IT NEVER RAINS IT POURS!!

You know that old idiom "it never rains it pours"? Well that was the week that was around our house very recently. Figuratively and literally. I couldn't help but feel like we were getting dumped on. Maybe more than a little bit. At least more than our share, anyway.


The first thing to go was our kitchen faucet. For some reason the darn thing decided to leak for a while oozing an undetected stream of water into the bottom cupboard where it was then sucked up into the particle board material that the cupboards were made of which created an odour similar to a feed lot or something. Yuuccck! To some, a feedlot smells like money, to me, it smells like…well, a feedlot, if you catch my drift. Not a great smell if you ask me. It took a while to detect the oozing stink-making culprit and by then the tap had thankfully given up the complete ghost. Strike one.

It was only a couple of days later when a big wind, (tiny twister?) came through our yard knocking down one of our trees which then pulled the SaskPower line connected to the house off of the wall. The live line was coiled up on the wet grass ready to fry any intruder when our quick-thinking town foreman, and our next door neighbour Kelly Kish, surrounded our house with caution tape making it look like a crime scene but keeping anyone in danger away. Thanks Kelly.

Through the quick response efforts of electrician Norm Pander, his assistant and the SaskPower boys we had power back on to the house in record time. That was the good news. The bad news is that the power hook-up was Grandfathered Electrical code but because the old way isn’t good enough any more we have to completely upgrade the power coming in to the house. That’s the bad news and strike two.

Sidebar here: a quick thank you to Benny Baker for quickly cutting up the damaged tree and to Bob Balogh for taking out all of the branches so we were cleaned up by supper time. Thanks guys. Oh yeah, by the way, thanks also to Linus Blackstock for, once again, finishing up another one of my home plumbing projects. This may be the fourth or fifth or sixth time I’ve had to call him in when one of my repair jobs has gone awry. Next time I’ll heed your words, “No more plumbing for you!”

After the trees were cleaned up and the power line reattached the rains came again and lo and behold if there wasn’t rainwater pouring in through a couple of windows. “What the deuce?”, or words to that effect, I asked. Apparently, this past winter’s record breaking icicles and ice dams had put some extra weight on the eavestroughing rendering them useless as the rain water flowing off of the roof fell in between the eavestroughs and the fascia board and poured into the windows. Strike three.

They also say that things come in threes and I was expecting that the above three would be good enough. But, as it turns out, all of these things happened on or before the 20th of June, and, fortunately, they could all be fixed. Unfortunately, on the morning of the 21st of June, the first day of Summer, I received the call that my ailing Mom had passed away. Strike four. And nothing can fix that.

I am grieving but her death put life into perspective for me. Things will go wrong and things will go right and you have to roll with the punches and move forever forward and it will all work out in the end. My mother taught me well.

My Mom went out on her own terms. A life well-lived. And she was full of life until the very end. It is of special note that Mom left twenty-three years to the very day that my Dad left us in 1990. Always in sync those two. It was the first day of Summer. It was their favourite day of the year.

“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”-Albert Pike (1809-1891).

A TRIBUTE TO MOM

My ninety-one-year-old mother had nine children and those children had twenty-four children and their children have had thirty-three children and a few of those children had five more giving us a total of seventy-one, that’s 71, direct descendants of Rose Christine Hubbard. That’s quite a legacy.

            Mind you, she didn’t do it all alone because Dad factored into the equation, too. For a couple who were only going to have two children they kind of overshot their target a bit. I was number eight out of the nine so I am extremely glad that they did!

            On top of her own immediate family members Mom was always very close to her large extended family. Her sisters and brothers and their children and their children and their children…

Mom and Dad were also Foster Parents having had three foster children as well as her own until Mom found it too hard when the little ones were adopted out and had to leave her nest. My parents’ home was always open to anyone and it was not unusual to find one, two or three friends of their children sleeping somewhere in the house when they were having trouble in their own homes or just needed sanctuary until they could safely get home. Or sometimes they’d only come over to the house for one of Mom’s famous cinnamon buns and end up staying for days. Mom and Dad also mentored children through the church in youth groups, summer camps and Confirmation classes.

            Many of the regular readers of this column will be very familiar with my Mom as she has many relatives in the area and had lived in the Kipling/ Bender/ Inchkeith area as a little girl and returned to those Hungarian roots in 1970 after Dad accepted the job as the United Church Minister for the Kipling/Windthorst Pastoral Charge. They lived in Kipling for the entire decade of the 1970’s before moving back to Alberta in 1980 and they formed lasting relationships with many area residents that continue to this day.

            Mom has always been a fantastic cook and put those skills to work as her talent and passion for cooking became her vocation, as well, while she was a member of the kitchen staff at the Kipling Memorial Union Hospital during her time here in Kipling. Mom also cooked for several summers at Camp McKay at Round Lake while Dad was the Camp Director.

            Her recipes and cooking abilities have been passed on to her children and their children and while they might not be quite able to meet her lofty standards it is another legacy that Mom can be so very proud of.

            Our entire large family has been fortunate and blessed to have had Mom around into her nineties. Her mind is still as sharp as a tack and her sense of humour still keen but her outstanding memory is the thing that sets her apart from all others her age. She is the family historian and has written several stories about her long life and the many lives she’s affected along the way. Whenever we need to remember an event or a date or who was even in attendance at something way back when we can just phone up Mom and get all the details that we need.

            Mom’s health has always been very good for “a woman her age” but recently she’s been showing her years. I had a conversation with our youngest daughter Emily about Mom’s deteriorating health and Em said, “I know she can’t live forever but I really thought that she’d be the one to beat the system.” I wish.  

            I know this is a very public forum for such an intimately private matter but it is also a convenient way for me to let so many people who care about Mom know that she is comfortable and surrounded by loved ones but time marches on and as much as we wish it to be she will be not be able to “beat the system.”

 

“A Mother’s heart is always with her children.”-Proverb.

THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL US...

The other day I loaded up the internet and the homepage came up with the standard variety of articles and stories to attract my attention and then I read this line, “Your barbeque grill may have more germs than a toilet seat!” so says the United Kingdom’s hygiene expert Dr. Lisa Ackerley whose research found the typical outdoor grill contains a staggering 1.7 million microbes per 100 cm sq as compared to the average toilet seat’s 759,950 microbes per 100 cm sq.

I don’t know about you but I can’t even remember the last time I had our toilet seats’ microbe population checked, but, okay, we’ll go with her number. The article also goes on to state the obvious by listing how carpets, computer keyboards, cell phones, kitchen sinks and dishcloths are also breeding grounds for germs. Ya think? Is this news? They forgot to mention door knobs, shopping cart handles, coffee cups, money, steering wheels, credit cards, baseball bats, used gum…

I don’t mean to be all cynical and everything but the research was carried out for the household cleaning product company Jeyes Inc. who just happen to be the distributors of Jeyes Fluid Outdoor Disinfectant. How convenient.

Now, I’m not saying that this news isn’t a bit alarming but sometimes ignorance is bliss. I didn’t really need to know the microbe level of my toilet seat and I am fairly certain that after years and years of barbequing experience, and taking in to account how many people I have poisoned over the years, (that would be none, by the way), I think that I am perfectly qualified to clean my grill and I can say with a certain amount of confidence that, if tested, my grill will be cleaner than my toilet seat. Just saying. Now, maybe I’m a bit more diligent than the average griller but I’m thinking we’ve got some Chicken Littleing going on here.

It’s just one more alarming piece of information that we don’t really want or need.  I’m reminded of the “Eyewitness News” hidden camera pieces that tell us all about the disgusting things we can find on our hotel bedding and in the restaurant kitchens and in the meat market and in the local bakery. Stop it already. There are just some things that we really don’t need to know.

            Like how many different daily things we do and are exposed to that can lead to disease and death. It seems that every second email is a notice that we are being killed by our car’s air conditioner or some kind of venomous spider or Aspartame or your mumps vaccine or some such thing. Please go to the Snopes.com website to confirm any and all internet warnings before you go screaming down the street with the latest piece of news that we are all going to die from.

            So as we enter the peak grilling season make sure you clean your grill properly, and, while you're at it, maybe you ought to do an extra bit of scrubbing on your toilet seat, too. Just use a different brush.

            “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,”-Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).

WANDERING THOUGHTS

Have you ever noticed how you can't sleep when you want or need to but you can sure sleep when you're not supposed to? You know how it is, lying there staring at the ceiling at four in the morning but you're snoring and drooling away in the training session at work or school? No? Never happened to you? I don't believe it.

            Very recently I happened to endure one of those restless nights but it wasn't due to work pressures or family or personal health issues or everyday life stresses, because those happen...well...every day, this was a very unique, hopefully once-in-a-lifetime, gut wrenching, slap in the face, kick to the groin, make me physically sick, event...yes, I'm speaking of the "Colossal Collapse" of my Toronto Maple Leafs in the seventh and final game of their first round NHL playoff  series versus the Boston Bruins. Yikes! These guys didn't just break our Maple Leaf loving hearts they ripped them out of our chests, threw them on the ground and stomped on 'em!! The only consolation from the whole ordeal is that I am only a fan. Mind you, I'm a bona fide,  true-blue, died in the wool life-longer, but I cannot imagine how the players, coaches and team officials feel.

            Without boring you with the nasty details I will say that the debacle was mind-bogglingly fast, painful and sad. It was death in the family sad. I'm thinking this loss could test the abilities of many a mental health service centre across the country, but their loss is not what I had intended to talk about this week at all, but thanks for listening anyway, I was going to talk about how one's mind wonders while in a semi-sleepless state.

            While I was trying to exorcise the Maple Leaf demons from my brain I turned my thoughts to other things like: why are we searching for intelligent life on other planets when it's so very rare here on Earth? Hmm? If we're so smart why is there an endless supply of material for "America's Funniest Home Videos"? Or as I like to call it..."How Stupid Can You Be?"

            Another thing...in inclement weather why do they advise us to "drive with caution"? As opposed to what? Reckless abandon? Shouldn't "driving with caution" be kind of like, oh, you know, standard operating procedure?

            And while we're on the subject of "driving with caution" what's with the video billboards? One advertising company states that they have "19 Strategic High-Traffic” markets from Victoria BC to St. John's Newfoundland. Isn't that special. So, I'm guessing that while we are driving "without caution" we can be watching TV? In high traffic areas? Does this sound like a good plan to you? Who allowed this to happen?... Lobbyists for the Canadian Auto Body Owners Association or something?

            You know what else is colossally stupid? Keeping the Canadian Senate. Enough is enough already. How much longer can the Canadian taxpayer be expected to support this patronage appointed thievery? Huh? How many Canadian Senate Scandals does it take to abolish a useless government institution? It's a rhetorical question, by the way, not the opening line of a joke...but then again... And besides, you can't possibly know the answer to that question because they're not done yet. Scandalizing, that is.

            Eventually, I'll get my lost sleep back. Probably in a meeting or something but I'll get it back. I've finally stopped thinking about THE LOSS all of the time now but there are always going to be things that will keep you awake at night and make you go...hmmmmm?

            "There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."- Thomas Paine- (1737-1809).

A BLAST FROM THE PAST!

I wrote this article back in April of 2009 and it is most appropos today as we were "this close" to putting our winter jackets away and then...SNOWSTORM!!!

Do you know who must really love Saskatchewan? Clothing manufacturers. As a wise person recently stated, “In Saskatchewan, there’s no bad weather only bad clothing”. How true. That’s why we need lots of it. Clothing, that is.


Here in good old Saskatchewan we may have any one of the four seasons break out on any given day of the year so your wardrobe better be adequate and accessible at all times.

You will, of course, have to have your standard set of parkas. A heavy one, a heavier one and the heaviest one. Ditto for head gear and footwear.

Especially at this time of year, (late winter or early spring or whatever it is), one may have to put on or take off, depending on the temperature, one, two or three layers of clothing during the course of a day.

“Honey, have you seen my ____________ coat?” (fill in the blank with fall, winter, spring, hoody, waterproof, windbreaker, fur-lined or hockey, which, of course, will be all of the above), is a question you will hear at many a Saskatchewan home.

This question is usually followed by the scary answer, “It’s in the front closet”. Which will then be immediately followed by a huge groan.

Which brings us to the other manufacturing group that must love Saskatchewan: the distributors of closet organizing products. Coat hooks, shelving, clothes hangers, boot racks and closet rods must be sold by the millions here. Whether they are ever installed and used as directed is another question.

I have never spent any time in a place like Arizona but can you imagine how little the residents would have to own there?! I would think that a couple of pairs of pants, a few shirts, a pair of flip-flops, some shorts and 100spf sunblock are about all that would be required.

I’m thinking that a single closet would probably hold all of their stuff. Here, we need a few closets, a couple of dressers, a trunk, a box in the basement for winter boots, a box in the basement for summer shoes, a box in the basement for rubber boots, a box in the basement for cleats, skates, ski boots, flippers, curling shoes, snow shoes, a box in the basement for…I know, I know, you get the drift!

Aaahhhh Saskatchewan, ya gotta love it! If “variety is the spice of life” then we’ve got plenty of spice! Think of how boring it would be to live in t-shirts, cut-offs and sandals all of the time. When would you ever get the chance to show off your new turtleneck, or bathing suit, or parka, or shorts, or touque, or thongs…

“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation.”-Kin Hubbard (1868-1930).

"WE ARE BORN GOOD, WE CHOOSE EVIL."

I very recently read an interesting statement from Canadian writer Will Ferguson’s 2012 Giller Prize winning novel 419 (four-one-nine). In the story one of the characters says, “We are born good, we choose evil. Life forces these decisions upon us.”


This, of course, will open up the whole philosophical debate regarding predetermined life and you, Dear Reader, are free to choose the philosophical doctrine of fatalism or side with the philosophy that every action has an effect and a consequence and that circumstances beget circumstances, or, in a nutshell, life determines life. Do you know what I mean? Are evildoers evil at birth or do life’s circumstances turn good people into evil people as per Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga?- “Come to the Dark Side…Luke.”-Never heard of it? Google it please.

Whichever philosophy you choose to follow there is no denying the fact that evil has haunted humankind since man’s inception. Take the recent deadly bombings and their aftermath at this year’s Boston Marathon. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his younger brother Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, placed, (you can forget the “allegedly” this time as it’s pretty obvious who did it regardless of a future court’s outcome), two bombs near the finish line of the 117th running of the Boston Marathon and the two explosions from the bombs killed 3 people and injured 183 others. At least 15 of the injured were in critical condition as of April 16, including two children.

By all appearances these two brothers “chose” evil. It was not thrust upon them. It didn’t spontaneously appear and it certainly wasn’t visible in any way, shape or form on the day of their birth.

I am not a psychiatrist but I have put in fifty-six years at the school of life and over that time I have formed a few theories of my own in regards to the human condition and it is my humble opinion that everyone is born with an on/off switch and whether they choose to flip that switch on or off is determined by many factors leading up to that point in time when a moral choice has to be made. Switch On? Switch Off?

Parentage, geography, religious beliefs, social status, or lack thereof, intelligence and independence are all factors that can influence one’s thinking. These are factors that influence the on/off switch not excuses for the decision that is ultimately made.

I reluctantly included religious beliefs as a factor when I know perfectly well that it was a definitive factor in the brothers’ motivation in the bombing but I am reminded of what David Letterman said during his opening remarks on the first live airing of his late-night talk show right after the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11 when he said, “We're told that they were zealots fueled by religious fervour... religious fervour… and if you live to be a thousand years old will that make any sense to you?” Factor…yes…excuse…no. Too often religion provides evil a mask. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist…it makes no difference. Evil is just evil regardless of its face.

I am in no way saying that religion is evil. Or religious beliefs are evil. Religion is good for society. People are evil. Fanaticism is evil. And anyone who uses religion as an excuse to turn the switch off when it should be on or turn it on when it should be off is…well…evil.

“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.”-Buddha

THE OL' WINTER'S TOO DAMN LONG BLUES!!

From dictionary.com-"Melancholy-[mel-uhn-kol-ee]-noun, plural-mel-an-chol-ies, adjective- 1.) a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual or prolonged; depression. 2.) sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness. 3.) the condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression." Or as we laymen refer to it..."Sick of Bloody Winter!!" I'm not sure about the whole "Black Bile" thing but I know a fair bit about...whadyacallit?...you know....uh...that other word for melancholy....oh, yeah...GRUMPY!! What with our crappy weather lately how can you not be? Grumpy, that is.

Here's another word for you from the same source: "Moody-[mu-de-ee] adj.,-ier, -iest. 1.) Given to frequent changes of mood; temperamental. 2.) subject to periods of depression; sulky. 3.) Expressive of a mood, especially a sullen or gloomy mood."

"Frequent changes of mood", eh? Could it be....MOTHER NATURE... we're talking about here? Sound familiar? Do you think she's going through some sorta life changes or something? My question is, what, exactly, is itching her deriere? Huh? Can we move on now? Have you been miserable long enough? Snap out of it already!

The worst thing about "melancholy", and "grumpy" and "moody" is that they are very contagious and they love company. A bad mood will spread through your family or your work place faster than a cold virus at a day care centre. And it's almost twice as hard to get rid of.

I think there might be as many words in the English language describing melancholy as there are Eskimo words describing snow, e.g.-tempermental, dour, gloomy, blue, glum, morose, saturnine...saturnine?...whaterver... sour, sulky, sullen, surly, unhappy... It can be downright depressing knowing how many words there are for depression.

I knew I had picked up a severe case of the Gloom n' Doom virus from that tempermental ol' crow Mother Nature and in an effort to help shake off the blues the wife and I thought we'd invite some friends on a trip to Regina for some virtual golf at The First Tee Indoor Golf Center. Their website states:"The First Tee's ten simulators provide the opportunity to keep your swing grooved for the summer months, (provided summer actually comes). A choice of 68 world-class golf courses and 30 formats of play lets you practice driving, chipping, putting, and sand play. Eighteen courses played by the PGA Tour, the European Tour, and the Australian Tour are at your fingertips." . Golfing, despite the unusually cold weather and the January looking April, sounded to us like it was just what the doctor had ordered for a bit of blues busting.

But, of course, Mother Nature says, "Not so fast, there, Used To Be Young Man, I'm not done throwing winter at you just yet" and with a distinctive "Bwahahaha" tone in her wind she proceeded to mess up the highways for the umpteenth time this winter and made the roads nearly impassible. Nearly, I said. Should we have been out there on the highway? In a word...no. Were we? In another word...yes. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that, and judging from all of the traffic on the road that day we weren't the only fools employing that philosophy.

Our friends were smarter, or less lucky than we were, as we had travelled up on the Friday during the nasty weather while they were going to travel on Saturday but the "travel not recommended" advisory kept them at home. Nonetheless, our youngest daughter, and golf fanatic, too, tagged along and we enjoyed some indoor golfing fun.

This indoor, virtual golf was new to us but we noticed some similarities to the real thing right off the bat. The ball will do what the ball is wont to do when it is wont to do it regardless of it being on a fake or a real golf course but the weather was fantastic inside and nobody lost a ball all day! At a very affordable price and knowing that we won't be seeing any real grass anytime soon I highly recommend a visit to First Tee Golf to any golfer and I guess only time will tell whether our little golf breakaway had the desired effect of staving off the deepening of this melancholic winter hating mood or not.

"Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach,"-Sydney Smith (1771-1845).