busy day

Busy day, it is true
So I'm too busy to talk to you
I'll be back, in a while
to throw more genius onto the pile.

Puzzle me this.

So it has been a week since I wrote here. And why is that? Am I revelling in my grocery cart triumph at last week's CCS bazaar? Did I start my Christmas preparations early? Have I been baking? Cleaning?
No, but I probably did spend too much time on that crazy jigsaw puzzle. I was getting near the end and just had to finish it. Plenty of stuff didn't get done around the house. I had started back in September. It's a Ravensburger and 1500 pieces of babies faces. Frustration and joy.
Relegated to the basement storage room with it's florescent lighting, I sit among the things I should be sorting through, or storing properly or throwing out. I puzzled my way through 1496 pieces. There are four pieces missing although they may turn up yet.
One of the hardest ones I ever did was a puzzle of brown beans. Just brown beans. Another was only silver, no other colour, no shading, just shapes. The double sided ones a killers. I think I once did a 4000 piece one. I had to do it in two sections
Why do I love jigsaws? I think it is because the plentiful ideas in my mind stop rattling about in an already crowded place and stop to look for the piece with the bit of blue there in the outie part. Or where is the piece with an eye in the top corner?
So there it is. Another puzzle done. On to the next one.

I won

After many years of trying to guess the correct dollar amount for the shopping cart full of groceries at the CCS bazaar...I won.

I probably should not have guessed so often. This time I took 30 guesses. The guy who called to tell me I won said that it was my guess number 27 that won. The cart had over $133.00 and it only cost me $50.00. It sure was fun to win.


I will never win the lottery because I could never waste money like that.
It is only because the bazaar guesses were going to end up going to a good cause (100% of the money went to the school) I always consider the money gone without a chance of winning. I never really do hope to win.

That being said, I am not wholly unaccustomed to winning. I have won a door prize at a VON event. I have won 1,000,000 Club Z points. Over the years the CCS bazaar has been good to me. One year I guessed the correct dolls name. And another year I guessed the correct weight of the bunny rabbit (who then proceeded to have 11 babies within one week of coming to live with us)....
Lucky me

Franklin Road has never been the same

Franklin Road has never been the same was a line that came to me when I was in a writing class trying to come up with an interesting opening line for a story.

I should be able to make up a story about just what happened on Franklin Road. But I can't. At least not now. As great and mighty as my imagination is, I can't make up fiction and keep it all strait. Well, good fiction anyways. There's a girl named... Abigal and she finds... something amazing that will change life on Franklin Road forever? Problem is I have no idea what. So there is a story I will need to tell one day. As soon as I find out just what happened on Franklin Road.

An Invasion of One

Before I start, there is something about me that you should know. I have been known to embellish just about any point of a story to make the story better.

But you also need to know that nothing in this tale needs embellishment.

These are the complete and truthful facts as I remember them.

It is 3:00 am. The children are all in bed and all is right with the world because

I am sleeping…or rather, I was sleeping. My hubby gently shakes my shoulder, stirring me from slumber, “Hey, hon, want to see a bat?” Just how fast my mind moves is amazing. I had been, after all, asleep. This is a brief summary of some of the thoughts that went through my head.

Hey hon, where’s the cat?

Say fun, do you need that?

Or, does he have in mind a previously unexpressed baseball fantasy?

All of these thoughts and more flood my mind but I sit up and with lightning speed reply, “Huh?”

“It’s flying around, come see.”

Ah, a real bat. A real live (how else could it be flying?) bat is fluttering about in the sitting room. A live, head swooping, blood sucking, neck attacking bat. Smart hubby had the presence of mind to close the doors to the children’s bedrooms to keep the bat contained and opened the window to help the rat-with-wings escape. The open window is an invitation that the bat doesn’t take. Our usually sleeping cat is very much awake. She is amused by the creature that we must have brought in just for her to play with.

But, first a word about the cat. Our cat is very much an inside cat, declawed and harmless. The only creatures that she has had the chance to stalk and attack are ladybugs and flies. She did master the art of fly catching. She used to pounce on a fly and let it get away, but then she had nothing to play with. So, she learned to catch a fly and keep it in her mouth. When the fly has been sufficiently slobbered upon (just enough to keep it from flying) she lets it go so she can chase a soggy winged fly.

But I have digressed and back to the bat. Imagine that, I see a bat, chased by a cat.

The bat is flying around looking for a place to hang. It tries to cling to the stipple on the ceiling, then onto a painting and then a ceiling fan.

Ever helpful, I watch with fascination and assertively duck whenever the bat flies over my head. My helpful hubby gets a bath towel with which he tries to swat the bat out of the air. We do not want a dead bat. Just a gone-bat.

After a number of attempts, finally the towel hits the bat. Whap! The bat is under the towel on the floor. The creature is making squeaky bat noises. Careful to keep the bat inside the towel, my hubby carefully scoops them together and tosses the whole lot out the window. We are saved. My hero.

Oh, oh. The towel has landed on top of porch roof. The bat is likely trapped under the towel. My annoyed hubby goes downstairs to get a broom to free the bat and retrieve our bath towel.

At this point of the story I need mention that hubby is still in his sleeping garb, which consists of a t-shirt and tighty-whitey underwear. My limber hubby hangs with his top half out the window and his leg half flailing on the inside, and he adeptly uses the broom handle to successfully fling the bat and towel onto the front lawn. Mission accomplished.

Amazingly enough, through all the kafuffle, all of the children are still sleeping. We both go downstairs to retrieve the towel. Across the road from our house is a Tim Hortons and its ever-open drive thru casts its special glow. We squint to see the towel on the dimly lit front lawn. It doesn’t seem to be moving. Brave hubby opens the door slowly and then tiptoes outside to retrieve the towel.

“Shake it off,” I whisper (in case the bat can hear me), “The bat may be attached to the towel.” I do not want that bat to fly back in the house.

Being a dutiful wife, I decide to look for a way to be helpful from the inside of our now bat-free home. A light goes on, figuratively and literally. With alarmingly quick reflexes, it occurs to me to consider and execute the following maneuver. I flip the switch for the front porch light to ‘on’.

Just after the light floods the front lawn, a soft, still voice speaks to me.

O.K., It is a loud booming voice. It is the voice of my beloved saying to me, “Hey, turn out the light.” I suddenly remember that hero hubby is on the front lawn madly shaking a bath towel in his underwear.

This incident spoke volumes to me about just how differently two people can look at the same event. I discovered that my hubby saw things very differently than I did. But maybe that might be just why we are such a good match. The ‘opposites attract’ theory works with us.

I saw this entire episode as something that just had to be related to family and friends and strangers in the streets.

My wonderful hubby didn’t see it that way. He couldn’t understand all the fuss about a bat. He described it this way. ‘We had a bat in the house. I got it out.’

CBC Radio here I almost come

Back a number of years ago I took a writing class through McMaster University. A desire to stretch some creative wings overtook me and I found myself back in a classroom. Bob was a great teacher, a very encouraging sort.

One of our assignments was a First Person Singular. Something written from our own viewpoint. The class assignments were going to be sent to CBC Radio to be looked at by Karen Levine. If it was good enough, the writer was to be invited to come to Toronto to tape the story for radio and was going to be paid.

Most of the class went for very touching memories - they sometimes involved death and small furry pets. I, on the other hand, thought that humourous would be the better way to go. My middle-of-the-night adventure with an errant bat was going to have to suffice. To be sure there could be embellishment but I thought that, in a rare fit of journalistic integrity, there would be no such occurrence in my piece.

Well my assignment ended up being chosen. As luck would have it, the radio program was cancelled before I had a chance for my 15 minutes of fame. Needless to say, my hubby was happy because the aforementioned tale of the errant bat included my wonderful hubby on the front lawn in his tighty-whiteys.

I always over edit and redo many of the things I write and am not ever fully satisfied with something I've written but tomorrow I will blog the actual story.
Bats and all.

Take me with you

It finally happened. A little slice of life has came around full circle.

When my kids were little, my mother would come over to babysit. When she left they would howl at the door. "Please don't go, grandma. Please take me with you"
Their eyes that were pooling with tears added, "please don't leave me here with her." Grandma was fun and Mom was bossy.

Yesterday my grandson slept over. He loves it at grandma's but would sometimes, with a quivering lip, ask for mommy.
But yesterday when his mom said that it was time to go he pitched a mini fit. No, he did not want to go. He wanted to stay at grandma's.

Grandma lets him take all of the pop cans out of the closet so he can line them up on the coffee table and move them to the bench and then back to the coffee table and then back to the bench. Grandma has lots of stuff to play with. Grandma has pencils lying about the place so that he can practise his circle making. Grandma has toys and Grandma sings when he cries. (and for those who know me - this is somewhat of a miracle - that my singing is something that anyone enjoys)

The howling commenced and Grandma smiled.

OCD

My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder comes in a fun form. It is not the actual full blown disorder that inhabits me, just the fun and quirky kind. The kind that keeps my spice rack in alphabetical order. The kind that compels me to fold only socks that match - and match exactly. The kind that convinces me that the clothes hanging in my closet really wish to be hung on the same colour of hanger that they themselves are. OK, I know my clothes do not have feelings (maybe the hangers do, though).
It is having the scissors in the scissors drawer all pointing in the same direction. Having matching cutlery. Having to do my exercises in sets of 44. Having the money in my wallet all facing the same way and in denominational order.
This is normal isn't it?
This all just makes life easier and run more orderly.
And I can use all the orderly I can get.

I forgot the mint

Our daughter Karen was taking a food's class in highschool. Back in the day we used to take a class called home ec but times have changed. She had an exam of sorts - her mid term presentation. She was to prepare some of it at home and the rest at school. I gave her money to go across the road to buy the ingredients. Off she went and then was back to work on her chutney.
The next morning she left for school with her presentation well in hand, or so she thought.
After she had left for school, I found a bulk bin bag of peppermints on the kitchen counter. The little stinker had bought candy with the money I had given her for her presentation.
When she got home I asked her how her chutney went.
"Oh, pretty good," she told me, "but I forgot the mint."
"What mint?" I inquired.
"The mint for on top of the chutney," was her answer.
It seems that the recipe had called for crushed mint. She had bought peppermints and was going to smash them and sprinkle them upon the said chutney.
Lucky she forgot them eh?

I am not alone

The ramblings below are from the cleverly written blog of my son-in-law. Great Scott! he writes gooderer than me does. And he shares my exact sentiments regarding book purchasing.
I have a particular fondness for Airmont Classic's, a mass market cheaply made paperback from back in the day. And there are the hard covers - maybe even leather bound- Readers Digest Worlds Best Reading series (not to be mistaken for the Readers Digest Condensed series) (Although I love condensed even in soups) And people can't even get them for me as presents as I already have most of the serieses.
It is definitely the hunt that I love. Finding a used bookstore and scanning the shelves until the book that wants to come to my house is spotted.Come to momma.

"Speaking of a thousand things: As of last week, it grieves me to say, our book collection has finally broken a thousand. The tally as of this writing is one thousand and three. Some are hers, some are mine, some are ours. Regarding the mine-and-ours: Don’t ask me how many of them I’ve read or will read or will even ever crack open and flip through in search of something, I beg you. Don’t ask me how well I remember or understand the ones I have read. Just don’t go there. The answers will reflect poorly on all involved. The shame of the high books-bought-to-books-read ratio is of course comfortingly widespread among us of the book-nerd persuasion. Let’s just round down and say I haven’t read any of them. I don’t want to read them. I just want them around. I require them in my home. And I must have more."

The Joy of Six

In a writing class we were asked to come up with politically incorrect book titles. There were quite a few bantered about. From very clever to practically naughty.

I am pretty sure that the Joy of Sex was a popular book in the 80's.
I thought that since I wanted to write about my family, and I have six kids, it would only be fitting to give it the title "The Joy of Six".
I imagine that I might be able to sell a few books to people who thought they were buying the Joy of Sex.
I was once told that coming up with a good title is one of the hardest things about writing a book. I have the title already.
Now I just have to write the book.
That should be the easy part. Shouldn't it?

He is Grandma's brother

Our daughter had once told me that it was a shame that we didn't know any famous people. This social disgrace was hard for her. She thought that I should be able to do something about our not knowing any really important or famous people.

This was about the time that sprinting athlete Donovan Bailey was winning Olympic medals for Canada. My mother's maiden name is Bailey.
So I told our fourth daughter that Donovan Bailey was her Grandma's brother.

She was in grade school at the time and reported her newly found celebrity relative to her friends.
The fact that Donovan Bailey is black and her Grandma is white did not bring her to question my sincerity. I don't know if her revelation was met with disbelief or not.

Her unquestioning belief in what I said proved to me that sometimes we want something strongly enough that we will not question the package it comes in when we get the present that we wanted.

Do you have a sister named Jennifer?

We are at the Keg last September. We go every decade or so, so it was not a typical place to find me. During the evening I went downstairs to the bathroom following a young mom and two cute little girls who were dressed up so sweetly. In the washroom I told that mom that her girls looked so cute.
She looked at me and asked, "Do you have a sister named Jennifer?"
Yes, I do have a sister named Jennifer.
Turns out this young mom was the sister of my sisters husband.
I suppose we must have seen each other at 'my sister-her brothers' wedding reception but that was years ago.
It was what I looked like and how I spoke that reminded her of Jennifer. The world, she keeps a gettin' smaller.
Now if only someone would think that I look like my brother Jeff.
He is the one I look the most like. Maybe some day.

It's your eyes - do you have a brother named Doug?

I met Odilia about this time last year. We chatted and she told me that I looked familiar. I couldn't place her so we went back and forth about where we could have known each other. Bank? Work? School? Soccer? Kids? Nothing was fitting and I was assuming that we would never know.
After talking a bit longer, she asked me, "It's your eyes, do you have a brother named Doug?"
Yes, I do have a brother named Doug.
But Doug moved to Holland years ago. 
It would have been years since she had seen him. She was a friend of Doug's friend Helen. And she had never met me.
Without knowing my maiden name or much else that would connect me to Doug, it ended up being my eyes that made her think of him.
It seems that we are not these unconnected creatures running around on the planet that we may think that we are. I think that who we are and where we come from makes a difference. And where we are going is one of the most important questions to ask.
So who do you look like? It isn't just familial features or gestures either. Who shares your faith? A hobby? An experience? A passion?
Hopefully we will begin to see that we are more alike than we thought.