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).

WHERE I'VE BEEN

Hey there folks! Been a little absent from this site for a while. My apologies. I will have to Google "Blog" to see what I am supposed to do here. Anyway, we were in Mexico for a week at the end of February/beginning of March and it was fantastic and then after that I just kinda laid around wishing I was on a Mexican vacation. It didn't help that we're one day away from Easter, a week after it officially turned Spring and it was still -24C with the wind chill this morning and there's still more snow around here than the last three winters combined. On the positive side, I've invested heavily in canoe manufacturers and trash pump companies in advance of the impending floods and that'll pay off as soon as, or IF, the temperatures get anywhere close to where they're supposed to be. So have a look at the last few articles I've thrown together and, yes, of course, there's some Mexico vacation stories but you'll have to look for them. Thanks for stoppin' by. Come back again real soon.

YOU CALL THIS SPRING??!!

             The calendar says it's spring. The earlier sunrises and later sunsets say it's spring. The seventeen foot snowdrifts and the super cold temperatures tell me that we're still up to here in winter. Calendar be damned! When will it end!?

A long time ago, before I had to worry about adult-type stuff like insurance policies or house damage or sewer back-ups or flooded communities and everything, my largest springtime worries were about raft supplies and avoiding getting a “bootfull” of runoff slush and water in my red-toed boots. Apparently, getting a “bootfull” was a child’s equivalent of committing murder, or something, because if you ever came home with a “bootfull” you’d be getting a lickin’ or, at the very least, a heck of a tongue lashing, depending, of course, on which parent met you at the door. I know now that it wasn’t the fact of getting your pants, socks and boots soaked with ditch water that was the problem; it was that you were told to NOT get those things wet and you still went ahead and did it anyway. That was the problem!

Aw, the innocence of youth, eh? The “Fun Quotient” was everywhere and in everything from the freezing cold water, to the mud, to the slushy snow and ice everywhere. There was adventure wherever you turned. In adulthood those adventurous elements of youth turn into threats to your property.

You know, back in my growing up days in the 1960’s and ‘70’s the snowfall levels that we have experienced this year were pretty much run-of-mill as were the high spring runoff water levels. In fact, one particular year, when we were living in a little hamlet north of Moose Jaw called Marquis, we had an unusually early quick melt that had the water standing everywhere and then the temperatures dipped well-below zero which turned the whole community into one huge skating rink. Now that was just about every Canadian kid’s dream come true.

Our whole humongous school yard was one sheet of ice which came in real handy for us hockey playing fanatics as the early thaw had left the indoor rink’s ice virtually unplayable and the streets were so rutted and frozen that there was no way you could play any street hockey so we were awfully happy when the whole community turned into a giant arena. It was great! You weren’t interrupted by cars wrecking your snow-pile goal posts and you didn’t have to sneak in to the rink through the snow hatches to steal a few hours of mostly-dark indoor hockey and you could skate and skate and skate all over town without a rink caretaker screaming at you.

But that was then and this is now. I am not quite so excited to see our community turned into a complete ice rink regardless of how many children it makes happy. Funny how one’s perspective changes over time, isn’t it?

As anxious as I am to get this overly-long winter over with I am hoping that it takes its sweet time and eases into some warmer temperatures so we aren’t living the “Big Flood of 2011” all over again in 2013. Once every fifty or so years is good enough for me.

“Funny how life goes on but leaves marks on our lives; this time of reflection certainly brings the happiest memories with a dash of sadness.” Tammi Post quotes.

OUT OF THE MOUTHES OF BABES

Our Grandson is turning four-years-old in a few weeks and his little sister is one-and-a-half-years-old right now and she idolizes her older brother. She bugs him incessantly, mind you, but she idolizes him. She follows him everywhere and copies everything he does. Actually, she might even think she’s a boy, too. Case in point: their Mom was getting them ready for a bath one night and little Ava, naked as a Jaybird, sidles up to the toilet bowl and makes like she’s going to go pee so her Mom snatches her up and puts her on the seat (she hasn’t started potty training yet) and little Ava scowls and fights to get down from her perch and then her Mom sees what she’s trying to do…Ava turns, facing the toilet, trying to go to the bathroom through her belly-button because she’s smart enough to know she doesn’t have the same equipment as her brother but she’s pretty sure he goes pee standing up so she must be able to do that, too. Kids, eh?

One of the many great things about Grandparenting is that you get to re-live some of the “kids do, (or say), the darndest things”. I say re-live because there are some cute and funny things that you remember your children saying as they were growing up but it’s not nearly as fresh as listening to the little ones in the moment.

Another case in point is just before we were to leave on our hot holiday vacation we FaceTimed with our daughter and the Grandkiddies and it’s cute that we can see each other in the iPhone but the sound is iffy some of the time and near the end of the conversation my wife tells the kids that we will make sure we bring them back some “Sea Shells” from our holiday by the sea. Well, our Grandson, Treyton, doesn’t know what “Sea Shells” are, but he says “okay”, and then a little later, just before we’re hanging up he yells into the phone, “don’t forget the CHEESE SHELLS, Gramma!”

So in that vein I will share some other cute little children stories with you. Enjoy:

“While walking through the mall the other day my three-year-old son said, “Mama, is this the mall?”

“Sure is,” I replied and then he stopped in his tracks and said (with arms waving and a funny British accent), “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most beautiful of the-mall?”

I started laughing and he said, “No, really, Mama who is the most beautiful?”

“At age five our granddaughter, upon seeing airplane tailings in the sky, asked me if God minded having those scratches across his sky.”

My five year old daughter told my husband this morning that “It’s easy to raise kids, you just lift up them.”

Says a Mom to her three-and-a-half-year-old: Mom-“Trey, just a second!” Trey-“What’s a second?”

Three year old Jack was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister. After a while he asked, “Mom, why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for cold milk?”

Brittany, (age four), had an ear ache and wanted a pain killer. She tried in vain to take the lid off of the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained it was a child-proof cap and she’d have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: “How does it know it’s me?”

Five-year-old Melanie asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was so old she didn’t remember any more. Melanie said, “If you don’t remember you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six.”

 

“The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.”-Mark Twain (1835-1910).

THE MARIETA ISLAND EXPERIENCE

From Wikipedia: "The Marieta Islands were originally formed many thousands of years ago by volcanic activity, and are completely uninhabited. The islands are about an hour long boat ride west-northwest from the coast of Puerto Vallarta and are visited daily by hundreds of tourists, yet no one can legally set foot on the islands. In the early 1900s the Mexican government began conducting military testing on the islands because no one lived there. Many bombings and large explosions took place on the islands causing amazing caves and rock formations to be created. After a massive international outcry, started by scientist Jacquues Cousteau in the late 1960s, the government eventually decided to label the islands a national park and therefore protected against any fishing, hunting or human activity."

            With these islands as our destination point our group of twelve and another twelve tourists boarded a sailboat and we set off from the Marina Terminal in Puerto Vallarta. The ship that would take us to the islands was built in Holland in 1938 and is still used on a daily basis by Pegaso Chartering today. I can’t remember what we had to pay per head to go on this all-day excursion but even without the spectacular whale-watching and the snorkelling that came with the ride, it would have been well worth the ticket just to sail on that ship that day.

            Many of the tourists on the tour thought that we’d sail up to the islands and get a ride to a beach and then snorkel in the water around the islands for a bit and then be shuttled back to the ship for the ride back home. It was kind of like that, but not quite. About forty-five minutes away from the islands our tour guide informed us that we’d get within 600-700 meters, almost a kilometre, away from the islands and then they’d get us a little closer in the outboard shuttle boat and we’d then have to snorkel through a hole in the island to get access to the beautiful sandy beach inside the island. Easy, eh? For some…yes; for most…no!

            It was a bit of a shock for the non-confident swimmers, my wife being one of them, and the crew sent the more confident or experienced tourists on the first shuttle boat. I’ve been in and around water since I was a baby so I was anxious to get in the water and swim with the fishes. Deb, on the other hand, didn’t know if she’d even leave the ship.

I had taken an underwater camera along and got some pretty good pictures around the islands and in the caves. I was up on the beach when along came Deb through the opening in the rocks completely shocking the rest of us. She is not only a non-swimmer but a little panicky in the water at the best of times so it was some monumental fear-conquering that got her to that beach.

Once on the island, though, the effort to get there was well worth it as that beach was beautiful and completely surrounded by rock. There were other caves to explore and everyone who swam into the area warmed up on the beach and took in the breath-taking sites.  

As the tour was on a tight schedule our time on the island could never be long enough and we had to get back out to the ship, which turned out to be more difficult than getting there. The waves coming through the hole in the wall kept pushing us back in toward the beach but, again, perseverance prevailed and we all managed to get back to the ship safe and sound. At least the difficulty in the return trip kind of kept our mind off of the cooler water temperatures.

As a newbie hot holiday traveller I still have a hard time defining the top one hundred moments from our trip but the snorkelling off of the Marietas Islands is right there at the top. Next time, and there’s definitely going to be a next time, I think I’ll see if I can prolong my swimming with the fishes but I think Deb will file the one life-threatening I-think-I-can moment into the memory banks and be happy reliving the whole ordeal through the pictures.

“Always bear in mind that your resolution to succeed is more important than any other,” Abraham Lincoln.