Remembering.

 I have to note that it was around the last week of April, ten years ago that we learned Dad's cancer was fatal. The rest of us already knew when the doctor told him the bad news. The surgeon told my mother and sister the previous day after the biopsy, dad was still sleeping in recovery. They had to go to Montreal for the biopsy and so I stayed at the farm. I have to check back but I think we brought him home ten years ago today. It would be the beginning of a very different life for me, nothing was ever the same after that week.

 I thought of following along with the blog posts from back then as a sad anniversary of some sort. Dad's illness and death changed me and my way of thinking since that time. I decided against the idea of reliving those emotions, honestly who needs that drama, I have enough on my plate and there is certainly enough health drama with mom having dementia. Adding in more sadness isn't helpful. It's a little scary to me how often I said to people that time seemed to fly by and the next thing I know it will be ten years since his dying. In two months the ten years will have arrived.

Tirelessly incompetent.

 Some days just seem to be too much, no matter how much I try to keep things in order, to make life simple, there just seem to be scores of people who work tirelessly to mess things up. Once messed up, the situation takes on a life of its own and then days are spent trying to turn things around. Once things are about to fall back into line, some good Samaritan comes along and decides to "help" by typing in the original mistake or pressing the wrong button again. Then people are surprised by your irritability! Snartblaster fubbergunts!

Brace yourself, it's Monday!

 Fell asleep at eleven, woke up at ten to three, couldn't get back to sleep, it's five in the morning. This is going to be a ....... Monday for sure. There is always something wrong, it just never seems to end.

A good kind of change.

 I was heading home one evening and soon became stuck in traffic. The scenery was beautiful however, I was sitting on a small parkway beside the Ottawa river, waiting to cross the bridge. The evening was warm and sunny, allowing me to roll down the window and hang my arm out while waiting. Something caught my attention on the opposite side of the road. Two young guys were walking along the bike path and they were... (gasp) holding hands!

 There they were, ambling along hand in hand, clearly they were a couple and you could see the affection between them. They were very ordinary looking guys, good looking but just the guy next door type, if they weren't holding hands, there was nothing that would say to me, "those guys are family".

 Sitting there watching them, I was a little envious of their PDA without hesitation, plus completely envious of the generation they get to grow up in. As they approach the light I saw something that was "nothing" but it was the most beautiful moment of "nothing". It was the way people around them acted or more precisely, didn't act. Nobody did a double take at two men holding hands, nobody pointed a finger or whispered into a friend's ear. There was a young woman jogging in-place waiting at the light, she just looked at her watch, a guy walking his golden retriever started talking to it while waiting for the light to change, a group of people kept up with their deep discussion over some topic. There were no sideways glances, rolling eyes back or shaking their heads, the male couple just blended with the group as they stood there waiting for the light to change.

 I remember feeling giddy and thinking society has arrived. Even the people in the cars around me, nobody paid attention, they were mostly trying to sneak in some texts before the light changed. Makes me wonder at what point in time it became ok for a gay couple to walk hand in hand with each other in this city. At what point did that stop being an assault on society and become what it really is, two guys who love each other holding hands. The light changed and I drove off smiling.

Slow the heck down.

 This time next week it will be May, wow how did that happen!!! Didn't we just have Christmas (Solstice)?  Nuts! Sorry Maddie, did you just get turned on? Lol.

The Universe vs Steven.

 The Universe is against me, it conspires to make my life equal to one of those comedy skits, where a character, usually played by someone like Carol Burnett, has everything go wrong that can go wrong. I have blogged before that my life is like a Mr Bean episode.

 Yesterday I received a call from the accountant doing my mom's taxes, it seems that I am missing some important documents, the government supposedly sent them but will not release the information to the accountant. I would have to jump through hoops to have them reissued and it could take months.

 Last night I couldn't sleep, I was upset because I knew that I never received those letters. Mom generates a lot of paper work, to help make it easier for me, I keep a large folder and everything tax wise goes into that folder, I know that I wouldn't put them anywhere else. Still just in case, I pulled apart the house... then the car and still nothing, which is the result I expected. I called her old nursing home and they search but didn't receive anything either. I  woke up at three this morning trying to find something that I knew wouldn't be there.

 I decided to try one last idea, I remembered during the winter a bad wind that opened the mail box and blew some mail out. I went down to the road and looked in the wet muddy ditch, the snow had melted away and there were the letters plus some others! At some point they must have blown out of the box and the snow plow shoved them into the ditch. Further to my point of the universe being out to get me, all the letters were important, taxes, bank statements, investment statements, there were no letters asking me to buy a new phone or join some club I have no interest in or other junk mail.

 Of all the letters to get lost, these are the ones that got lost. They have probably been there since the end of February or beginning of March buried under the snow, my only lucky part of this is they could have blown out into the fields or into the forest and be lost forever. Still ffffffk!

Easter magic?

 Spring renewal, by the end of last week, winter looked like it still had a firm grip on the seasons here. There was still lots of snow and I couldn't even imagine what a spring day would look like.

Even as recent as last Thursday, the fields were covered in snow, some places it was above the knee. As far as spring went, it seemed hopeless, I started to suspect we could have snow in some places until May, I don't remember it sticking around this long.

 However it's been an Easter miracle, by Sunday evening, the warm weather and rains had washed away most of the snow.

The fields are clear, there is some snow in the bush but it will go soon. Spring has arrived, there are all sorts of birds around that are singing. Including the gravy bird, it's a little bird that I don't know the actual name of... but it caused laughter when I named it that as a child. My family agreed with me at the time, if you listen to its call, it sounds like the bird is saying, "gravy, gravee, gravy". It was 20° Celsius outside in the city this evening. I had to drive home with the windows partly down, I no longer have to wear boots and I stopped wearing long underwear last week. Winter has ended... whew!!!