Sucker(s)

So nice! Sigh.

I played hooky.

Once.

For those of you who don't know, 'hooky' is a term coined to describe being absent without leave.

In my case, I was absent from school.

And I didn't do it alone.

Maybe I should explain . . .

We were in grade twelve. For the last semester of my grade twelve year, I lived with Debbie's family, the Joneses, and attended school in the town of Magrath.

Our school bus arrived promptly every morning at 7:30.

After an hour and a half commute, we would arrive, sleepy and slightly dishevelled at the Magrath High School to begin a day of instruction.

One morning, one of us really wasn't in the mood.

Oh, she got up all right.son

Got ready.

Endured the bus ride.

But, standing there in front of those venerable halls of learning, she balked.

“I don't wanna go,” Debbie said.

I stared at her. “What?”

“I don't wanna go,” she said again.

“Oh.” What did one say to that?

“Let's play hooky!”

“Debbie, we can't play hooky!”

“Yes we can! We've never done it and the semester's nearly over!”

She had a point. Both of us had been exemplary students the entire four months.

Which is precisely what my father expected.

“Deb, my dad would kill me!”

“C'mon, Diane, it's only one day!”

I looked at her.

Have I mentioned that Debbie was the only reason I ever got into trouble?

Well she was . . .

At that point, our friend Leonard, he of the pick-up truck, appeared.

“Leonard! Take us to Lethbridge!”

Leonard looked at Debbie. Then he looked at me.

I shrugged.

“Okay,” he said.

And she got other people into trouble, too.

The three of us trailed out of the school and into Leonard's pick-up.

There was plenty of room on the wide seat.

We settled in for the 12-minute ride to Lethbridge.

For a guy, Leonard had a surprisingly clean truck. No trash rolling around.

In fact, the only thing on the dashboard was his brand shiny new 'Western Horseman' magazine.

“Oooh!” I said, picking it up. “Is this the new issue?”

“Yep. Just picked it up this morning!”

“Do you mind if I read it?”

“Nope. Just don't damage it.”

Leonard took good care of his things. Obviously magazines were no exception.

“I'll be careful.” I sat back happily while the two of them chattered.

Lethbridge is a city of about 75,000 just to the north of Magrath.

Not a huge city, but one with several malls and lots of shopping.

We spent the day going from one to another.

And having fun.

At one of our early stops, Debbie and I bought large lollipops.

Large.

On long sticks.

We spent the rest of the time . . . ummm . . . licking.

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to catch our bus. No sense in proclaiming that we had just spent the day . . . somewhere other than where we should have been.

Leonard stopped his truck.

“This has been fun!” I told him. “C'mon Debbie, we'd better hurry!” I slid out.

At that point, a friend of Leonard's walked up to his window. “Hey, Leonard, where were you today?”

Distracted, Leonard turned to answer his friend.

Debbie started to follow me.

“Oh, my sucker,” she said, turning back.

Now Debbie had gotten tired of holding the heavy sucker and had laid it down. Not certain of the surface of the dash of Leonard's truck, she had chosen to lay it down on his copy of the Western Horseman.

That same brand new copy he had been so protective of earlier.

She grabbed the long stick.

Only to realize that the magazine came with it.

“Uh-oh,” Debbie said.

Not only had the sucker stuck to the cover of the magazine, but it had also stuck the pages together.

“Ummm . . .” she glanced at Leonard, still engrossed in his conversation. “We'll just leave that,” she said, and slid out after me. “See ya, Leonard!” She slammed the door.

Leonard, still talking, waved cheerfully and the two of us headed for our bus.

Leonard never mentioned his sucker-stuck magazine.

The one he obviously never got to read.

And after he had toted two girls all over Lethbridge.

Some fellow hookey-players are just plain nice.

Playgirl(s)

College years are for making all sorts of mistakes.

Right?

Well, that's what I tell myself.

But this is one I didn't make.

My roommate, Debbie did.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Maybe I should explain . . .

Debbie and I were browsing through the convenience store.

Both of us were suffering from chocolate withdrawal.

We needed a fix.

There was a magazine rack near the checkout line.

Debbie was glancing over the offerings.

“Hey!” she said. “There's a magazine here called 'Playgirl'!

I looked at her. “I thought it was called 'Playboy'.

“Well, there's that one, too.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“What do you suppose 'Playgirl' is?”

The guy behind the counter spoke up. “It's pictures of naked men instead of naked women,” he said.

We stared at him.

Surely not.

I should explain here that both of us were children of the country. The words, 'sheltered', 'naive' and just plain 'dumb' come to mind.

“I've never seen a naked man,” Debbie said.

“Me neither,” I said. Something I was blissfully happy to continue for a good long time.

“Hmm.”

I should mention, here that when Debbie said, 'Hmm' in just that way, anything was possible.

Anything.

“I'm buying it,” she said, reaching for the cellophane-wrapped magazine.

“Ick!” I said. I was ignored.

She shoved it into her bag with her chocolate bars and we headed home.

At this time, we were sharing a two-bedroom basement apartment with two other girls, both as unworldly as we were. And neither of which was at home.

Debbie set her shopping bag on the apartment's only desk, which stood in our roommates' room and pulled out the magazine.

Then she stripped off the cellophane.

“Okay,” she said. “Ready?”

I shook my head. Again, I was ignored.

She flipped back the cover.

The magazine fell open to the centrefold.

Gasp!

I caught a brief glimpse of a handsome young man leaning casually against the doorway of what looked like an abandoned house.

Fortunately, I got no further.

Roommate slapped the book shut.

“Well, that's that,” she said, her face bright pink.

She shoved the magazine under the pillow of the nearest bed.

Episode over, we forgot about it.

Until a couple of days later when our roommate returned from her weekend home and crawled into bed.

We heard a shriek.

Then silence.

“Uh-oh,” Debbie said.

There was a knock at our door.

Debbie answered.

“What is this doing in my bed?” The magazine, held distastefully by finger and thumb, was extended.

“Oh,” Debbie said. “Umm. What makes you think we had anything to do with that?”

Our roommate gave her a 'Nice try, Debbie' look, dropped the magazine at our feet and disappeared.

Debbie picked it up and threw it into the trash.

Episode truly over.

But to this day, I wonder what was happening during the moment of silence after the roommate discovered the magazine . . .

You learn a lot of things during your college years.

One way or another.

Pudding on a String

A repost for a busy day . . .

Enjoy!

Daddy, George and Me.
I'm the one in the dress . . . and curlers.

My Dad had made me a new toy.
It was a large - very large (about 5 inches in diameter) button on a string.
Intriguing.
You would thread a long, heavy string through the holes of the button and knot it. Then you would push the button to the centre and grip one of the two loops of the string in each hand.
Now you held something that resembled . . . a button on a string.
But then came the exciting part. If you wound up the button, you could pull the string out away from the button on each side and it would unwind and rewind the opposite way.
If you handled it just right, you could keep it going.
All day.
Which I did.
And it created a bit of a breeze if you got it going very fast.
Which I also did.
Enough background.
Mom had just made a large pot of pudding and set it on the cupboard to cool.
I was waiting, rather impatiently for it to be cool enough for me to eat.
That was when I got my, to date, greatest idea.
My button could generate a breeze. It would cool the pudding and I could eat it that much faster!
I pushed a stool over to the cupboard and climbed up.
Carefully, I manoeuvred my button over the pudding and pulled the strings.
It worked!
For a moment.
Until I relaxed my hands on the ‘rewind’ or maybe the ‘unwind’ stroke.
Then, it dipped and skimmed the top of the scalding hot pudding straight into my face.
And my hair.
And the ceiling.
The covering properties of a button on a string have never been fully explored. I think they should.
I believe Mom was cleaning up pudding from the most impossible places for months.
Long after I had healed.
P.S. I still like pudding. I just prefer it inside me.

Don't forget to enter the draw for a set of my books. Carving Angels and Kris Kringle's Magic.
Bring Christmas home early this year! You can enter by becoming a follower of my blog and leaving a comment. Go ahead. Don't be shy!

Titles of Authority

I attended a wonderful college at Rexburg, Idaho for one golden semester in the fall of 1973.

It was as long as I could manage to be away from my family.

Have I mentioned I'm a wuss?

Well, I am.

I was so homesick during those endless four months that I could have died.

I even wrote an article about being homesick that was picked up by the local paper.

I still think the tear-stains on the paper were the real sell.

Moving on . . .

During my time at college, I studied Physical Education.

Really.

I actually took classes in Soccer, Interpretive Dance, Track and Field, and Swimming.

Did you know they offer college level courses in those things?

Yeah. I didn't either.

It was a fun semester.

To round things out, I had to take some other remedial courses.

Chosen from a list.

And including such things as . . . English Language Arts.

And one or more sciences.

Sigh.

I chose Astronomy.

Because Zoology was filled up.

For an entire semester, I studied the stars.

We even went out in the evenings and, with the help of large telescopes, mapped the heavens.

It was chilly.

But fun.

Our instructor for the class was a man named Brother Greg.

Oh, I should mention, here, that this was a Christian school and that we called each other brother and sister.

Even the instructors.

Soo . . . Brother Greg.

Brother Greg was a wonderful man.

Kind.

Patient.

Let's face it, when you are shepherding a group of seventy or more students around, you'd have to have a good dose of both.

And he answered every one of the questions I put to him.

Smiling quietly and nodding whenever my hand shot up accompanied by, “Brother Greg! Brother Greg!”

I enjoyed my Astronomy class.

I even earned a reputable grade.

And it was then that my world stood still.

As well as all of the stars and planets I had been studying.

Because when Brother Greg handed out our final papers, with our grade prominently displayed, I got the biggest shock of the semester.

Brother Greg's name was Brother Nelson.

Brother Nelson?

Where on earth did I get Greg . . .? Oh. Brother Greg Nelson.

On the very first day of class, when I had been writing things down, I had started to write his name and was interrupted.

Thus, he became Brother Greg.

To this day, I wonder how I went through an entire semester without realizing that everyone . . . everyone . . . in the class was calling him something else.

I know the class was Astronomy, but was my head literally in the clouds?

Because he was such a nice man, he never corrected the weird student from Canada who insisted on calling him by his first name.

And neither did the other sixty-nine kids in the class.

Perhaps they snickered behind their hands whenever my hand went up.

Maybe (and this is a faint hope) they never noticed.

Oh, well, as least my grades were good.

Today, I couldn't tell you a single thing taught that semester.

Except for what I learned on the very last day.

And that, I simply can't forget.

Don't forget to enter the draw for a set of my books. Carving Angels and Kris Kringle's Magic.
Bring Christmas home early this year! You can enter by becoming a follower of my blog and leaving a comment. Go ahead. Don't be shy!

Spooktacular Blog Hop

The biggest blog hop of the year!!
Over 400 participants!

And I'm doing something I've never done before . . .
Giving away a 'set' of my books.
That's right.
Carving Angels and Kris Kringle's Magic.
Together for the first time!
And all you have to do to win them is be a member of my blog and make a comment.
That's it.
It's that easy.
Become a member and make a comment.
Good luck!

Carving Angels and Kris Kringle's Magic. Together for the first time!

Fifty Things We Learned This Weekend

Two of our granddaughters stayed with us for the weekend.
While their mother, a professional face-painter, was facepaint-er-ing.
It was a wonderful weekend.
We learned:

1. Little sisters shouldn't sit on big sisters when both are trying to go to sleep.
2. Big sisters shouldn't sit on little sisters . . . ever.
3. Play-dough doesn't taste very good, but it's still better than whatever Gramma just fixed for supper.
4. Whatever Sister is playing with is infinitely better than what I have.
5. Clothes are for spreading all over the floor.
6. Especially clean ones.
7. Sigh.
8. One can sit through any boring church meeting if there is food and/or things to colour.
9. One should never, ever colour one's sister.
10. Even if she would look better.
11. Water in a bathtub is only the beginning.
12. Fireplace ashes can make one's hands . . . and clothes . . . remarkably black.
13. Hot dogs and ice cream make anything better.
14. Especially ice cream.
15. As long as Grampa doesn't try to steal it.
16. Stories with Gramma must be followed by stories with Grampa.
17. Because he can do the voices.
18. Rocking mooses can buck you off.
19. Rocking stools can do the same.
20. When Grampa is holding the remote, we watch what he's watching.
21. Even if it is boring.
22. One can hide from Gramma for incredible amounts of time if one is quiet.
23. Or falls asleep.
24. If Grampa says something a two-year-old doesn't want to hear, one can just stare straight ahead.
25. For hours.
26. Almost six-year-olds know e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.
27. And are happy to share it.
28. Especially if it means they don't have to eat their supper.
29. Toys are lots of fun to get out.
30. But not so much fun to put away.
31. Climbing is acceptable only if one doesn't fall.
32. See #13.
33. One should always know where one's head is in proximity to anything.
34. Tables. Chairs. Walls. Doors. Sisters. 
35. See #13.
36. Again.
37. One can do all the things in a pretty church dress that one can do in jeans and a T-shirt.
38. Until Gramma catches you.
39. If one kicks her foot just right, one can project one's shoe great distances.
40. And even hit one's sister.
41. In the eye.
42. Gramma doesn't like it when one sneezes and then rubs one's hand across one's face.
43. But do it anyway.
44. Socks are made for hiding, especially when one is getting dressed for Church.
45. Shoes, ditto.
46. Grampas are good for playing ponies
47. Or Troll-Under-The Bridge.
48. Grammas are good for dancing.
49. Both are good for cuddling.
50. But they get tired fast.

Weekend's over. I'm going back to bed.

28th Anniversary of my 29th Birthday

Early in October, I celebrated the 28th anniversary of my 29th birthday.
Go ahead.
Do the math.
We'll wait . . .
It was a wonderful time.
Good friends.
Good food prepared by someone else.
Beautiful beaches.
Fun shopping.
And amazing activities.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I just had to share.

The view from our bedroom window in the day.

Same view at night. 

The local  groundskeeper. Keeping the grounds.

The view from the beach.

Drinks with friends on said beach. 

My Birthday dinner with my good friends.

My Sweetie and me. Snapped as I was eating the blueberries from my lemonade. Mmmm. 

They are very friendly down in Mexico.

Very friendly indeed.

Please, please come home with me. I have a bathtub!

Today, it snowed in Edmonton.
Need I say more?
Sigh.

Harvest for the Chicken(s)

A repost. Because it's Autumn. 

Harvest. 
A mellow time. 
A time to catch one’s breath and simply appreciate the bounty and euphoria of the season. 
When the tireless efforts of every farmer in Alberta culminates finally in the production of golden streams of wheat, barley, canola and corn. Truckloads of peas, potatoes and sugar beets. 
When sheds and storage buildings are full of the warm, sweet smell of new-mown hay and grasses, carefully dried.
And on the Stringam Ranch, we, too had our harvest.
There was the bounty of endless (and I do mean endless, but that is another story) rows of garden produce to be brought in. Carrots, peas, beans, corn, turnips, potatoes, parsnips, beets, cucumbers. And many other things that a four-year-old simply couldn't name, though they did taste good. 
Oh, and chickens.
Chickens?
Because the chicken coop was situated near the garden, to me, the chickens were part and parcel of the fall harvest. Didn't we eat them? Didn't we ‘produce’ chicken at the same time as all of the other food? 
It just made sense.
The slaughtering of the chickens on the Ranch was a huge production. I can picture even now the great tubs of scalding hot water to loosen the feathers. The teams of choppers, pickers, and . . . innards removers. Everyone with a sharp knife or axe. Or with rubber-gloved hands working in the scalding water. 
It was every parent’s dream for their small child. 
Not. 
But there I was. Bouncing from group to group. Being forcibly removed from the more dangerous situations. Slowly getting covered in feathers.
Most probably looking like a large chicken myself.
When some of the more stringent voices hollering at me to keep away had finally effected obedience, and my initial fascination with viewing the death throes of the chickens had worn off, I was at a loose end. 
Not a good thing for a four-year-old. 
Mischief happens. 
Not my fault.
The bodies of the chickens were systematically hauled away, so a closer study of them had proven impossible, but the heads . . .! Those were still there, lying forgotten near the chopping stump. They were piling up, obviously needing to be disposed of.
Please remember – I was a child of the Country. 
Capital ‘C’.
One by one, I began picking them up and throwing them, unceremoniously, into the river, only a few feet away. 
Hmmm. This was fun! 
They would bob for a few seconds, then sink into the milky depths, perhaps to be eaten by some unseen fish, or maybe one of the monsters that our dog, Mike, was sure lived there.
I found a paint can lid. Great! Now I could throw the heads out four at a time. Much more efficient. 
For some time, this obviously essential errand kept me occupied – to the vast relief of those who mistakenly thought they had more important jobs. I would collect the heads on my little ‘plate’, walk over to the river and . . . give them the Alberta version of a sea burial. 
It was genius. \
To a four-year-old.
Then the fateful, life altering event. I picked up a head, deposited it on my plate . . . 
AND. THE. BEAK. OPENED! 
No word of a lie. It opened! It was possessed! It was going to get me!
Straight into the air, the plate went. 
By the time it and it’s contents had hit the ground, I was already halfway to the house screaming, and I quote, “THE CHICKEN HEAD! THE CHICKEN HEAD!” 
Not very inventive, true, but effective. 
It stopped the entire production line for several seconds. Mostly, I admit, so the people could laugh, but why haggle over details? 
Mom consoled me, between chuckles, and all was smoothed over.
Except for one thing. From then on, I was afraid of chickens. I learned to wrestle 2000 pound bulls without turning a hair, but tell me to collect eggs from under a 3 pound pile of feathers and I was a quivering mass of . . . something soggy and cowardly. 
My family still laughs.

There is an addendum to all of this. When my husband and I were on our honeymoon, we decided to make a day trip to the Calgary Zoo. 
Fun! 
There was a display of emus. And a machine that dispensed grain to feed them. 
Put in a quarter, get a handful of feed. All went well to that point. I approached the emu with my little handful of grain. It moved closer. I moved closer. It looked over the fence. I looked at it. It’s beak opened. 
And my new husband was suddenly staring at the handful of grain that magically appeared in his hand.
I was halfway to the car screaming . . . 
You get the picture.

Photographic Evolution

I received my first camera the Christmas I was nine.

Together with one film.

A twelve exposure.

I hoarded those pictures judiciously. Carefully.

Only taking pictures of very, very special occasions.

And then, only when conditions were especially perfect.

Not.

I used up that first film in 32 seconds flat.

We had pictures of wrapping paper.

Kids admiring just-opened gifts nestled in a pile of wrapping paper.

And Mom stuffing more of said wrapping paper into the trash.

Okay, I admit it. Wrapping paper was the most exciting thing I could come up with.

Which says something about my life.

I should also mention, here, that my camera also came with a packet of little bulbs that you could press, one-by-one, into the flash. After they had been used, you pressed a little button and they would be forcibly ejected. This was an especially handy feature when brothers were hanging about. It’s amazing just how fast a brother can move when he has been shot with a little bulb of flaming-hot, molten glass.

Just FYI.

Moving on . . .

For the next few years, I snapped pictures of friends.

Doing . . . stuff.

Of pets.

Mine and other peoples.

And vacations.

Most of them blurry and unrecognisable.

“Okay, this is a shot of Great Aunt Maud. Or of Old Faithful. Take your pick.”

In college, I was handed a ‘real’ camera.

With dials and buttons and switches.

And sent forth into the hinterland to ‘take some shots’.

Yikes.

I will admit that my picture-taking had improved.

Vastly.

Now, people were easily differentiated from, say, cakes.

And my basketball players looked like basketball players.

Not the LCC square-dancing team they were usually mistaken for.

On or off the court.

In fact, my picture-taking skills had improved so much that I was given the position of official photographer in our Journalism class.

A promotion that came with its own dark room.

Yessiree. On any given Tuesday evening, I could be found in my darkroom.

Developing.

Now why does everyone smile when I say that?

It’s true.

I was developing.

Okay, yes, I usually had a young man in there with me.

But, inevitably, their idea of what goes on in a darkroom and mine were vastly different.

Hmmm. I think I know now why they looked so surprised when I told them to, and I quote, “Sit over there and stay out of my way!”

Back to my story . . .

Following college, I was given a ‘point-and-shoot’. A camera that guaranteed perfect pictures. Without any input from me.

Perfect.

For several years, it faithfully recorded early years of marriage. Baby arrivals. And family life.

With one ore two side trips into ‘someplace green’.

Until that momentous occasion when it died.

Never to go again.

After a normal grieving period, I got another point and shoot.

Digital.

No more films.

No more trips to the store, picking up or dropping off.

That little camera and I were inseparable.

Until recently.

When I got my new phone.

This is why.

Edmonton, Alberta at sunset.

I will admit that I sometimes think back to my little flashbulbs.

And the ejector that was so effective.

But only fleetingly.

Time Enough at Grandma's

Some of our treasures . . .

Many of our children have settled near us.

I can have grandchildren over whenever I want.

I'm bragging here.

Yesterday, several of my little 'monkey tribe' were over for a visit.

We laughed and giggled.

Ate bananas.

Created works of art with stickers.

And had sword fights.

It was here that we came to grief.

But not in the way you may imagine.

Let me explain . . .

Their mother dropped them off to play at Grandma's while she ran some errands.

All was well.

We played upstairs.

We moved our play downstairs.

Swords came out of the toy box.

Okay, yes. They play with swords.

Would it help if I said that they were constructed of foam?

Moving on . . .

The two oldest had just squared off against each other.

And Mom came around the corner.

Four-Year-Old's mouth dropped open.

“Mom!” he said indignantly. “We just got started playing!”

Apparently, there's an acceptable length of time when one is playing at Grandma's house.

Brief is definitely not enough.

It's a very good thing.

Lock Up Your Sons

Stringams. And one addition. The boy, second from the right is Graham, the son of one of Dad's college buddies.
He was staying with us for the summer.
Poor kid.

The Stringam ranch was twenty miles from the town of Milk River.

And nine from the nearest neighbor.

Admittedly, it took many, many people to keep the homestead wheels turning.

People we associated with on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.

Many people employed there had families who lived with them on the ranch.

And these families had kids.

That we Stringam kids played with.

So none of us really lacked for company.

But when Dad received notice that someone, maybe one of his old classmates or a friend from his bachelor days, was stopping by with his family for a visit, it was a cause for some excitement.

My first question was, inevitably, “Are there any girls my age?” Because we lived so far from civilization, visits usually lasted for days rather than hours. Thus, if there happened to be peers in the anticipated company, I was set for a very good time indeed.

Usually I was answered with a non-committal, “ I'm not sure. I think they have a couple of kids. They might be around your age.”

I would scoff quietly. How could my parents not know the most important fact, like whether there were any possible playmates in the crowd of eagerly awaited arrivals?

Pfff. I've said it before. Parents are weird.

Inevitably the guests would arrive.

Most of the time, their kids were pretty close in age to at least some of us.

And after five minutes, it didn't matter. We all played together anyway.

Time moved forward and things . . . changed.

Oh, we still had guests stopping by the ranch and said guests still stayed for a few days with us.

And brought their kids with them.

But now that I was twelve, my interest in their children was slightly different.

Now, when a visit was announced, my question was, “Is there anyone my age?”

Notice the slight difference?

I’ll say it again. “Is there anyone my age?”

This is significant.

Because I was no longer looking for girls to play with. Now I was looking for boys to flirt with.

And I thought I was being subtle about it.

Mmmm. Boys.

But looking back, I remember Dad’s grin whenever he told me, “I think they have a couple of sons. Probably a little older than you.”

He could read me like a book.

Probably a good thing I was never a gambler.

Or that there were boys in the poker pot.

Ladies, Don Your Jammies

Studying for final exams is hard work.

Time consuming.
Often lasting into the wee hours of the morning.
And even, at times, throughout the night.
It was exam time.
Debbie and I were cramming, comfortably dressed in warm pyjamas.
The clock struck three AM and there was no end in sight.
Time for a pick-me-up.
Food was indicated.
Preferably hot food prepared by someone else.
Someplace else.
Now, I should mention, here, that I always wore a long nightgown. High at the neck, full sleeved. Lovingly made by my mother of dark red flannel.
Disclosing nothing.
Debbie was also dressed in flannel. But there all similarity ended. Her flannel was in the form of ‘jammies’.
Pyjamas that had once consisted of a button-front jacket and long pants.
The jacket was now held shut by one last, tenacious button.
The pants had long since ceased to even approximate reaching the ankle and were now permanently formed to the bend of Debbie’s knee.
She loved them.
But fashionable, they weren’t.
Back to my story . . .
Our minds were too fuzzy from studying to even consider changing our clothes.
Okay, yes, there could be a valid argument made for said fuzzy minds operating machinery, ie. the car, but it was 3 am. Who would listen?
I threw on the long dressing gown that my Mom had made to go over my long nightgown.
And a coat.
I was ready.
Debbie had her short car coat which reached just above her knee. Said coat left an obvious several inches of ‘jammies’ hanging below.
Hmmm . . .
She frowned slightly, then leaned over and rolled up the tell-tale flannel.
All was well.
We set out.
Now there weren’t many places open to the public in Lethbridge, Alberta at 3 AM in 1974.
But, happily, the pizza place was.
I pushed the door open.
Every head in the joint turned to look in my direction.
All two of them.
Both cops.
I smiled and waved cheerfully and they smiled back.
Then their attention turned to the girl behind me.
The one frozen in place with one hand on the door.
And a pyjama leg dangling obviously below the hem of her coat.
They stared at each other.
One of the policemen beckoned.
Debbie shook her head, backing slowly towards the car.
I frowned at her.
What was the matter?
A moment before, she had been cheerfully ready go out in public, unconventionally dressed as she was.
What made the difference?
Policemen?
I could guarantee that they had probably seen much worse than a couple of girls collecting a pizza while dressed in pyjamas.
But Debbie retreated to the car and left me to pick up the pizza by myself.
Sigh.
Jammies. Good for everything. Lounging. Studying. Sleeping.
But used for dining out only under certain circumstances.
‘Cop-less’ circumstances.
So if you’re planning a late night run to the restaurant?
Wear your nightie.

What Started Out Bad . . .

Yesterday's post about pepper/bear spray reminded me of a story.

Didn't read yesterday's post?

It's here. Go ahead. We'll wait . . .

Our second son, he of the six foot eight inches in height, has been a pillar (pun totally intended) of the local city police force for most of a decade.

But, the experiences he has gathered over all of those years, serving as one of Edmonton's finest, still haven't been able to erase the experiences of his early days of training.

Case in point:

Each new officer must demonstrate his ability to continue to work under the most trying and difficult of circumstances.

Scenarios are crafted especially to create such a premise.

One of these is designed to demonstrate how well the new officer can function after being sprayed in the face with pepper spray.

The recruit stands to one side of the exercise yard and receives, directly in the face, a full dose of pepper spray.

That would be where a lessor man, ie. me, would just lay down and die.

But this is only the beginning.

Once sprayed, the officer, nearly blind and almost incapable of breathing, must call for backup and subdue and handcuff not one, but two suspects. Then finally, he may find his way to the sink at the far side of the yard to receive the blessed spray of water to clear eyes and air passages.

It is a gruelling, trying five minutes.

And ends with said recruits silent and contemplative as they sit blinking brilliantly reddened eyes, and breathing blessed pure air.

Fortunately for them, with the completion of this test, that particular day of training is over.

Family members are allowed to come and pick them up.

My son performed well.

He thinks.

Certainly he received a passing grade.

One can only assume what must happen if a recruit receives a failing grade . . .

Moving on . . .

As he sat there, blinking and sniffing, his new wife (of less than a month) arrived to take him home.

With much sympathetic cooing, she tucked him into a corner of the couch.

With a cool compress for his poor eyes.

And a warm, snuggly blanket.

Then she made him a batch of her famous cookies.

Remember where I said that his more recent experiences haven't erased those of his early training?

Well, I didn't say they were all bad.

Just Spray Your Bears Away!

Hold your breath and shake!

It was a hot summer afternoon.

And my Husby kept a small can of bear/pepper spray in his night table.

These two statements are connected.

Maybe I should explain . . .

In Edmonton, Alberta, we have beautiful summers.

We wait all year for them.

And they are worth it.

For about three weeks of said summers, the thermometer actually reaches 'uncomfortable'.

Edmontonians head for the pools or hide in their cool, dim basements.

The latter is where our family was.

Happily watching a movie. Minding our own business.

Okay, most of us.

Our middle son, sixteen-year-old Duff, was upstairs.

Raiding the kitchen.

Our second son, Erik was also upstairs.

In the front room.

Working on a model.

Duff finished eating and started wandering around. We heard his footsteps go into our bedroom.

Then we heard the front door close as he headed outside.

Shortly afterwards, Erik, still hard at work on his model, started sneezing.

Finally, he came downstairs. “I' don't know what kind of aftershave Duffy uses,” he gasped, “but I think I'm allergic!”

And then our youngest son started to sneeze.

I turned and stared at him.

Suddenly, my Husby gasped, “My bear spray!” He looked at the rest of us. “Everybody out!” he bellowed.

Yes. Bellowed.

We held our breath and charged in a disorganized scramble for the stairs.

Once outside, we huddled in a group on the lawn and stared at the house.

“So what do we do now? I asked.

Husby shrugged. “Open all of the doors and windows and let the place air out.”

“How long will that take?”

He shrugged again. Then bravely went back inside to open what doors and windows he could.

“There – achoo! – I think – achoo! - that's got them – achoo! - for now,” he said, rejoining us.

We looked at each other.

“Who wants to go up to the store for a doughnut?” Husby asked.

A chorus of positive responses.

Ten minutes later, we were wandering around in the grocery, munching fresh doughnuts.

Yumm.

I will state here that nothing can make bad experiences go away faster than fresh doughnuts.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Moving on . . .

After about an hour, Husby suggested that we head home.

“Is it safe?” I asked.

“We'll see.”

Once more, we were huddled on our front lawn.

Once more, he bravely approached the front door.

Nothing.

He moved inside.

More nothing.

“I think it's all right,” he said.

The rest of us cautiously joined him.

I could still smell pepper.

But it was no longer overpowering.

A thorough vacuuming and dusting soon eliminated it completely.

Later that evening, Duff told us what had happened. “I was looking through Dad's night table for some tweezers,” he said. “And I saw the can of bear spray. I picked it up and, out of curiosity, pressed the button.”

He grinned. “That's all I remember. I was blind, deaf and dumb for about five minutes. All I could think of was getting outside as quickly as possible.”

“You could have hollered or something!” Husby said.

“I couldn't do anything!” Duff said.

Please note: Bear/pepper spray is effective.

Really, really effective.

There is a codicil.

Several years later, we installed hardwood in the entire upper floor of our house.

As Husby was removing the carpet in our bedroom, I could suddenly smell of pepper.

“I smell pepper!” I observed brilliantly.

Husby stopped and sniffed. “I do, too,” he said. He looked at me. “Huh. Must still be left from Duff's pepper attack.”

“But that was six years ago.”

He shrugged. “Pepper obviously lasts.”

The final lesson here?

Bear/pepper spray is effective and lasts a long time.

One application and bears and/or family members will stay away for years!

Now you know.

Making Do

Even on holidays . . .

A friend told me a story.

A true one.

About his grandfather during the food rationing days of the Second World War.

The friend's grandmother had been to the grocery store and purchased, among other things, a new tin of pepper.

Which she set on the table.

Her husband picked it up and studied it for a moment. He looked at her and said, “This pepper is half peas!”

“Oh, for heaven's sake!” she said. “I thought I looked at it!”

I should explain, here, that, during the war, creative ways of extending food were discovered and explored. They called it ersatz. I'm not sure where the name came from, but it was expressive. Many different readily available foodstuffs were dried and powdered and added to other foods not so easily come by. Corn meal, for example, was widely used.

The use of dried peas, though not as usual, was not unheard of.

Another can of pepper was procured the next day.

Again, the grandfather picked up the little tin.

“Huh,” he said. “This one is half peas, too.”

His wife snorted in disgust. “Well, there's only one kind left,” she said. “I'll try that one tomorrow.”

She did.

She proudly set the third little tin on the table in front of her husband and proceeded to get his dinner.

He picked up the tin and peered at it closely. “Yep,” he said. “Half peas.”

“What?! I looked at it! Where does it say . . .” her voice trailed off.

Her husband was pointing at the 'Pepper' part of the label. “Here,” he said. “See? P-E-P-P-E-R. Half of the letters are p's.”

Oh. P's. Not peas.

She didn't upend the tin over him or anything drastic like that.

But I'm sure they had pepper to last until the turn of the century.

This story reminded me of my Mom.

She was raised during the Depression years and knew very well the days of rationing and going without.

She learned very early to 'make do”.

And to purchase things quickly, when they became available.

Her parents bought a large, twenty-five pound tin of peanut butter, for example. Oil on peanut butter rises. The first two-thirds of the container were edible. The last third had to be run through a meat grinder to make it spreadable.

But they ate it.

Several large cans of cherry jam appeared at the local grocery.

Her Dad quickly snapped one up.

At first, cherry jam was a treat.

Served at every meal, it became a bit tiresome.

Still, it disappeared.

In her own home, Mom tried to practise what she had been taught throughout her life.

Waste not want not, she often told us.

Some of her attempts were successful.

Others . . . not so much.

When there was no milk cow on the place, she tried to extend the life of the milk container in the fridge by added powdered milk to it.

Fooling no one.

She tried purchasing the cheapest brand of peanut butter.

Unfortunately, her children hadn't been raised during the Depression and were finer-mouthed than their parents.

The cheaper peanut butter languished on the shelf.

Finally, in desperation, she bought the favourite kind. Which disappeared in a flash.

Coining the phrase, “I'm going to stop buying that peanut butter. You kids just eat it!”

She made her own roast beef sandwich spread by running cold roast beef through the meat grinder, along with some pickles. Then mixing in some mayonnaise.

That one was a hit. We kids loved sandwiches spread with beef and pickle hash.

I'm sure that, through the years, Mom saved our family a boatload of money with her careful ways.

Unfortunately, my children were even finer-mouthed than we had been.

One day, one of my kids saw her adding water to the ketchup.

I had seen her do that before. It made the ketchup a bit runnier, but still tasted okay.

The child was horrified and told all of his siblings.

And she became, forever, the grandma who put water in the ketchup.

The lesson in frugality and making do was completely lost.

Pity.

Taking Time

I have a thing about time.

I am a clock-watcher.

I have to know the time at any given moment.

Day or night.

I didn't realize just how bad I was until I was in hospital after the birth of our third son.

He was born at 9:30 in the evening and I was so keyed up that I couldn't sleep.

All night long.

I'm sure you've heard people say, “It was the longest night of my life.”

Well, that night was.

I kept listening for stirrings that would indicate the coming of day.

But in a hospital, in a maternity ward, there are constant stirrings.

Sigh.

From that day to this, I have made sure that I have some sort of time-keeper handy.

Always.

Moving on . . .

For all of his life, Dad was a rancher.

He was good at it.

Now 87, he pours his energy and meticulous nature into the making of clocks.

Beautiful, inlaid, hand-crafted, gently-chiming clocks.

Which he then sells.

Usually to me.

I now have five of them.

With one more on the way.

They, together with my tall grandfather's clock, adorn various parts of my living room.

Even their ticking is noticeable.

When they collectively chime the quarter hours and then the hours, it's pretty nearly deafening.

I love it.

And have gotten so accustomed to it that I often don't even notice.

Sort of like living next to a set of very busy train tracks.

Sort of.

Oh, I have comments.

“It sounds like a clock shop in here!”

“I feel like I'm in some sort of creepy movie!”

Okay, I'm not sure that the person who made that last statement was totally talking about the clocks.

Ahem . . .

And my favourite, “Could someone please tell me the correct time. I think it just chimed forty-two in here!”

Hey. Love me, love my clocks.

Get over it.

Details

My first purchase in walnut and purple heart

One of the newest in walnut and maple

More details in Rocky Mountain Juniper

Sharing a Treasure

A guest post at the behest of my Husby.  :)

Please excuse my intrusion into your life today — I do it only because I wanted to share a great treasure with you, a treasure with which you are already familiar.  Allow me to explain.  Diane is too modest to do this herself.

About a year ago, I was not feeling very well.  Things got progressively worse until, on New Year’s Day 2012, I checked into the hospital via a zoo-like emergency room. Over the next several days I discovered what it was like to be a blood recipient rather than a 100+donor — and I had many long hours, betwixt and between several dozen poking-and-prodding-and-traipsing-around-inside-of-me medical tests, to contemplate where I was heading.

Some time before this I had begun writing a quirky little book that had been based on a birthday gift some years previous that I had written for my beloved Diane — yes, she whose wonderful and mostly-true blog posts you come here to read every day.  I realized that, given my new physical circumstances, I needed to finish my tribute to her, as quickly as possible.  So I spent many hours, among the poking and prodding and the sleepless nights, putting some of my thoughts down.

I would like to share those thoughts with you, only so that you too may come to know my Beloved Diane a little better.  She is worth getting to know.

Thanks to Diane’s great writing and editorial and journalistic skills, she has just put my scribblings up online as an e-book.  Please go to Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/237594, and check out the title How to Live With A Woman of the Opposite Sex — or, All the Secrets of the Universe Unveiled in One Little Book.  I regret that it will cost you five bucks to have a peek at it, but I guarantee that you will find a greater treasure therein: the love story that is my Diane.

Thank you for your indulgence of my intrusion today. May each of you continue to enjoy my Diane, wherever and however you may find her.  She is a Treasure that I want to share with the world, whether I am in it or not.

Sincerely,

Grant Tolley