Life in progress

Monthly Archives: April 2013


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Adventures on my Paper Route – Phew, all is well

It seems the man-eating daffodil from last week didn’t eat the neighbourhood feral cat after all.

Thomas the feral cat

Thomas the feral cat

The kids call him Thomas. I don’t know if anyone has actually been close enough to pick him up to see if he rattles; maybe he’s more a Thomasina. Here s/he is picking through the remnants that the garbage man left on the side of the road. Many of the neighbours leave food and water out for him/her, but I guess old habits die hard.

Daffodil

The daffodils are doing well so it seems spring is, in fact, here.

Stalking daffodil

Stalking daffodil

You can see the dangerous daffodil in the background on the left in this picture. I still don’t trust it.


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Sundays

I remember Sundays BK (before kids) as a day when I woke up in the summer to hear lawnmowers going and the scent of freshly cut grass wafting through my window. I remember waking up and going downstairs to retrieve the Sunday Sun and laying in bed with my first husband, reading the paper and thinking about coffee.

I remember Sundays of watching movies on tv and spending my day on a knitting project or going for quiet walks or long drives: destination no where in particular. Maybe for ice cream. I remember laying in bed in the spring and seeing the new buds on the trees outside my window.

DSC00152

But that was all BK.

Now my Sundays are filled with cooking for the family, cleaning, entertaining a little guy with an unlimited amount of busyness about him. Sundays are about breaking up fights between my elderly mother and my young son. Sundays are about sleeping in until 6:30 if I’m lucky.

The one thing I can still hold on to?

080729_tim_hortons_3202

Coffee. There will always be coffee.


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Adventures on my Paper Route – Getting There!

So it’s not really ON my paper route – I took these pictures in my own front yard. But I was on my way home from my paper route, so I’ve decided this counts.

weeds

My perennial weeds

I just wanted documentation that spring is coming.  It is! And soon I’ll be able to leave my winter coat at home.

gotcha

Gotcha!

Doesn’t it look like this daffodil is about to attack? I haven’t seen the neighbourhood feral cat in a few days….


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Private Thoughts, Private World Part 5 – Bring me to life

I was having a discussion with a friend on Facebook this morning about why a real human being can feel sadness over a fictional character. Another of his friends stated that it’s because the writer has done a good job. But is it really only that?

When I create a character, the first thing I come up with is a mental image. With that image comes nuances in dress, movement and speech patterns. From there, especially from the speech patterns, I begin to see where they live, how they grew up and what brought them to the place where I insert them into a story. With all this information they take on a life of their own and from there on in, I become more of a spectator in their world than the person directing them. I may know where they will eventually end up, but how they get there depends entirely on how their life has evolved to put them in my story in the first place.

I wish I could remember where I read it, (and if you know or even better if someone reading this was the one who said it first PLEASE take credit for it!) but something that affected me profoundly was the statement that, (paraphrasing)  “if the characters I create become real, then I feel very bad for what I put them through in my story.”  I do think the characters I create have an existence somewhere in the world. Call me crazy. But this very thing is what makes it possible to relate to them, and why a reader can be happy for them or grieve for them.

Getting back to my original point, I don’t entirely take credit for having done a good job when my readers feel for my characters. They tell my stories – I’m just along for the ride. They have, as I do, their own private thoughts, and their own private world.


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Don’t you hate it when that happens?

I’d decided that I would stop refreshing my damned stats page, I’d stopped looking for new posts to read in my reader and I’d even gone as far as turning off the laptop.  And the other laptop. And the PC.  So I’m standing in the kitchen, making my coffee for the morning and it hits me. The perfect subject for a post. Before I know it I’ve lost count of how many scoops I’ve put in the coffeemaker (I only have to count to seven, but there you go) and I’m trying to decide whether to a) get out a pen and paper and jot down the idea or b) turn a computer back on and risk staying up yet another hour to write – and refresh – and read.

So I’m writing this now (it’s 6:46pm) but all this happened to me last night. I failed to do neither a) nor b) and now I can’t remember what my brilliant idea was. But I still got a post out of the experience, so it wasn’t a total waste. 😛


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Call me weird

This may be strange – it’s something I’ve never talked to anyone about before – but once in a while I kind of sit back from myself.  Hmmm…no, that’s not right.  (Maybe this is why I’ve never talked about it before.) Try again.  Sometimes I look at my life and wonder how I got here.  By here I mean in this house, in this town, with these people I live with. I guess that’s the strange part about it. ‘These people’ I live with are two of my kids. Of course I know ‘these people’ – I gave birth to them. …wow, right? I am responsible for the existence of ‘these people’!

Anyway, this is something I’ve done over and over again in my life. Just sat back and looked at where I am and what brought me here…living with my kids.

For the first time in the years I’ve been doing this however, this morning I did it and it scared me. I realized that this is what dementia must feel like.  How did I get here? Who are these people? That there might come a time when I can’t smile and answer those questions for myself – that there might be a time when I’m asking these questions for real…

I think I have a new appreciation for what it must be like to have Alzheimer’s Disease.

But am I weird for doing this in the first place? Or does everyone do this once in a while?


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Unparalleled grief

goes on

Flowers for Aaron

Down the street from me lives a lady. I see her often, sitting on her front porch, when I’m going by on my paper route. Occasionally I stop to talk to her – she has a grandmotherly attachment to Alex, my son. In the summer she gives him popsicles.  She never fails to ask me how he is if he’s not with me.

In early January she lost her husband quite suddenly. She has family, two daughters who live with their own families not too far away, who were very supportive, taking her where she needed to go since the driver in the household passed away. When I talked to her about the passing of her husband she seemed to have made peace with the idea that he was in a better place. He left her to live alone with her disabled son.

Today, when I came to her house I stopped to talk and she asked me, ‘Did you hear?’

‘Hear what?’ I asked.

‘My son passed away last week…’ she told me.

Tears came to my eyes before I could stop them, causing hers to flow as well.

Her son was an adult. He had been sick for the past two weeks and was unable to fight it off.  His heart gave out. He was born with a heart defect much like my Alex was.

No parent should outlive their child. I’ve said this again and again and yet, it happens.  How can life go on after that?

How?


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How comments can hurt

It didn’t start as a comment directed at me, but it bothered me nonetheless. The discussion was about a situation in which a man, with a disabled wife and a small child had taken a weekend ‘off’ to visit with friends and came home to find his wife had died. The comment, on a friend’s journal, stated that the commenter couldn’t understand why, if the man loved his family at all, he would need a weekend away from them.

I am a single mother of two disabled kids with whom I live alone. I love them more than anything in the world – but I need time off! By the time their father’s scheduled weekend with them comes around, which is supposed to be every two weeks but is more often not until the third weekend, I’m all but pulling out my hair. Loving them doesn’t preclude the work that’s required to look after their every need, nor does it make up for the fact that I don’t get any more than five hours of sleep a night when they’re here.

Back to the comment: I tried to explain to the girl who made it that it’s not that clear cut – that there are many things that go into the care of the disabled and the very young. She came back to say that she knows – and that she looks after her disabled parents. I fail to see the parallel. In the end I got the last word, telling her that she is a better person than I am.

It’s probably the way the conversation was left that bothers me the most. That I couldn’t make her see I’m not a terrible person and that I don’t not love my kids because I need time to myself to recharge and re-align my emotions, still sits badly with me.

It makes me wonder whether people out there with different problems than I have are just reluctant to look deeper into the difficulties of others or if they simply don’t care to try. It’s this ‘it’s not my problem so you must be doing something wrong to make it yours’ attitude that worries me. At the same time I hope they are never put into my situation, a little part of me hopes they are. Not very altruistic, but there you go. Sentiment breeds like sentiment.


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Just for laughs

Old Lutheran Humor
Church Bulletin Bloopers

·For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

·Due to the Rector’s illness, Wednesday’s healing services will be discontinued until further notice.

·Evening massage – 6 p.m.

·The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the church basement on Friday at 7 p.m. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

·Potluck supper: prayer and medication to follow.

·Don’t let worry kill you off – let the church help.

·The concert held in Fellowship Hall was a great success. Special thanks are due to the minister’s daughter, who labored the whole evening at the piano, which as usual fell upon her.

·Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles, and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

·The outreach committee has enlisted 25 visitors to make calls on people who are not afflicted with any church.

·Low Self-Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 to 8:30p.m. Please use the back door.

·Ushers will eat latecomers.

·The Rev. Merriwether spoke briefly, much to the delight of the audience.

·During the absence of our pastor, we enjoyed the rare privilege of hearing a good sermon when J.F. Stubbs supplied our pulpit.

·Next Sunday Mrs. Vinson will be soloist for the morning service. The pastor will then speak on “It’s a Terrible Experience.”

·Stewardship Offertory: “Jesus Paid It All”

·Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.

·Pastor is on vacation. Massages can be given to church secretary.

·22 members were present at the church meeting held at the home of Mrs. Marsha Crutchfield last evening. Mrs. Crutchfield and Mrs. Rankin sang a duet, The Lord Knows Why.

·The choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.

·Weight Watchers will meet at 7 p.m. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

·The rosebud on the altar this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Reverend and Mrs. Julius Belzer.

·This afternoon there will be a meeting in the south and north ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.

·Tuesday at 4PM there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.

·Wednesday, the Ladies Liturgy Society will meet. Mrs. Jones will sing “Put Me In My Little Bed” accompanied by the pastor.

·Thursday at 5PM there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club. All wishing to become Little Mothers, please see the minister in his private study.

·This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mr. Vassilas to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.

·The service will close with “Little Drops Of Water”. One of the ladies will start (quietly) and the rest of the congregation will join in.

·Next Sunday, a special collection will be taken to defray the cost of the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the new carpet will come forward and get a piece of paper.

·The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind and they may be seen in the church basement Friday.

·A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

·At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be “What is Hell?”. Come early and listen to our choir practice.

·The 1991 Spring Council Retreat will be hell May 10 and 11.

·Eight new choir robes are currently needed, due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

·Mrs. Johnson will be entering the hospital this week for testes.

·Please join us as we show our support for Amy and Alan who is preparing for the girth of their first child.

·The Lutheran Men’s group will meet at 6 PM. Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, bread and dessert will be served for a nominal feel.

·The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: ” I Upped My Pledge-Up Yours.”


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Kids these days

What does it say about today’s youth when I am surprised and impressed to see a teenager on Facebook use an apostrophe while spelling the contraction for ‘you are’?  It is mind-boggling that it has become so common for kids to get it wrong that when they get it right it’s noteworthy.

I don’t know anymore whether to blame the school system or the cell phone companies. I mean, you’ve got to give the kids their due. When they’re being hassled by their parents to cut down on the text messages, what better way to save space than, for example, to use ‘u’ instead of you?  I’m guilty of it myself  -but only when I’m driving.  Kidding! I don’t text and drive. But the practice of this cell phone ease carried over into everything else is utter laziness. Why don’t they care? Is it just me or is there some amount of dignity in at least trying to do things right?

Maybe it is the schools’ fault. What are they doing to make kids pay attention? I was flabbergasted to find out that the penalty for skipping high school is suspension.  You want to take a day off? Why not take four? Go on, enjoy yourself!

It’ll give u more taim 2 fuck up you’re grammer on Facebook!