and she would make them to spec.  Mine never failed to gross everyone out.  But it is how I like it to this day.

Mom made her own bread (every Thursday we had fresh buns slathered in honey... Mmmm) so the sandwich started out with Mom's bread.  On one side of the sandwich I wanted Cheese Whiz.  Then came lettuce.  Then tomatoes.  Then the bologna.  Finally as much ketchup as one could put on a sandwich.  Followed by the last piece of bread.  It had to be in that order.  It was revolting to look at, but heavenly to eat.  I imagine that Nutritionists around the whole would shudder at the mix of processed meats and cheeses, but for me, that was a good sandwich.

Each day we would get dessert, but for the life of me I don't remember what it would be.  It's funny, at the time, we were so focused on dessert.  Anything that seemed like a treat was good for us.  But in the end, that isn't what we remember.

The thing I remember most about lunch isn't what we ate, but who was there.  Every day for lunch, my Dad came home.  He would arrive just as we were finishing our plates and heading downstairs to finish watching Fred and Barney do something stupid.  He and Mom would then have their lunches -- across the table from each other.  They would talk and laugh and catch up on their day.

But after they had finished eating, they played Cribbage until Dad had to go back to work.  Sometimes, if Flintstones was an episode we had already watched, us kids would crowd around the table and watch them play. We would cheer them on, count out loud, and have to be reminded what time it was.  Then we would head back to school and Dad would head back to work. 

For me, lunch was about being at home, being fed, being with family, and being back to school in time to play on the monkey bars.

I'm participating in: Write of Passage: The Lunch Box

Twelve and The Hobbit

This continues NaBloPoMo: a daily post of stories of my life - 33 years in 30 days. The tenth instalment is here.


The year I turned 12, I was in a split Grade 7 and 8 class.  Our class size had dwindled down over the years so there were only a few of us left: me, Candy, Andrea, Corrie, Brad *swoon*, Johnathon, Anna, David, Jamie, Caine and Shari.  That was all of us.  Eleven.  We were a fairly tight knit class of kids who had little in common but age and location of desks. 

That year we had a lovely teacher who was French.  She was a thin woman with long black hair curling well past her shoulders.  She had a long crooked nose and pigeon toes.  I liked her very much.  She spoke softly and wisely.  Also, she introduced us to The Hobbit, which made me love her all the more.

That year I was discovering my artistic side.  I had a sculpture that was chosen to be shown at the local School Board -- it was a clay running shoe (high top, white, L.A. Gear) with a puppy inside (Dalmatian).  It had a floppy tongue sticking out of the shoe where the puppy was leaning out with floppy ears and a waggedy tail.  It had shoelaces and stitching and it was awesome.  I believe they instantly threw it out after the showing, but what do I know?

I spent hours working with clay.  My parents bought me a box of clay that I kept in the cold storage room and from which I made all sorts of wondrous goodies.  I made a turtle for my Grade 3 teacher Mrs. B.  It's shell came off to show a place you could hide candy.  I made other things, but I don't remember them.  I just made things.  Things to keep me occupied and to engage my brain in detail.

When I wasn't using clay, I was using Plasticine.  I had a pile of it that I carried everywhere.  As I sat in class listening to the teacher, I would make copious interesting creatures of all sorts.  Once completed, I would squish them back into a ball and start over.  The teacher recognized that I listened and retained better when my mind was busy with artsy things, so she never complained or took it away.

When we started reading The Hobbit, I fell in love.  The characters jumped off the page and wandered through my mind.  I couldn't wait to make them.  Finally we got our class assignment: to make a board game about the book. 

I got to work.  I couldn't have worried about the board itself, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the game pieces.  Painstakingly, I made every single character from the book.  Out of plasticine.  I made intricate details of each character.  I molded and stretched.  I combined colours and little teeny pieces.  I used a toothpick to make details such as hair and clothing ripples.  Yes, even the clothing looked like it moved. 

I made Gandalf out of blue plasticine.  He had a huge hat and a walking stick.  He looked just like himself.  I made Bilbo.  I made the dragon with each scale separate.  I can't remember the names of the characters now, but I remember what they look like.  Finally, I made my masterpiece: Gollum.  He was awesome and creepy and slimy and PERFECT.  You know the Gollum from the movie version of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy?  Yeah, that Gollum was my idea.  Oh sure, they didn't consult me, but they READ. MY. MIND!!!

I kept the playing pieces in a box after the assignment was marked.  All lined up in a row.  Sometimes we would take them out and play the game, but most of the time I just looked at them and marvelled in their beauty.  Oh, and my talent.  Don't forget that.

Somehow, in the years, the box disappeared.  It was tossed or lost somewhere.  I would like to recreate them, but I know they would never be as perfect as when I was twelve.

H-E-double ones and the tsarina

This continues NaBloPoMo: a daily post of stories of my life - 33 years in 30 days. The tenth instalment is here.


The year I turned eleven, I had the worst teacher imaginable.  He made my life a horrible place to be.  Myself and one other student in the class were his examples and he made sure we knew it.  I've written about him before, so I'm not going to do so again.  I've given him enough power over my life.  He did teach me one good thing -- how to throw a football with the correct spiral -- so I guess it wasn't all bad.

That year, there was a light in my miserable existence.  That light was Social Studies.  My Grade 5 teacher Mrs Gellner came into our Grade 6 class every other day and taught us about history.  More specifically, Russian history.

A few times a week, I learned about tsars and tsarinas.  I learned about the magic of a political time where -- although most of the country suffered -- the royal family flourished and then was snuffed out.  It started my intense passion about crimes and violence and true stories of both.  I started collecting books on Anastasia the tsar's daughter who got away and created stories in my head of how horrible it must have been.  I read all I could about Anna Anderson who claimed to be the duchess herself.*   I was amazed by the bravery this young girl showed at living through the worst things imaginable and coming out the other side to show her persecutors they could not end her.

Now, of course, I look at this and think there was perhaps a correlation between my miserable school year and how intensely I looked towards Anastasia.  However, to this day, I am still enthralled by the story.  It could be my historian genes.




*This was later proved to be untrue, but I wish it had been.

Age 10: When my gracefullness came to light

This continues NaBloPoMo: a daily post of stories of my life - 33 years in 30 days. The nineth instalment is here.


What's red and white and red and white rolling down a hill?

Me.  When I was 10.  In red gym shorts and a white tee shirt.

My family used to go camping.  We loved camping.  And by that, I mean, we went camping, slept 6 people in a tent, it rained, food burned, and we all got a hundred bug bites.  After one horrible and fateful trip, my mother vetoed any further camping trips.  But, that's a story for another day.

When I was ten, we went to Saskatchewan Landing to go camping with my cousin's family.  Saskatchewan Landing is the only place in the province that has anything resembling big hills.  In that there is any rise at all.

My brother, myself and my cousin, Keith were roaming the hills one day being silly.  We started to go back towards our parents and headed back down the hill.  I did what every kid does when going down a hill.  I started to walk.  That changed into a trot.  Which changed into a run.  And finally, it changed into a downward spiral I had no control over. 

I tripped.  Of course I tripped.  I can't walk across an empty room without falling.  But, this time, I tripped while I was running out of control down a hill.  Head over heels I tumbled down the entire hill.  I hit numerous rocks and landed in a cactus pile.

I screamed bloody murder.  And then I realized I was bleeding and screamed even more.  I had landed head first on a very sharp rock.  I was bleeding.  I WAS DYING.  I screamed at my cousin who came down the hill quickly without falling and helped me get back to my parents who were not far away.

With a beach towel pressed to my head, we made our way to the nearest hospital.  I got stitches in my head, antibiotics for my cuts, and a lot of attention.  It wasn't until I got back that I realized my trauma had also been a great source of entertainment for my family.  It was my brother and cousin who came up with the riddle that plagued me for years.

Nine

This continues NaBloPoMo: a daily post of stories of my life - 33 years in 30 days. The eighth instalment is here.


Nine does not seem interesting to me.  I had my first crush during the beginning of that year.  A crush on a wonderfully good looking boy who remained that way until... well, I've looked him up on Facebook and he's still hot.

I entered Grade 4 with the shortest teacher ever.  I outgrew her almost immediately.  She was adorable.  We had one guy who was an entire foot taller than her.  I used to chase him around with perfume samples at recess until he almost cried.

That winter we made Santas out of old Reader's Digests.  After everything I have ever done or made, it is one thing of which I remember every step.  I could make those Santas in my sleep.  Which is weird because I've never made it again.

This is essentially all I remember about being nine.  Wow, I really hope my life improved after this.

Eight and Awkward

This continues NaBloPoMo: a daily post of stories of my life - 33 years in 30 days. The sixth instalment is here.



I was a really cute kid.  And then I turned 8.  I do not know what happened, but suddenly I looked like I had been beaten with the awkward stick.  I went from really cute with long hair to this:

What is with the constant need for ruffles? 

Also, am I on a wagon train to Oregon?  That is the only way to explain the gingham.

When I was 8, I was in Grade 3 with Mrs. B. She was a great British lady with an awesome accent and a no-nonsense way about her.  I loved Grade 3.  Here are the things I remember: We were taught to make bread one day (Mom taught us).  One day we did cross stitch projects.  (Mom taught us).*  We did a lot of plays for show-and-tell. 

Lyn, me, Aaron, Candy and Krista

Hey, Lyn. It was my birthday. You didn't need to be in the picture too.  

Thanks for stealing my thunder. Turd.

I had three best friends when I was 8. Aaron was the teeny little boy who had announced to the whole (okay, all of Grade 2) that I was huge.  Candy was next.  She was the smartest girl in school.   Then, there was Krista.  She was the nicest girl ever and lived down the street.

I started playing the piano that year.  Mom started to teach me, but we soon realized that she hated me and I hated her when she did that.  So, I went to lessons with Mrs. Guggenheim down the street and Mom loved me again and I loved her.  Unfortunately, I had no rhythm and sausage fingers (thanks Dad) so piano wasn't much my thing. 

I can still play "Everything I do, I do for you" by Bryan Adams and "Right Here Waiting For You" by Richard Marx.  Oh, and "Fur Elise" but that is all.

Otherwise, being 8 was about riding bikes and buying an entire dollar of one cent gum.  And being awkward.  But that was more about being 8 through 33.



*Seriously Mom, didn't they have Grade 3 when you were in school?  You had to hog mine?

Seven: Moving to the littlest big city and finding out I was ginormous.

This continues NaBloPoMo: a daily post of stories of my life - 33 years in 30 days. The sixth instalment is here.


The year I turned seven we moved.  My dad got a fancy job with the government in the big ol' metropolis of Regina.  We packed up one day in November and arrived like thieves in the night.  I still remember going in the back door of the Vagabond Inn (which is now a Travellodge, but has the same carpets) and sneaking down the hallway to our rooms.  It felt a lot like we were refuges hiding in the dark of night, but now when I look back it is more likely that the sun set early in the winter, and that we were all tired from travel and impatient to get to bed.

Yes, ruffles on my shirt, white stockings and tan sandals. What of it?

I had a dream a few months before we moved.  In my dream, I sat on the floor mat beside my bed.  It was a latch hook rug -- white with pink roses.  Oh, and it could fly.  At the time I was sure it was real, but now my jaded self admits it might have been a dream.  But I sat on my mat and I flew.  I flew to my new house and I took a tour.  I picked out which room would be mine and I looked at the neighbourhood.  I was very calm about moving after that because I had already been there.  The night we got to the house, I knew exactly where my room was.

Me in my room. Yes, I still had a blankie at age 7. 

 They didn't make me put it away until I was 12.

The next day, I started school.  I wore my best dress because at my school it was cool to wear dresses.  I walked into my class that first day (after snottily announcing to the principal I was not 17 like he thought) and landed in the middle of big city terror.  The girls wore pants. PANTS!  And the boys had weird haircuts with strange little braided tails.  The teacher looked like a hippopotamus and was lining kids up in front of the class.

Hippo Teacher was demonstrating the difference between small and big.  A little boy stood at one end.  There were three girls in the middle and then a tall lanky blond boy.  The teacher happily decided to include me and was pleased to find out that I was over a head taller than the tallest boy in the class.  I stood beside the blond boy and was mortified.  The littlest boy at the other end peered around our classmates in awe.  "You're HUGE." he said in an awed whisper.

This was going to be a great year.

Now We Are Six: The year I got in trouble and Lyn ruined Christmas

This continues NaBloPoMo: a daily post of stories of my life - 33 years in 30 days. The fifth instalment is here.


The year I turned six was all about learning.

I learned to skate that winter in our backyard.  Like any good Canadians, my parents flooded our garden that year and created a skating rink.  My mother was a wonderful skater -- she grew up playing hockey with her brothers and dad -- so she wanted us to learn.  I learned the basics: how to push ahead and how to fall down when I wanted to stop.  That is all I ever learned.  Unfortunately, my skating ability more mimicked my father.

Poindexter, Little Sis and Farrah.

That fall was the start of real school, not just sandbox and sing-a-longs.  It was the start of real books and reading, real knowledge and exploration.  I had a wonderful teacher (Miss Something-or-other) who I was convinced was the oldest and most wise woman ever.  She might have been in her 40s, but at the time I was certain she was near death.  Except that she had a boyfriend which totally blew my mind because in my head you were either married or never-ever-would-be married.

Walking on a ladder 

-- or, escaping our captors by walking over a canyon.

I learned two hard lessons from Miss What's-Her-Face.  The first was a lesson I didn't understand until much later.  One day in class, we had been sitting in the reading corner and were told to head back to our assigned desks.  Myself and my two partners in crime -- Lane and Danny -- decided to crab crawl back to our desks.  We thought it would be fun.  So, with our arms and legs keeping our backs off the floor, we toddled back to our desks.  The teacher was surprisingly upset with us and made us stand up, return to the mat and walk back like normal.

What did I learn from this, you ask?  I learned that even if it doesn't hurt anyone, being silly and different in a public situation is not allowed.  You are expected to act a certain way and to do otherwise is to disrespect the way society works.  It is like Bender says "If he gets up, we'll all get up. It will be anarchy." 

The second lesson I learned from Miss That-Lady had to do with how you treat people in the world.  In a good way.  She taught me that you stick up for people when you need to -- even against someone you love.

I learned to ride a bike that fall.  A real bike without wheels like babies use.  Dad and I spent what felt like hours (for me in a good way, for him... not likely as much) with him running behind me holding my bike seat, keeping me from falling.  Eventually I sped away from him, free of the need to have a steady helping had, and (like I do with everything else) ran smack into a parked truck. 

Now please remember that the following is what happened in my mind.  There is a distinct possibility this is not how it went in real life.  But I was 6.  And traumatized  The parked truck belonged to my teacher's boyfriend.  He came outside and yelled at me for hitting his truck.  He yelled about his truck and his paint and how I should not be riding on the sidewalk.  My teacher came out and stood near him.  She told him that I was learning to ride my bike and that I had not done any damage.  She touched my shoulder and said she had seen how well I had ridden.  She said she was proud of how well I did.  Then she took her boyfriend back into the house and I went back home.  I loved her even more for that.

*********************************

That winter I learned the final hard lesson of the year.  My youngest sister, Lyn was born in December.  She was small and cute and we all liked her.  And then she ruined Christmas.  I still haven't quite forgiven her.

Me holding Lyn. In my baby blanket. 

See what a good sister I was?

Lyn was a baby and, being a baby, was overly needy.  She required a lot of attention and regular feedings and caused my parents to lose a lot of sleep.  This made them forgetful.  In fact, my parents were so tired that on Christmas Eve, they forgot to be Santa -- thus ruining my childhood forever.

Christmas morning, my brother and I dragged Ky down the stairs toward the Christmas tree.  For the last 5 years, Santa had left stockings full of treats and candy and gifts and good things.  We were pumped. We rounded the corner into the living room and stopped dead.  There was nothing.  Santa had not brought us stockings.  He had not brought us candy.  He had not brought us gifts.  Obviously, we were on the Naughty List. (I blame Graeme for that.)

We went up to my parents' room and burst through the door all of us in tears.  We told them the news -- Santa didn't love us.  Then they told us the news -- it wasn't that Santa didn't love us, they didn't love us.  They explained that Santa was not real and we had been duped.  They then got all our gifts and candy out of the hiding place and spent the rest of the day trying to convince us we were loved.

I didn't buy it.

I was 5 once, and young.

This continues NaBloPoMo: a daily post of stories of my life - 33 years in 30 days. The fourth instalment is here.



As with most five year olds, this was the year I started school.  I went to one of the town's elementary schools that was within walking distance of our home.  It was a nice school of an adequate size.  I remember the entry way to the school being lined with people my size in rules of organization I did not understand.  Rubber boots littered the hallway and coloured paper was stuck to every wall.  I am sure the days were full of learning and fun.  But I remember sitting on a red carpet and being made to feel weird that I could count to 100 and read by myself.

Me in my "first day of school" dress.  

It became a tradition that all of us wore the same dress on our first day of Kindergarten.  

Well, except Grae.  It just wasn't "pretty" enough.

When I was five, my world was very small.  I had my family -- mom, dad, siblings.  I had a few friends in the neighbourhood and a church we drove an hour to each week.  It was the days of simplicity.  Parents opened their doors and allowed their children out to play without every worrying what dangers were lurking.  In my world, there was only one girl in the bay behind our house that I was not allowed to play with.

Her name was Kelly.  She was 7 and got "into trouble" a lot.  I don't know what "trouble" means to a 7 year old, but to me I assumed she didn't listen and had a lot of tantrums.  She had blond hair in a flippy ponytail.  She said bad words like "damn" and "hell".  She was someone I wasn't supposed to spend time with, so of course, I did.

The gang of three. Me, Grae and our pet orangutan Ky. 

One day, Kelly and Jennifer and I found a bird with a broken wing. It was a chickadee, or at least in my mind now, it was a chickadee. It hopped around pathetically in fear and frustration.  We were small and it never dawned on us that things might get broken and die.  We gathered a box with soft leaves and grass in it and gently placed the baby bird in the middle.  It was close to supper so Jennifer and I both were called away to our respective homes.  Kelly didn't have anyone who called her, so she sat on the steps with the bird in her lap and she cried.

I don't know what happened to that bird.  Or to Kelly for that matter.  But in my head, she is still a little girl sitting on that step with the grief of an adult in her heart.