My Friend Lanie

I have a dear dear friend in San Antonio Texas, whom I met about a year and half ago at an online support group. She has devoted hundreds and hundreds of hours to trying to help caregivers and survivors, including children, cope with the ravages of cancer. She is losing her own battle now; hospice has been enlisted by her family to help ease her discomfort. I cannot even communicate with her by telephone any more - only with her beleagured husband or mom. Thankfully, we have said all there was to say to one another. Somehow, it just wasn't enough. I want more.

I have no words to express my sorrow.

Colour me heartbroken.

The Dress That Nearly Became a Suppository

I do a lot of shopping for my mom. A. Lot. She will be 88 on January 17, and is very disabled by osteoarthritis, so she relies heavily upon my brother and me to get her groceries (we alternate doing her weekly shopping), and upon me for everything else. Just as an example, this past week, I have gone to:
· Wal-Mart to get a new answering machine for her
· the Dutch bakery for Dutch crossword puzzle books
· Superstore for a gift under $5 for her apartment seniors' Christmas party
· Wal-Mart for panties (they were out of stock)
· Zellers for panties
· the Dutch bakery again for Dutch biscuits (she thought of it after I'd been there already)

I do all of her gift shopping for her, and that takes some doin, because she is incredibly cheap. I'm afraid I've set too many precedents snagging huge bargains, and now I can't get out of it. My brother Fred, who is irritated by our mom's stinginess, and therefore deliberately buys the most expensive brand of everything whenever he shops for her, has thereby successfully escaped all the errand-running my mom delights in assigning to me.

Thank goodness I convinced her to get an Interac card so I can use it to make all her purchases. I just couldn't tolerate enduring her takin 3 hours to dig through her change purse to reimburse me for EXACTLY $5.69, mostly in coin; or askin me if I have change back from $6.00. (Apparently, my car runs on air...coulda fooled me...)

It never ends with the purchase, either. When, after work one day, Curtis and I picked up a microwave for her, set it up, gave her instructions and wearily went home, we arrived to several hysterical phone messages from her, claiming that the oven was defective. Our best efforts to give her telephone instructions failed (she is not only hearing impaired, but severely listening impaired), so we made the 35 minute drive across town for the third time that evening, to retrieve the huge box from her storage locker (where we'd taken it upon her instructions) so we could make a return. When we got there, she was hysterical because she said she'd gone down the 10 floors in her building to the garbage room (wrong place) to get the box herself, and "somebody had taken it." Arghhhhhh. There was nothing wrong with the microwave, by the way.

Don't even get me started on how many calls I've received about her new answering machine.

When my niece Kristin's wedding day was nearing last July, Mom drove me insane with repeated calls about shopping for a dress. You can't just take my mom shopping to various stores on the off chance that there MIGHT be a suitable frock; she simply does not have the mobility. I was suffering from a huge hernia that had bulged out from the surgical incision on my tummy, and man-handling her walker or wheelchair would not have been good for me. So I went to a plus-size ladies' clothing store to scope out what they had, and spotted the perfect dress. Using her Interac card, I bought it in what I thought was the right size. When I took it over, it fit, she loved it, and I thought boy, that was easy! Wrong. I got home to an anguished phone message: There was a flaw in the dress; it didn't "fall" right in the front, and besides, it was too big. I called the dress shop and they didn't have any more, either in the size I'd already purchased, or in the next size down; so I called another outlet across town and put two on hold for 3 days until I could get there to take them over to Mom's for a fitting. She called me repeatedly every day, fretting about getting "stuck" with a dress that was no good to her. And what if neither of the other two dresses were appropriate: Then she'd be stuck with three useless dresses! And what if they wouldn't take them back? Didn't matter how many times I told her the sales clerk had assured me I could return any or all of the items.

I finally went over there with the dresses, just to shut her up. She was satisfied with one of them but was still terrified that she would not get refunds for the other two. "WHO SAYS THEY'LL TAKE THEM BACK ONCE YOU’VE HAD THEM FOR A MONTH?" It had been three days....

By the time I left her place, the store was closed, which meant I couldn't return the dresses until the next day, at the earliest. Which meant my mom phoned four times that day to leave panicky messages. When I called later that evening to tell her the returns had been made, she expressed doubt that the money had actually been credited to her account. This went on daily for three weeks until she got her monthly bank statement in the mail.

At least it was finally over.

I thought.

Then began the search for appropriate accessories: purse, shoes, jewellery. I was certain my hair would fall out.

Yesterday afternoon, Mom called me to say that when my brother Fred delivered her groceries, he persuaded her to get a new dress for my wedding in January. I'm tryin to decide how to kill him.

High School Chemistry

I never should have taken chemistry in high school. It was my brother Fred's fault; he so horrified me with graphic descriptions of dissecting pig fetuses and using electricity to make dead frogs leap, I couldn't bear the thought of biology; heck, I couldn't even pull the legs out of my fruit fly in grade 7. Oh, I can look at anything - I watch even the most graphic of procedures on "The Operation" - I just can't do it myself. Anyway, it was a mistake, as I learned too late: dissection was only a very small part of the course, the rest of which I would have found fascinating. Chemistry was not even remotely interesting to me, and, although I had always been a good student, I had the intention span of a flea...If I wasn't engaged, I would not apply myself, a weakness in my character for which I continue to suffer to this very day.

And so I became increasingly bewildered. I couldn't do all of the homework questions, and unfortunately, my lab partner Sharon was as inept as I. It was weird, because we were both strong in our other subject areas, but dumb as stumps when it came to chem class. Sharon was a pretty girl and a fashion plate with swingy, shiny hair; but she sometimes struggled a bit with certain aspects of burgeoning womanhood: I remember collapsing into fits of giggles at seein Sharon's legs festooned by a dozen tiny bandages from her shaving mishaps. When I think about it, we spent a lot of time giggling and whispering in class, which made us a focus of our chem teacher's attention.

Mr. Currie (talk about a nerd: his name was Rodney Currie, and he had the periodic table abbreviations for the chemicals "radon" and "curium" embroidered on the pocket of his lab coat - right beneath his pocket protector) was fond of calling on weak students in class, so he could publicly humiliate them when they couldn't provide the correct answers. He never did figure out how it was that I rarely got a good test score, yet always answered him smartly in class. Luckily for us, the two boy geniuses in the class sat directly behind us, and were enamoured with us, Neil with Sharon, and Robert with me. Robert had this incredibly deep bass voice, which apparently was outside Mr. Currie's range of hearing, like a dog whistle to humans. Robert would feed me the answers right out loud, I would repeat them, and then watch in wonderment as Mr. Currie disappointedly muttered, "That's right..."

It's a wonder Sharon and I never blew up the school. When we mixed chemicals in class, everyone else's turned brown - ours turned iridescent purple. And foamed. We had to steal measurements and weights from classmates, because our calculations were out by hundreds of grams. In so many ways, we really were hopeless.

I wonder sometimes what became of my former classmates. Neil and Robert, I have no doubt, are successful and well-to-do, loving family men. Sharon? I dunno, but I hope she married rich. Whenever I see a middle-aged woman with swingy hair, I admit I check her legs for bandaids...

Milo



A fellow blogger and her husband are collecting a rich tapestry of seniors' life stories, and their recent day at the seniors centre reminded me of how I acquired my sweet tabby, Milo.....

I became a pet visitor volunteer with the Humane Society in honour of my dad. He spent the last few months of his life in the pediatric wing of Deer Lodge Hospital, and every Sunday I brought my chow chow, Jinx, up to visit him. A lifetime animal lover (a legacy he has passed down to me), he always lit up whenever he saw her loping cheerfully up to him. In fact, the day she barely roused a reaction in him, I knew he wouldn't live much longer. I was right - he died a couple of days later.

Jinx's visits had become a weekly highlight for everyone in that wing, and I was told many nostalgic and tearful stories of the pets other residents had loved and lost during their lifetimes. Seeing for myself the cheering impact a visit from an animal has on the elderly, I resolved to continue the practice after Dad passed away.

I was already spending a fair amount of time volunteering at the Humane Society: brushing, clipping nails, cleaning ears, and just handling the cats to make them more appealing for adoption. So I decided to become a pet visitor. The first Monday of every month, I would arrive an hour and a half ahead of time, so I could pick out a nice friendly kitty that wouldn't tire of handling and start to bite or scratch.

My very first time, the Society happened to have an array of gorgeous cats: Siamese, Burmese, snow white Persians with Delft blue eyes; and adorable wee kitties that fit into the palm of my hand. Most of them meowed piteously and stretched their paws out through the bars of their cages, beggin for escape. I cuddled with them all, but the one that really caught my eye was a midsized, ordinary looking grey and brown tabby who lay calmly and quietly in the back corner of his cage. When I opened the gate, he greeted me with a friendly, "Brrrrr?" and rose to smear his nose against my hand. I picked him up and he immediately relaxed in my arms, not purring, but squeezing his eyes and slappin his tail in contentment. Several passersby noticed the lashing of his tail and remarked that he was gettin mad, but I said, no, that's how he expresses pleasure.

When I flipped him over onto his back and clipped his nails, he complied without a struggle, and I knew I had selected my first visitor. He was quiet in the car and friendly to all the seniors, curling up contentedly in every lap. When I returned him to the Humane Society, he eased back into his cage without a qualm, and I wrote lavish comments on his description card, in the hopes that he would be quickly adopted. I knew that, with all the beauties and cuties surrounding him, he had stiff competition.

I couldn't get him out of my mind, and every day I telephoned to see if he had found a home yet. He hadn't, and I knew his time was runnin out. After four days, I could endure it no longer, and drove down there to take him home myself. It's not cheap to adopt a cat, and I was goin through financial difficulties at the time due to a divorce. I had a dog and a cat already - what was I thinking? But love overran the pauser, reason; and within an hour he was microchipped and scheduled for neutering and tattooing. He had contracted the terrible kennel cold that often afflicts the facility, and was sneezin so hard he was popping the blood vessels in his nose. He could hardly keep his eyes open from the infection, and had a rattly cough. I turned the spare bedroom into an isolation room to protect my other cat, Duffy, lined the floor and furniture with towels, and ran a steam kettle until the walls streamed with condensation. Before entering his room I stripped outside the door, and I washed thoroughly after visiting and cuddling with him. Within days I had a healthy adolescent tabby cat on my hands, who was dyin to inspect the rest of the house and his new companions.

Milo, so named because he is so mild-mannered and good-natured, and because he almost smiles, is a doll. He loves everyone, and has every confidence that everyone loves him back (and they do). Although he does not purr often, and not loudly at all when he does, he is always affectionate, cheerful and playful. He still has that characteristic tail-slap (I call it his Godzilla tail), and he loves to eat. Lots. He has a big belly and he's proud of it - Whenever anyone walks into the room, he rolls over and exposes it. He has a velour-like coat and lets me do stuff like kiss him all over his face and blow mouth-farts on his tummy.

I wish my dad had known him.

My (Mom's) Bicycle

When I was very little, I regarded my mom's bicycle as the most hallowed item that had made it across the ocean with my family when they emigrated from Holland. It was a handsome black English two-wheeler, with a leather covering over the chain, a wire basket, and a built-in lock on its back wheel. Ever since I could remember, I had been told that when I was big enough to ride it, that bicycle would be mine. For years I gazed at it longingly where it leaned against the inside wall of our garage, and every spring I would climb aboard its cushioned seat and strain to reach the pedals. Finally one summer, Dad built big blocks around them, and I was able to turn them; although braking was treacherous: I had to leap to the ground in order to keep from falling over.

That bicycle was my pride and joy, and I polished its chrome and washed and waxed it as if it were a vintage Rolls Royce. No one could beat me in a race. I became a skilled rider; and then I began to get more and more daring, riding without hands, riding backwards, riding with my feet up on the handlebars, and constructing and navigating jumps in the Loblaws parking lot behind our house. One day the inevitable happened, and I crashed, twisting the handlebars and front wheel horribly in the process. I wept with apprehension at my parents' reaction to my recklessness, as I struggled to haul my bike home with the front half of it held above the ground.

My dad was the type of person who would go postal if you left the light on in the bathroom for the two seconds it took you to go get a comb from your bedroom. This transgression, I was convinced, would mean my death.

Not so: I made my confession, miserable tears streaming down my hot cheeks. Dad listened stoically, then began rummaging through his toolbox. A half hour of clanging and whistling later (it was customary for my dad to whistle as he puttered, but I hardly expected such good cheer under these circumstances), my battered bicycle was as good as new. As I wept with gratitude and relief, my arms flung fiercely around his neck, he mumbled through my shoulder in his gruff voice, "Yust don't tell your mudder."

There were other times when my dad demonstrated that, although he would almost pop an artery over a minor faux pas, he was a rock when it came to bigger crises; but that's the stuff of other stories.

Here Comes the Bride

I'm getting married. Again. The first time, in 1979, I got married in the flower garden of St. Vital Park. The wedding was nice; the marriage, not so much....The second time, on December 28 of 2001, Curtis and I tied the knot in some nice lady's dining room, with her son and the old lady next door as our witnesses. I guess you could call it an elopement, since it took only enough planning to wait the requisite 24 hours after rushin down to Vital Statistics for a marriage license, and to make dozens of calls to find a Commissioner of Oaths who was available during the Christmas holiday season. That wedding was real enough (and emotional enough - both of us were bawling), but we wanted our marriage blessed by the Church. The thing was, we wanted to be members of that church, and not just strangers who "hired" a clergyperson to conduct the ceremony. (I have strong feelings about this, which is why my first husband and I were not married in a church.) Plus, after all the exorbitant costs for an immigration attorney and the staggering fees for every step of the process, coupled with the fact that Curtis was not allowed to work for the 10 months it took to get his landed immigrant status, we just plain could not afford it.

So we paid off all our bills, saved a bit of money, and test-drove a few churches until we found one that we really like. We've been parishioners for about a year and half now. Last Sunday we asked the rector if he would marry us. He replied that he was already married, but thank you, he was very flattered. One of the things I like about Father Robin is that he's a smartass. Anyway, we met with him last night to "design" our ceremony, which will not be a traditional wedding, but rather a consecration or blessing of our vows. He's never done this kind of service before, and he's very excited about it and has some pretty creative ideas.

So on January 9 I will be walking down an aisle for the first time. And the last. But no pomp; I detest that. No veil, no attendants, no speeches - just what we hope will be a meaningful ceremony followed by a nice dinner at our favourite little restaurant, with about 40 friends and relatives. Chicken Kiev with all the trimmings, and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Teaching Funnies

Teenagers are always funniest when they're not tryin to be. At least to me. I've read some pretty funny stuff when marking exams that were written under pressure; time constraints, writer's cramp, and mental fatigue taking their toll. For which I am grateful. The monotony of marking one paper after another can be mind numbing, and the tiniest bit of humour, however unintentional, is most welcome. And I will admit that, under those conditions, I am easily amused.

One line from an essay on Cyrano de Bergerac that had me rolling in the aisles read, "There was no way anyone could get around his big nose."

Another that gave me the giggles was this slightly dyslexic sentence about A Midsummer Night's Dream: "A cast was spelled on Bottom."

Years ago, I was assigned a small class of grade 7's who had very poor reading skills. Probably based on the timeless notion that practice makes perfect, the popular strategy at the time was to have them read aloud as much as possible. Watching them struggle over mono-syllabic words, enduring the five painful minutes it would take for them to read a couple of simple sentences in an expressionless monotone, was worse than Chinese water torture for me. I would hold my teacher's copy of the large print "low level, high interest" picture-laden text before me and wince as the students screwed up their faces and tried to mouth the words along with the classmate who had been chosen to read aloud. To keep myself from gnawing my own arm off, I would often retreat into a pleasant daydream, only to be jolted from my reverie by dead silence. Then I would see my unfortunate charge grimacing over an undecipherable word, with a facial expression like s/he was tryin to squeeze out a particularly stubborn turd. After rescuing him or her with a little "pronunciation boost," I'd go back to willing the hands on the clock to move faster before my IQ dropped below plant life.

But that's tragic; that's not the funny part. This is:

One day, as I gazed at these kids, secretly pitying them their limitations, I became fascinated by the workings of one girl's mouth as she tried to masticate the biggest wad of bubble gum I had ever seen. Then she coughed. The huge glob of gum shot out of her mouth at Mach 1 and stuck to the center of the page she had been struggling with. She started, peeled the pink glistening hunk off of the paper, and, as she opened up wide to return the gum to her mouth, looked up to see if anyone had seen - right into my wide eyes. That was it for me. I was finished. I was seized by a fit of hysterical laughter, while she literally pleaded with me (she actually had her hands clasped in prayer) to NOT TELL what I had seen. Tell? It was all I could do to breathe.

Sometimes the parents crack me up. There have been at least two books published that are collections of actual notes written to teachers by parents, usually to excuse an absence. They are hilarious, but my all-time favourite is, "Yesterday at recess, Jerry was kicked in the penis. Could you please look into it?"

I have had a couple of dillies addressed to me. One was from a mom asking me to excuse her son's absence, as he'd had to write a "bowling exam." I just had to phone her to learn more. Turns out he was taking a Levels coaching course in the sport.

Another was to explain that a boy was absent because he had to have x-rays done of his head, "but they didn't find anything in there." Heck, I could've told her that. The guy was one species below Neanderthal.

In closing, just let me hasten to say that I'm not laughin AT my students; I'm laughin WITH them. Honest.