Sick Day

My oldest son woke with a sore throat and hot forehead, so I slouched out of my work clothes and into stay-at-home attire, called the office, gave him drugs and put him back to bed before driving my younger son to school.

My patient slept for four hours so I edited my novel, I journalled, I even sent out a query I've been avoiding for months. My son rose at noon. We had soup and crackers together then he felt well enough to kill aliens and zombies from the safety of the couch, so I gave him more drugs (after telling him 'just say no to drugs') and retreated back to my office. I am guilty of enjoying my son's sick day, of actually having a productive fulfilling time while he sucked on lozenges and wondered what his friends were doing without him.

The dog enjoyed it too, since he got not one but two runs today. Here's Bear at the park afte we abandoned my son at home for a while. The snow turned to rain, then the sun came out and I cleaned up the backyard. The grass is green and thick, almost too long to cut now with the mower. Then I picked dandelions for the guinea girls who love the sweet yellow taste of spring.

I did my Jacquie Warner video so for sure tomorrow I will have 6-pack abs (or I want my money back). Although I did eat a DQ icecream sandwich after lunch so I'm pretty sure that cancels out any good the exercise might've done. But, my son needed me and icecream made him feel better, and I didn't want him to have to suffer alone, or feel self-conscious for pigging out with me watching so I joined in. I may just win mother of the year.

After all day lounging, my son felt better, so we went to pick up his younger brother from school. They got slurpees because those make everything better. Now it's dinner (Taco time) and then we have soccer.

The son with the cold feels well enough to play so I've done something right. And I feel like I've had a day well spent, at home, with my son and just doing what I like best.

Back to work tomorrow, just in time for the long weekend and more mental health time to come.

The sun will come out...

I was having a BAD day yesterday. My manager came to me late in the day and confronted me about a trading error that could cost the firm thousands. He wanted to know why I hadn’t come to him, why I had tried to fix it myself, why I had screwed up in the first place.

He barked and I retreated, wanted to crawl under my desk, considered quitting then realized this job is actually the reason I get those regular deposits to my bank account. So I swallowed my anger over the fact that it was a system issue not an ‘I’m so dumb issue’, went home and did yoga. Tried to find my ZEN when really I should’ve worked my boxing heavy bag. My husband is in Edmonton on a business trip and my boys went for dinner with their Dad so I was alone except for my dog Bear.

I was dressed in a gauzy spring shirt and thin pants. The dog raced out of my car and up the green space between houses leading to my boys’ school. As the arctic wind picked up and it started to rain I thought, “perfect. What a nice finish to my wonderful f*ckin$ day”.

Then I saw my sometime dog park buddy, an older gentleman who works at the university. His tall, blonde lab to my shorter darker lab, bounded up to greet me then tried to wrestle my gentle giant to the ground. My friend had a health scare recently and required a shunt in his heart. He looks good though, rosy cheeked and still the tall, solid man he was  and he continues to travel. He is headed to Kosovo this summer to study the effects of conflict on school children, now grown. The UN is sending in more troops to Kosovo these days so it’s still a hotspot that makes Canada look boringly safe and my job look insignificant.

I bid him farewell, packed up my dog, and headed to the hospital to visit my Dad’s cousin who just had double hip surgery. The wind turned my umbrella inside out as I struggled against the deluge of rain to navigate my way from pay parking to reception. I bought her an orchid in a delicate pink teacup that I promptly dropped  and broke on my way to the elevator. I cursed and stood there looking at the jagged pieces of my gift and the water seeping onto the floor. A young couple behind me stopped their stroller and helped me pick up the bits. They were on their way to visit Papa as the child in the stroller kept saying.

Hospitals are not happy places and not the place I wanted to be after the day I had, but my Dad’s cousin is family and isn’t that what we do, hang together in times of need?

She looked tired and sickly. I tried to cheer her up, but ended up commiserating with how crappy life can be some days. But she will be up and walking again soon and she will regain her freedom and head home. Floral arrangements crowded her window sill and I left her some trashy magazines to fill the hours.

I got home to my boys, then my husband called. They make me feel loved and supported. Even so I didn’t sleep well and came into work this morning thinking that my career may be over. Maybe I didn’t want this stupid job if I get nothing but grief.

I opened my email and saw a message from my manager to our head office explaining the system problem that occurred. Then the broker I work with talked to my manager and I felt maybe I wasn’t so alone and out on a limb. It turns out that my manager wanted me to come to him first with my problem, not try to fix it myself. We do work better as a team.

So when I think life sucks and maybe the universe is out to get me, instead of withdrawing to safety maybe I need to look outward and realize that I’m not alone but part of a team - at work and at home. Maybe I don’t have it so bad. We’re all in this together and some days will be better than others, but all days get better when we hang together or maybe just hang in there.

Besides the sun is shining again….

Hurry Up and Wait...a blast from my past...kids now 10 and 12, but still smarter than me.....

“Hurry up” is my mantra every morning. Every morning I strive to leave by 7:15 a.m. so I can make it to work on time, but every morning something or someone slows me down.

            The other morning I had risen early to have half an hour to myself to write before I had to shower, primp and wake the kids. My suit lay on my bed, carefully coordinated with shoes and jewelry the night before. I blew my hair dry and applied my makeup.

Turning on the light, I entered my four-year-old son Maclean’s room to wake him a half hour before we had to leave. Next it was his younger brother, two-year-old Blake’s, turn. He still likes a bottle in the morning so that sat warmed and ready in the microwave.

            We descended to the living room, the dog still snuggled on his mat upstairs being the only member of the house that didn’t have somewhere else to be. I flipped the cartoons on and bolted back upstairs to get dressed. As I stared at the bright red 7:05 on my night stand clock, I groaned. I’d forgotten to call the automated tee time booking service that opened five minutes ago, after promising friends that I would arrange our golf game for Sunday morning.

            While holding the phone with one hand, I shimmied out of my pjs and into my bra and undies trying to avoid the open window. Shifting the phone to the other shoulder, I hopped on one leg shoving the other into my skirt.

            Blake finished his bottle and submitted to wardrobe. Maclean wanted to watch one more cartoon, eat a snack prepared by me when I had NO time left, and pick a toy for the day home before getting dressed.                    

            Checking my watch, I tried the “hurry up, or we’ll be late” adult reasoning. He stared blankly at the TV and shrugged. I turned it off and said “upstairs now please. Time to go potty and get dressed,” in a singsong preschool teacher’s most optimistic voice.

Maclean retorted with ‘no’.

Short of carrying him up the stairs and stripping him against his will, I didn’t see how I could  make it to the day home and then the train to get downtown in a reasonable facsimile of punctuality.

            Blake sat ready to go.   I stood buffed, polished and starting to perspire.

“Let’s go buddy.”

             “No!” Maclean crossed his arms over his heaving chest.

            The tug of war began and I could see myself sliding helplessly towards the mud puddle. My blood pressure rose and my cheeks flushed. I pictured a pink slip on my desk with the words ‘chronically tardy’ slashed across in red pen.                     

            “Hurry up,” I shrieked, then remorsefully added “I’m sorry buddy, but please cooperate with Mommy”.

            “No.”

            The dog lumbered down the stairs, wiped his drooly muzzle across Maclean’s face in a morning kiss before stopping to stare at the back door until I could attend to his needs.

            Painfully, slowly, Maclean rose. Grabbing a toy like a last request from the floor, he plodded up the stairs.

            With Maclean dressed and back downstairs I instructed, “Pick your toys for the day home and Mommy will go get the car. When I’m back, we’ve gotta go.”

            Pressing the garage door opener incessantly while juggling my briefcase and the boys’ backpack, I willed the ancient motor to whir into warp speed. I crouched to sneak under the creaking door, threw the bags in, cranked the engine and wheeled the car out to idle in the driveway.

Blake had a Thomas the Tank Engine video instead of a toy. Maclean had disappeared.  “Let’s Go!” I cried cheerily.

            “Mommy, come here,” came Maclean’s reply from the kitchen.

            “Can’t buddy. Hurry up.”

            I kicked my shoes off and marched into the kitchen. I had let the dog out and promptly forgot about him. He glared at me, tired and disgusted (brown labs can say all that with their droopy golden eyes).

            Maclean wasn’t looking at the dog though. He stood transfixed, staring at the screen on the outside of the door. Perched on the black mesh was a dragonfly, its still wings reflecting a rainbow of colours in the early morning light.

            My sister, tenant and part-time child wrangler, emerged from the basement.

            “Look Auntie,” Maclean beckoned her over to see his prize.

            “That’s nice honey, gotta go.” I reached for the door handle to let the dog in. Maclean watched the dragonfly take flight.

            Auntie helped Maclean put his shoes on before we ran for the car, which was probably down a half-tank of gas by now.

            As I strapped them into their car seats Maclean said, “Mommy that dragonfly was neat.”

            “Yes honey.” I jammed the gearshift into reverse and flew down the driveway, fiddling with the radio to find the traffic news.

            As we sped up the road, a small voice from the backseat said, “It was waiting for us”.

            I eased my foot off the accelerator, turned down the radio and with a smile at him in the rearview mirror replied, “Yes honey, it was.”

Neighbours...inspired by Mama's losin it blog

3.) Neighbors.

I could go on all day with this prompt as I have found some friendly and some decidedly not. Where do I start? Excuse the misspelling, but I’m Canadian – neighbours….

I remarried nearly 5 years ago and dared to ‘cross the river’ in Calgary, which is apparently not something done by the native Calgarians, but only by us upstart (15 years ago) newcomers. So, I sold my house in the SW quadrant of the city and moved in with said new hubby in the NW.

On my crescent all houses have a front garage, one of those ugly but functional additions that shield the true beauty of the house from passersby in favour of offering drive-in convenience and anonymity. I could go for months without truly interacting with a neighbour. Sometimes this is a good thing.

I hadn’t been living in my new neighbourhood long when I parked across the street from my house because our sons (5 all together) needed the driveway to play basketball. It was summer and I was tired and hot after a day at work and a commute on a packed train from downtown. I cruised to a stop at the curb a little around the corner from my direct across the street neighbour, so that I ensured I didn’t block her driveway and left room for her and her husband and kids numerous cars (at last count they had 5 for a 4 person household and that doesn’t count the motorhome and the Harley).

Anyway, as I was coasting to a stop a polite distance from my neighbour’s overflowing driveway and watching my sons happily gambol about an angry rap on my window startled me. My neighbour, the wife of the couple, chastised me for parking there as someone would surely come around the corner and smash into my car and hadn’t she told me on numerous occasions NOT to park there. I’d never 'officially been introduced' to her before and as I rolled down my window I could tell she thought I was someone else. She apologized too late as her unfriendly tirade left a bitter taste in my mouth that I carry to this day. This taste makes it impossible to say hello.

She doesn’t own the road or the sidewalk and certainly not the one around the corner from her house, but she does own the space around her which I avoid like a no-fly zone. We don’t wave to each other when I pull into my driveway. I ignore her and she ignores me. The perfect un-symbiotic relationship I guess you'd say.

Worked well enough until one of my stepsons dared to take chalk to the sidewalk in front of her house. Another hot summer day and the boys were out spreading graffiti (what they consider to be art) in heinous pastels across public spaces. They dared to deface concrete with butterflies and aliens, rockets and words. My lovely neighbour’s 17-year-old son told the graffiti gang to clear the ‘F’ off his property.

Funny how angry, unhappy people spawn others and how they think they own the world. I wish I cared enough to give her and her family a piece of my mind, as now that I think about it the first time I met her she stood on my lawn at the side of my house with another nosy Parker looking into my backyard-neigbour's yard at their dog. Apparently the dog's barking bothered her across the street, but not me right next to it. Funnily enough I've had complaints about my dog barking too, anonymous ones from the city. Ah, civic harmony....

I do have lovely neighbours to my left who gave us their basketball backboard because their kids are grown and gone. Plus our neighbours to the right prop our fence up when it leans a little too far into their yard and let our boys into their home to call us on our cells if the garage keypad is frozen precluding entrance to our humble abode. Then there’s the neighbour down the street who just invited me over for a jewelry party and barbecue this Sunday.

They make the place seem a whole lot friendlier, and sometimes I’ll even slow down as I enter my garage to wave at them.

The View at Sunset

 
My son Maclean took this photo when we were in Victoria for my father’s 80^th birthday party. This is dusk at Ogden Point.

We arrived on the Thursday morning before Good Friday. My father picked us up at the airport in his convertible BMW – always the cool dude stylishly dressed in jeans and a leather bomber jacket. Bear hugs all around before he dropped us off at my boss’ condo to regroup before lunch with him and an afternoon spent blowing up balloons at my sister’s. My two sons, ten and twelve, gladly helped with decorations and enjoyed goofing around with my sister whom we see less frequently than we’d like.

She took us to the café two hours before the party to set up the tables with white cloths and glass candle holders filled with beach sand, shells and glass beads. My sons helped me tack the balloon bouquets to the railing of the Ogden Point Café as a welcome to the 20 some odd guests who would attend.

My boys cleaned up well in dark pants and button down shirts with their hair combed and their smiles plastered on as the official greeters. They each took one entrance of the café and as the 7pm start time approached they launched into best-behaved mode to impress my father’s tennis buddies, his fellow union club members and his neighbours from the condo. After living in Ontario all his life, he moved to the coast and by all appearances has made it his home.

I nervously prepared for my emcee duties as my sister made sure the food trays looked pretty with wildflowers and the guests were kept in sangria. The boys took pictures and video as they delivered the Grampalloon they had made from a flesh-coloured balloon with a drawn on smiley face, glasses and just the right amount of hair. The three-piece band played Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Diamond and other easy listening favourites and even managed to get the birthday boy up for a few dances. My boys delivered a cupcake with candle to Dad and we all sang Happy Birthday to a proud, yet humbled man on the eve of becoming an octogenarian.

As the candles in the centrepieces burned low and the frantic activity waned to enjoyment of good food, friends and a lovely view, I felt proud of my sons, thankful for my helpful, thoughtful and creative sister, and privileged to have one parent left who makes growing older look so easy.

Just like the stones worn down by the waves in the photo, life smoothes off our hard edges and if we’re lucky leaves us on a hospitable shore. May we all experience the joy of getting better with age like my Pops.

Inspired to create and pragmatism be damned

Inspiration is a funny thing. I usually have lots of it, alas it’s the perspiration I don’t have as much of; the sweat equity I need to put in to produce that masterpiece. Why does life get in the way? Damn reality! However, it is fiction that can take us beyond the reach of reality.

Johah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, says “when we venture beyond the edge of our knowledge, all we have is art.” But that muse is illusive so I carry a notebook with me to jot down those aha moments when they spring upon me.

As Mr. Lehrer says though, since I’m older I may have fewer of those. It seems that the older we get, the less inventive we become. Maybe it’s just the whole reality conundrum. When I was younger I had all the time in the world to daydream and didn’t censor any of it. Now, I have to work full time to raise children and keep a home and chauffeur kiddies to tons of after school activities, and clean the house and walk the dog and….so less time to dream.

As an adult I’ve also developed a nasty pragmatist devil on my shoulder reminding me to focus and plant my feet firmly on the ground because dreaming won’t get me anywhere. I try to rein in my creativity to the nights and weekends when I have time to listen to that fickle and fanciful angel sitting on my other shoulder. Seems my muse doesn’t much like the structure and rules of adulthood. According to Mr. Lehrer in the article below, I should tell my inner critic to zip it and let the inspiration flow.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/how-to-grab-inspiration-by-the-tail/article2380020/page1/

Detours along the way...

I like detours, the side roads and alleyways that take you off course. It’s the adventures along the way that make the journey memorable rather than just a straight shot from A to B.

But, I do have to watch that my attention doesn’t get drawn to the smaller shiny things for too long because then I might give up the bigger goal that waits on the horizon, a little fuzzier, a little less immediate and glamorous for the hard work needed to attain it. I suspect I may be my own worst enemy sometimes.

In my writing, sometimes the side roads take me away from what I’m supposed to be doing which is rewriting the ‘brilliant’ idea I had years before when I woke at 3 am excited by the kernel of my novel and could hardly wait to finish the first draft. All these years later as I polish the manuscript in smaller and smaller circles until my fingers get numb, I sometimes get sidetracked by things like playwriting. Ooo, maybe I should try that and off I go for a few months. Maybe I need a Masters or maybe fifty more opinions on where others think my book should go.

I’ve taken the advice of so many experts and tried to write short stories for contests or a novella to at least get my name in print which I have. Twas fun. It’s good to branch out and deepen my skill set. But, as I’m traipsing down the side roads I do wonder if I’ve lost track of my main trajectory, the goal of all this wandering, which is to get my novel published. If it’s good, but not good enough then I’ll never get there. And no amount of side roads will take me back to the main road because I have NO sense of direction and sometimes get lost.

So, I will renew my drive to my final destination and pack some snacks for the long ride ahead. Now I need to get back to my desk because I know that AIC (ass in chair) is the only thing that will get me where I want to go.

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/03/22/hiromi-goto-finishing-is-the-hardest-part/#more-66875