Ambivalence, Chinese New Year and my new Job

Well, that about says it all today for me on this planet earth, new Chinese year that it is. Year of the Ox, or so I've been told. I'm a Boar, or so I've been told by many who know me well. But I don't follow that sort of thing, perhaps for obvious reasons. My self esteem can only handle so much abuse - between being catalogued as either a crab or a boar, or if you follow both systems, a crab AND a boar, what else is left to me but to turn my back on the whole thing and look elsewhere for my identity.

Well, that isn't the ONLY reason I became a Christian. In fact, it really wasn't the reason at all. Not that that's what I'm blogging about here. Just an aside.

Actually, I'm not really sure what I want to write about, hence the title. I was hoping to entertain the few who follow my ramblings with some amusing chatter about this and that. I've just started a new job - cool, eh? In these bleak economic times, a job is nothing to sniff at. However, I've been so used to minding my own business, being retired / unemployed / self-employed, that minding someone else's might prove challenging.

Still, I'm thrilled that I can contribute to an organization whose focus is on sustainable housing. It is interesting that, after I lost my last "job" (or rather had it whipped unceremoniously out from under me by my boss - some how "lost" is too tepid a way to describe the event) two years ago, my oldest child ordered me to create a Personal Mission Statement, in no uncertain terms.

It took me about six months to do so, and, although I've stored the working copies in an all-too-safe location, I do remember the gist of it - to contribute my skills and experience to an organization committed to improving the environment. For a year I searched for just such a job, volunteering for several local "green" groups to build some credibility in the community and involving myself with vermicomposting as a local representative for The Worm Factory.

The result of all this activity was the discovery that what I really wanted to do was write! So, I am busily pursuing a career as a freelance writer with the support of a small business course and grant from our wonderful provincial government. However, daughter number two sat me down and, as gently as possible, informed me that freelance writing would likely NOT generate enough cash to support a goldfish. She spoke from the experience of freelance writer friends who regularly contributed to such bastions of North American jornalism as The New York Times.

As expert as I am at denial, even I could not avoid an impending sense of insolvancy. So, when one of the many organizations I had applied to before I knew I wanted to write, invited me to apply for a job, I did so. Lo and behold, they actually offered me the job! It is half time, so will fit marvelously well into my scheme to be a writer! Or so I imagine.

I will have to exercise my emerging boundary setting skills to make sure it doesn't become a 3/4 or full time job due to the organization's need and my commitment to their objectives.

Since I am at heart a snappish, lazy, cowardly slob (see first paragraph above), this will prove a challenge.

Crumbs

Just thought I'd riff on the word "Crumbs" for a change.

Crumbs - small pieces of stuff, often edible, like the crumbs Hansel and Gretel dropped behind them hoping to be able to find their way home after their stepmother sent them off to pick berries in a fit of pique because they knocked over a jub of milk while dancing. Not too bright since the birds ate them up. Also, if they were starving, where did the crumbs come from? I actually, kind of understand where the step mother was coming from - how many times have I raged at my own children for just such indiscretions? Thankfully the consequences were a lot less harsh in my case.

Fairy tales can teach us a lot about the human psyche as well as being cautionary tales. A modern rendition of H & G could be that the harshness of their stepmother towards them made them feel rejected and drove them from the home at a too early age, leaving them vulnerable to pimps and drug dealers, not quite witches, but destructive and predatory nonetheless. Ok, Ok, being turned into drug addicts and prostitutes isn't quite the same as being turned into gingerbread men, but you must admit, all will eventually be consumed. Also, being an addict means yielding up your will to dependency on an innanimate object which sucks the humanity right out of you and you end up walking around like a soulless ghost of a person or a gingerbread man. Sort of.

As a youth, many, many, many, many years ago, we used to use "Crumbs" or "Crumbo" or "Crumb" as a second rate expletive. Also, in the same vein, "crumby", has the meaning of being cheap or poorly made or worthless. I wonder if that is because it might disintegrate into crumbs shortly after purchase thereby proving its lack of quality. Hmm???

Then there's the use of "crumbs" to signify an amount of a gift or raise that is far below what we think we deserve and verges on being an insult. As in, "that !@#@$# gave me mere crumbs - I'm tempted to throw all it back in his face!"

I actually value crumbs, if they are not in my bed, because I feed them to the birds. Or try to feed them to the birds. The squirrels often whip in before the birds even notice them and snatch them up in their greedy little gobs.

Well, this is all pretty uninspired, perhaps not even worth posting, but I'll probably go ahead and post it anyway.

No silent nights for me

Home again, home again jiggety-jig. Or so the nursery rhyme goes. I was wondering why I felt so unmotivated to clear out the Christmas clutter after returning from my trip south of the border to visit relatives. The lights went on after I'd finished relating my activities pre / post Christmas to a friend. Three days with daughter number one, her partner, half brother, neighbor and grandchildren five; four days with sisters and their families - ten persons including moi and daughter number two; one day hosting Christmas dinner for ten - separated husband, daughter number two, sons one and two, one friend, and four sundry relatives. Four days traveling roughly 4500 kilometers. I feel like I should have my own version of the twelve days of Christmas.

While I absolutely adore my family members, interacting with 28 different people with whom I have intimate relationships over a twelve day period is rather intense. Considering that two of those people also were felled with mystery illnesses during my visit south added an anxiety level not experienced since the year my oldest son brought a virulent 48 hour intestinal flu to which all twenty visitors at my sister's house succumbed. It proved an interesting experiment in epidemiology as the last to get sick had a much weaker version of the illness than those of us who had had it first. Of course, they didn't get off easy since they had to nurse us all as one by one we fell to the dread disease. I remember two things in vivid detail: my brother in law intoning "bring out your dead, bring out your dead" as he went from room to room carrying ginger ale to the suffering and the panicky feeling that I might not get to one of the two bathrooms in time. It was a bonding experience we all remember almost fondly.

I have a personality quirk that makes overcoming difficult or humiliating circumstances among my favourite stories to tell. This year was no different. The trip south started auspiciously enough. Daughter number two and I were well provided with treats and amusements to last the eight to ten hours we expected the trip to last. We did not however expect to be parked on the 401 highway for two hours while a tractor trailer cab fitfully burned out a few kilometers ahead of us. Minutes before we slowed, then crawled, then stopped, I had started to look for service centres as I needed to pee. At first I tried to wait it out, but after the first emergency vehicles sirened their way along the shoulder, I figured I'd better look for alternatives and made a visual recognizance of the available spots.

Despite the fact that the only cover was 60 meters away, down a ditch through thigh deep snow, up the opposite side, and over a barbed wire fence, I decided I couldn't stand it any longer and made a break for it. After a first attempt in which I floundered in thigh deep snow, I figured that by stomping on the snow I could pack it down enough so that it would support my weight. It took me, oh, about 30 minutes to make a path to the fence. Meanwhile, my daughter, who had sunk as deeply as she could out of sight in the passenger seat, observed that my activities had attracted the notice of many of our fellow stranded travelers, luring them out of their vehicles to watch my slow but steady progress with curiosity. When I climbed the fence and disappeared into the bush, they all seemed to at last understand the reason behind my bizarre behaviour. I had actually expected that others would use my path to relief after I returned, but no one, to my disappointment, did.

Although an over zealous guilty conscience kicks in whenever I'm faced with uniformed people, crossing the border is normally not a problem. However, minutes before hitting the border we realized that my daughter and I were traveling on passports from different countries. The guard might pull us aside to extract an explanation causing unwanted further delays. So my daughter, the world traveler, admonished me: "What ever you do, don't tell them we are related or that we have food". Of course the very first questions the guard asks me are, "what is your relationship?" and "do you have any food items?". Unable to lie, without adequate preparation, I blurted out, "She's my daughter" and "Yes, we brought a lunch". Despite these faux pas, either the Force was with us or profiling worked to my advantage once again, because the guard waved us through without further ado. If I were so inclined, I could make a lucrative income smuggling since most border guards are willing to suspend suspicion for we middle aged women.

The rest of that trip was uneventful weather wise, except for the last two hours during which we had to travel through dense fog, feeling joyful deliverance when visibility rose to 50% - most of the time it hovered between 5 - 10%. Once we emerged from the fog, my daughter who had driven through it collapsed, exhausted, and I drove the last fifteen minutes. A wonderful welcome awaited us - my sister had prepared h'or d'oeuvres and Jambalaya for us. We feasted on great food, wonderful company and agonized with my other sister over her dreadfully ill son, who, as it turned out had an abscessed tonsil (!). Before we left another nephew became violently ill with what turned out to be appendicitis, requiring immediate surgery. Was it something I said?

All's well that ends well, and both young men are on the road to recovery. My second daughter made it back to Berlin in one piece, and I am safely back home in Canada. So ends my twelve days of Christmas and so begins the look forward into a new year.

Christmas adventures

Well, here we are on the cusp of Christmas. I have not posted since last Wednesday because I was out of town, visiting family - my daughter and her family. The threat of a snow storm meant I had to return 12 hours before intended, but not too soon to experience the joys and excitements of living in the country. Prior excitements at the farm included a new born calf that refused to suckle, slaughtering a cow, and building a chicken coop. All of them rather tame in comparison to this trip's entertainment.

My son and law and grandson, eager to get home after a harrowing drive through a snow storm, mistook the culvert's open area between two snow banks for his driveway, and, before his son could warn him drove his car part way into the only open water in kilometers. Both exited the vehicle in a prompt manner while the nose of the car sunk into the swamp water, car bottom resting on the culvert. car rear hiked up indecently at a 45 degree angle.

It is amazing how the creative juices flow when the threat of humiliation looms. When the tow truck refused to come due to weather conditions, my son-in-law realized that, unless he took matters into his own hands, the car would likely freeze into the swamp and be there 'till spring. Not only would they lose the use of the car, but, more significantly, he would be the laughing stock of the county. So, armed with a tipsy neighbour and said neighbour's truck he attacked the problem, only to have the neighbour's truck end up in a ditch (not the swamp). Undaunted, he hauled out a sort of winch thingame, called a "come along" (??? a dubious name at best), which, he used to drag the truck out of the ditch using only human muscle power.

Miraculously, they pulled the car out of the swamp using the truck and the "come along", then pushed the car down the road, entering via the correct driveway, and finally coming to rest in the workshop where it is currently being thawed and dried out.

Hesitant to risk such mistakes myself, being hideously unequiped (no "come along" in the trunk), I decided once the storm abated and before the next one descended, to high tail it back to the relative safety and placidity of the city so I could relate this tale to my faithful readers, all 1.734 of them.

Ms Fixit

Well, I finally have dealt with the dripping faucet and the burnt electrical plug on the vacuum cleaner.

I no longer have to shrivel up with guilt every time I go to the bathroom and hear potable water drip, drip, dripping away, forever lost to the thirsty of the world. I belong to several environmental organizations, including Wellington Water Watchers. Although I did do a lot of water watching while pondering the hows, whys and wherefores of my dripping faucet, that's not quite what they had in mind. While my water was pointlessly vacating the aquafer beneath us, Nestle was (and still is) avidly bottling up this same water to sell back to us a few kilometers down the road. While I do not agree with this practice, at least they weren't just wasting it!

Actually, it's not quite true that I "fixed" the faucet. I did try, but was unable to figure out how to replace the washer, basically because I couldn't get to the washer. So, instead I did what I should've done in the first place - turned off the valve underneath the sink. No hot water in the bathroom sink, but I don't mind brushing my teeth in cold water. Really, it couldn't have been easier.

Fixing the vacuum cleaner plug was more time consuming, but pretty straight forward. I bought a new plug at the hardware store, cut off the burnt ends of the wire, sliced away the insulating plastic cover exposing the copper wire(s). Then I had to carefully twist one wire around one screw and the other around the other screw, making sure there was no contact between them. And, you know what? It worked. I finishd vacuuming the living room. Although I could think of more exciting ways to reward myself for the exchange.

This was hardly an inspired blog - sorry to all one of you out there that may or may not be reading this.