Feed regularly

My Mom was concerned that the cat wouldn't have enough foods with all the mousies sleeping, so she put food in a dish that's nearly the size of the litter box. The dish in front is the normal foods bowl.

The cat just sat there and looked at it with an *aroo?*. I'm sure she was thinking something along the lines of:

"What the heck am I supposed to do with that?!?" or...
"Buffet? I do not eat buffet... I order!" or...
"I hope this isn't my human's way of telling me they are bringing a cheetah home... cause if so, we're gonna to need a bigger litter box too!"

Hiccups

I've had the hiccups three times in the last two days. Not just cute little ones either, no... these were like an upset to the delicate inter-dimensional pressure balance, via a tear in the space time continuum... and by space time continuum I mean diaphragm.

Mom laughed at me, because she's sensitive like that. I don't think she fully grasped the seriousness of the situation... what if I'd been hungry!?!

Looking forward

I don't know what it is, but I just feel "mer"... with a half-hearted shoulder shrug.

I've just got that end of a visit type feeling, like when it's been so great visiting a friend that you're sad knowing you have to leave soon. The kind where you don't enjoy Sunday as much because you know you're going to have to get up early on Monday...

I think maybe too it's that end of the year time when you look back, and forget all the things you filled your year up with and go "*sigh* I didn't accomplish anything this year..."

I say this only because it recently happened to me. I was lamenting all the things I didn't do this year. Like become president, take over the world... or launch my stuntman career... Until it was pointed out to me that "Dude you've been on a boat for three months". And prior to that I was getting ready to be on a boat... so yes 'Go sailing and live on a boat - check!'

This lack of accomplishment is similar to but not to be confused with tax season, when you see how much the government thinks you made compared with your bank account balance... and wonder idly what exactly you spent all that money on?

So as the New Year is symbolic of adventures waiting just around the corner, I am putting down my suitcase of guilt for things left undone and I am going to put all my energy into doing cool things again this year. I want to focus a little bit more on my creative side, with any luck I'll something worthy of posting... to be honest you'll probably see it all anyways whether it's worthy or not ;)

I must say though it has been a great incentive keeping our recent sailing adventures updated on here and I am honored by how many of you have taken the time to respond to me via comments and emails.

Tradition!

Everyone has their Christmas traditions, sometimes you do something one year... and then again, until one Christmas you can't remember not doing it like that. This year is the first year that all the kids haven't been home... it was a lot quieter for lack of a better word, and I almost don't want to admit it, but I missed my middle brother ;o)


So just in case you were thinking you might miss us a little bit too, I've compiled some of the crazy family traditions that we do every year that are both a comfort and a curse... like eating too much turkey, it tastes soooo good until your fat pants don't fit... I never learn.

Well Ben and I set up the tree, and managed not to lose any blood or eyeballs to the vindictive branches. As usual we forgot to put the tinsel and beads on after the lights and had to squish it in and around the decorations already on the tree...

The majority of the wrapping was done the night before
Mom and I both settled in on the floor
"a little somthin' somethin' " some giggles and laughs

its amazing how quickly that makes the time pass

Wrapping paper has always been reused
favorite patterns looking slightly abused

they've been wrapped and reopened so many times
its hard to tell which presents are mine

All the stockings are hung by the chimney with care...
then delivered to our bedside when we're not aware
When we woke at five, we all had to wait
till we'd solved all our puzzles or it turned eight!

Now that we're older it's not so bad
the only one getting up early is Dad
Ben, Mom and I have been staying up late
So it was okay not starting till after eight

Then we have to wake Mom up, and wait while she pees
get a pictures on the stairs, in our jammies
we all used to fit, stockings and all on one stair
now its a squish to get two of us in there

After the presents come pancakes, made by Dad
There is bacon, peaches and whip cream to be had
Special yummy syrups warmed up of course
by the time we get started we could eat a horse

Traditional puzzle, a wizard this year
Ben hid the last piece so I flicked his ear
Watching the Grinch after turkey on the couch
We all nodded off with nary a belch

So if you think you missed the excitement, have no fear
Nobody bled on the carpet... this year ;)

I've been dreaming of a white Christmas...

But it looks like it will be another damp Christmas with a chance of flooding here on the Wet Coast... in fact I'm starting to think it's a really good idea that we have a boat in the front yard.

It's been raining for the 12 days of Christmas, not particularly hard but it's been relentless. There are whirlpools forming. Seriously.

This is how it starts... first a little whirlpool and then next thing you know half of Saskatchewan is under water!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are safe and sound, surrounded by loved one and warm fuzzies!

*hugs*

Because that's what I've always done...

*Oofta*

I'm sorting through and purging 10+ years worth of credit card and bank statements and assorted pieces of associated papers because I was under the impression you should keep them... the trouble is I had no idea *what* you were supposed to keep them for.

This evening my Mom helped me figure out what's important(ish) and what I don't need at all... I'm in the process of purging, it's tedious, but surprisingly uplifting!

Girlfriends

My Mom has amazingly wonderful girlfriends, I can't imagine what it would be like to lose any of my best friends. I hope that they know, they're not allowed to leave my life just yet.

Over the past week I've been there in the background for my Mom, and occasionally in the spotlight... but it's given me a unique place from which to watch the coming and goings.

It has been incredible to watch the group of women some of whom were friends through my Auntie Helen, support each other, and come together. There have been so many phone calls, words of comfort and support and offers for help with all kinds of skill sets.

Although I will not be able to stay long after Christmas, it's good to know I'll be leaving her with many helping hands.

Bwains

Meet Meg and Meg, they're both nuts!

Hehe I didn't know this is what Nutmeg looked like on the outside, let alone that it looks like brains on the inside how cool is that?

Nom nom nom

In Soviet Russia you don't eat cheese... cheese eats you!

RAWWWRR! Dinosaur cheese! Aren't these wicked?!?! *grins* Kids these days have no idea how good they've got it... ;)

(My Aunt Shirly gave me these though, she's cool like that)

Merry Christmas to me!

Ben just brought me Timmy's!

My good deed for the day Christmas

I went for a run this morning, and somehow or other I ended up running down to the old boat ramp rather than down the trail behind our house... it wasn't exactly a conscious decision.

As usual I had impeccable timing. I arrived at the boat ramp just after an older fellow had parked on it, boat on trailer. There was driftwood all over the place, but of course there was one waterlogged log completely spanning the road and totally in the way.

We started chatting as I caught my breath and he told me he was trying to get to Mudge Is. to pick up Christmas decorations. I began to help him clear the driftwood out of the way. Now I know I'm not exactly huge, but why is it that everyone thinks I'm going to hurt myself if I even think about doing anything physical? Do I look like a maiden in distress?!?! Sheesh! ;)

The small stuff was easy, but the long log proved to be much more difficult... But somehow between the two of us chatting and levering, the ocean drift caught it and with one final push it was off the ramp and swinging out of the way.

We introduced ourselves, and my new friend John thanked me for my help saying he would never have managed it on his own... but as I jogged home I thought to myself how easy it had seemed with both of us.

It's kinda cool how much easier things like that seem to go when you're working on it with someone else.

Epic roadtrip

Kentucky... far enough south they have a cool accent, where they can teach you the proper use of "y'all" and "all y'all" and well yeah...this sign says some of it, I was told it was too cold to go catfish noodling... maybe next time.

Where toques are called toboggans... and yes they are aware that a toboggan is a sled... *shrugs* Go figure. The land of Wildcat blue where basketball is as sacred as hockey is to Canadians... Where the game-time rituals would get you committed in most places, and the outcome is totally dependent on how many fans are giving the right advice amongst the cheers and the curses. This is where I was introduced to Ale8 a sparkling addictive pop with higher consumption stats than 'fridge beer'... It ranks right up there as one of the first things requested when being picked up from the airport.

Road trip to Columbus... where the skies opened up, and the angels sang... THEY HAVE TIMMY'S!!!!! *happy dance* <--- This doesn't even begin to describe how excited I was after not having Timmy's for 3 months. In fact on the way to Columbus *somebody* reset Trixie (the gps) for the nearest Timmy's... Leaving Timmy's with my medium double double (the equivalent of our large) a Canadian Maple with a huge grin on my face, I was described as a six year old leaving the candy store.

Roadtrip to St. Louis, the Gateway to the West. Land of the super huge "Ooooh SHINY!" arch *smiles*

Do you know what was even better than the arch though?!? My new friends took us to the City Museum... now I know you're thinking "Dude... Seriously? Another museum?" Well let me tell you, this isn't any ordinary museum... this is the *coolest* museum I've ever been to in my entire life! For real. It's like non-nightmarish Tim Burton cool!

It's so wicked you can touch practically everything... none of this walking around just reading, you can climb on stuff! There's an entire floor with different bits of stonework like the gargoyles from old buildings that were being torn down...

There's a 10 story slide, which I tested of course, and it was awesome! (I was a little dizzy at the bottom though) It's one of those spirally chutes you can see...

And an enchanted caves section *grins* with lights and water fountains and tunnels... oooh and basically giant welded slinkys you can climb through!

Everywhere you look large quantities of parts that were going to be scrapped have been turned into something cool, and worked into the surroundings in an artistic way. There are columns covered in tiny gears, filled with marbles... hanging scraps of fiberglass cloth, wall paneling that upon closer inspection are old printing plates!

A huge playground indoors and outdoors that is the perfect size for big kids AND little kids, with a bonfire for the parents... so even when it's minus 3, you can still play outside! There are slides, an airplane, a really for real tower... like from a castle! There's even more stuff on the roof, including a bus that HANGS OVER THE EDGE!

Unfortunately the roof and the aquarium were closed... so I'm going to have to go back and check it out in the summertime, I'm pretty sure there are some sections I missed too ;)

Sporadic spontaneous roadtrip!

*smiles* so I got a few "Kentucky?!?" type emails ranging from pointing out my lack of geography skills (I now know that Kentucky most certainly is *not* on the coast) to asking if I'd finally jumped ship and abandoned my father. I'm not going to lie, the thought occurred to me.

But seriously, I had so much fun. I can fully admit to this now that I'm home, but I flew half way across the *another* country to meet up with some people I met... on 'the internet'. I uh, told my father before he flew home that I was visiting some friends I met at University... Heh sorry Dad, I just didn't want you to have a stroke in the States, health-care is expensive down there ;)

It was the coolest thing, I actually met people in 3 different states, and it was like I was meeting up with old friends I hadn't seen in year. I will not bore you with the details of our visits, but I found myself in comfortable company... talking and dancing in the living-room into the wee hours of the morning.

There are people who cross our paths, who against all odds, catch our attention... Each of them enriching our lives, leaving us a little better than when they found us... if we let them.

Stop that truck!

Nothing says "Holiday Spirit" like a giant candle stuck to the front of your truck, especially when it looks like it's trying to slow your truck down.

In Honor of an Incredible Woman

I read the following at the memorial service for one of my Mom's best friends today. I made it all the way through *proud smile* even if everyone else didn't ;)

"We all have families that we are born into, but sometimes families change, and we have to build our own."

Helen has always been 'Auntie Helen' in my life.

In fact she's been a part of our lives so long, that when my little brother was still smaller than me (I don't even outweigh him anymore) he lost a pair of brand new, itty bitty socks at her house... we'd only been there for a quick visit and so we finally blamed it on the dog... Keeley would eat *anything*...

Last week, my Mom found one of those socks in the record collection.

Auntie Helen taught me many things, among them:

The importance of tea time with friends, with honey of course.

That cats are people too, and that they choose their owners and that dogs, even when they lick the walls and eat egg shells need to be loved.

That even though you may not be able to *do* something to fix a problem, you must never underestimate the power of your voice.

That you need to fight for what you believe in, be it human rights, the environment, or the potential in someone the world has overlooked.

That you're never too old to dress up like a clown and give away smiles... dressed up or not, she always had free smiles and the best hugs.

Somehow she taught me the healing properties in music, even if you know you're not very good at it.
I sing because its good for the soul.
Not because it's good for anyone around me.

The neatest thing I learned about music though, is that even when a single voice is silenced in a harmony... although the resulting chorus will never be the same again...

Each of the remaining voices can come together in a new harmony honoring all those that have come before them by never being silenced.

Friends

People change, friends grow together and apart, 'forever friends' meet that special someone... grow up... get married... have kids. There is nothing to mark the end of an era... but at some point it just happens. One day you find you can't call them up at 3am with a scraped heart, because you need someone to sit in the waiting room with you while it mends.

Then you find out that they're in the inner waiting room, and they've been there all along... and they couldn't find the words to tell you that they needed you to sit with them.

Stuff with a capital *uff*

December 16th

I find it interesting, that many of the things we guard so closely as private in our living lives are bared wide open in death. Intimate details are written up honoring our accomplishments, and yet one would hope that our closest friends already knew our accomplishments before we died.

What would you want to be able to change, if you knew that tomorrow your closest friends would be up to their waist in your internal affairs? Cleaning... trying to figure out what's worth keeping and what isn't, going through everything you've kept, sorting it into garbage, keepsakes and stuff that might be worth something on ebay.

How many things do we keep that really, aren't worth the investment. Okay sure there are clothes, those keep you from getting arrested. And there's sports equipment... I'll admit I'm a little biased in this department. But then there are books, and CD's and just stuff. Okay really, it's all just stuff... Sometimes it seems we keep it because that's what you're supposed to do. Your stuff starts to define who you are, and before you know it you need your stuff to tell people about you.

What you have, the things in your life aren't nearly as important as what you take from them, and how you put it all back together. I want to be the collection of things that make me a better person, without having to carry everything around with me, ever in fear of losing myself.

Don't wear red

December 15th

We've taken up the time honored, tradition known as the waving of the death certificate. Now we watch the bulls dance, and while keeping time... do our best to weave amongst them, with the sole purpose of making it out the other side unscathed.

Catching up

I need to apologize for my lack of posts this week... I'm still working on compiling the wicked time I had on my sporadic side trip to Kentucky, Columbus and St. Louis. Unfortunately upon arriving home I found out that one of my Mom's best friends had passed away.

My youngest brother was finishing up exams this week, and to not distract him with something he can't change we didn't tell him. This meant that I couldn't post anything about it... I had no idea how hard it would be... here they are, they have been distracting me from finishing my road trip awesomness.

December 13th - It was a 4 house seagull day today, don't leave the house without an umbrella.

I chauferred my Mom around today while she attempted to unravel the tangled mess of executorship. Being an innocent bystander gave me a chance to observe the proceedings... and all I could think the entire time was, that there has got to be a better way to do this.

I mean of all the things in life, only death and taxes are certain. So why on earth is it so damn complicated when someone dies? This should practically be an art form by now.

We met with a nice lady at the funeral home, and pre-filled some of the paperwork out. Discovered that not only do you pay extra on flights if you are over-wide, you also have to pay extra to be cremated. Seriously go figure. Apparently they have to order the cardboard tray in special from Nigeria, and each one is hand made by monkeys that were trained as astronauts. They must be, because what else would account for a cardboard tray costing $400 more for the supersize?

After that we talked to the bank and effectively established that we're stuck in a holding pattern until the cause of death has been declared by the coroner... who it sounds like is avoiding the autopsy and checking with her doctor to establish if there is reasonable assumption that it could be 'natural causes'.

Basically it goes like this, the funeral place wants to cremate asap... however they also want to be paid up front. While they can bill the deceased person's bank directly, the executor still needs to check that there are enough funds to cover the expenses. The bank will not tell you yea or nay until they have an officially dead dead certificate, and the funeral place can't give you the officially dead dead certificate until the coroner has confirmed that the person is dead dead, not just mostly dead... and declared the time and cause of death.

So "hurry up and wait".

The k is silent

My friend and I were chatting the other night, and well this is what happens when I'm tired... my fingers type faster than I can think.

Her: sheesh..i cant even type tonight..who confuses no and know? lol
Me: I didn't knowtice
Her: ass lol

Apparently my subconscious typing committee has some sharp witty writers on staff.