Denial Is A Beautiful River To Float Along

I acknowledge that stress is there
in much the way you would acknowledge 
a Grizzly bear in your campsite.  

You can see that the bear is rummaging through your cooler 
and you have made terrified, 
white-eyeballed eye contact with the bear.

So you know it knows you know it's there.  

And none of this means that you go over to the bear with a rolled up newspaper
to smack it on the snout and rip your weekend's supply of Doritos out of it's claws.  

No. 

While the Grizzly is snorting the last of your Aunt Jemima's Buttermilk Pancakes Mix, 
like a junkie in an interstate bathroom stall, 
you hunker down in your sleeping bag.

And pray that he doesn't detect the Snickers 
you have stashed in your pillowcase. 

Up until now this explains perfectly how I would normally deal with stress in my life.  As it turns out there is probably a better way. Is definitely a better way. I mean, it's just that after a week spent packing and pacing and wishing the worst kinds of genital rash on our mortgage providers who just wouldn't answer the phone, the innocent cardboard box I reduced to shreds with a snowshoe really shouldn't look so startled. 

As I stood, panting and shaken, over my vanquished toe-stubber I had an epiphany. I highly recommend them, and you should have one yourself sometime. My epiphany was this: I should probably let out the stress and anger and frustration a little more often than once a decade. It's certainly healthier from the perspective of packing material.

So.

On order: One heavy bag and one set of ladies boxing gloves, size medium. Husband may have a new plane, garage, yard, dog, province, trail system, parachute, and drop zone, but I plan to have a right hook that can crack lumber by next Christmas.

Meeker Ball

Equipment

• Meeker
• 2 balls, or sticks which will be referred to as balls
• Alberta

Players

• Meeker
• Husband
• Not-Husband (Namely, me)

The Play

Throw a ball. When Meeker brings it back, throw the other ball. Repeat.

Rules

1. Never stop throwing the ball.
2. Unless Meeker gets distracted by deer tracks or Saskatchewan.
3. In which case, nothing you do will matter. 
4. Ever.
5. So you may as well stop throwing the ball.

Winning The Game

If everyone gets back in the house at the same time and you don't have to post "Missing" posters around the neighbourhood, you win.  If not, Meeker wins.

That Others May Freeze

Husband is leaving for Orlando in 3 days time. He will be gone for 10 days. During this period the purchase of our new home will finalize, Meeker will likely run away, I will consume nothing but homemade soup and salad (what I like to refer to as the Loneliest Loser Diet), the Pacific plate will drift another 0.109 cm eastward and historical records for the season indicate an average of 5.75 cm of snow will fall on my driveway.

Obviously I am pissed about all of this.

Husband's job is important and his skills must be honed like a samurai blade in order for him to perform it safely and effectively. Which explanation he has stuck to for 10 years in defense of why he must go somewhere warm every January while I spend two weeks shoveling, staring at fog or listening to the howling of hurricanes. It's not as though he wants to go. His country demands it. It's a sacrifice. That others may live, etc. etc.

"It's my duty, honey."

I have learned to approach the annual training schedule with something close to equanimity, through the help of yoga and meditation and vodka. I understand the need for constant training which could save lives, not the least his own. I steel myself to the time the light of my day must be gone from me and trust that it is for the greater good.

It's just really hard to remember while I stand hip-deep in snow, screaming myself hoarse at Meeker as he disappears over the horizon, wondering how I am going to move all of our worldly possessions from the PMQ to the new house. With the Volvo.

The Mother Tong. Tongeru. Tungue. Whatever.

In order to work as an EA in Alberta, I was required to complete a university English class. It has left me feeling considerably less confident about my ability to use my mother tongue, let alone spell the word tongue. Does that look right to you? I don't know anymore. 

If I have a conceit, or at least one that I'll own, it is that I have a fairly decent grasp of the English language and how to bend it to my will. What I have learned, these past few weeks, is that I know more about the field of advanced calculus than I do about English.  For example, I know that advanced calculus is stupid. I know what you are thinking. Is not the truest lesson I could have learned the discovery that there is so very much I do not know, may never know?

Possibly. 

I could also have used more clarity on the adjectival function of a gerund.  

2012 - The List

Thank you, 2012 for...

• new family members Elyse, Liam and Meeker
• the continued good health of those we love
• friends who reach out with help and laughter and trust
• really good moisturizer
• Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred
• airplanes
• long car rides
• wolf sightings
• cheese
• coffee
• MEC's online catalogue
• thick wooly socks
• Husband
• and Starbucks grande decaf half-sweet vanilla soy lattes, no whip, extra nutmeg.

Blending In With Albertans

Talking about the weather.

Alberta is a beautiful land of craggy mountains, rolling foot hills, sweeping plains, peaceful forests, whatever muskeg is, tundra and Fort Mac. Such diversity would seem to naturally create a divide among those brave souls who choose the Western Way Of Life but no so, for all Albertans have one thing in common: the weather. 

Do not approach an Albertan and idly comment about the weather, intending to pass the time. The weather in Alberta is not something to be taken lightly and such frivolous behaviour will likely get you shot or, worse, branded a hippie and shunned from the burn barrel 'round back of the Co-op.

If you want to impress an Albertan try saying something like: "It's not too bad out today, my eyelids barely stuck together at all on the way to the car."

If you want to make  friends with an Albertan try: "My neighbour had mittens on to shovel his driveway last night and it was only -27. He's probably a Communist."

Conversely, in the summer if you are trying to avoid detection as an outsider you could try: "Sure it's 48 degrees in the shade and my rear view mirror just melted off but it's a dry heat."

I've noticed that Albertans are very proud of how dry it is here. How dry the air, fog, snow, cold, heat, rain and sunshine seem to be. I think it's an over reaction to how lovely and cool the sweet, soothing glorious rains of the Pacific Northwest keep the glorious coast of British Columbia so gloriously verdant. Or something. Overusing this adjective can get you into trouble, however, so save it for emergency chatting when you feel the locals may be onto you.

Good luck! Happy chatting and remember, it's a dry hypothermia.

Fly Me To The Moon

Husband can snowshoe uphill backwards, sing harmony, set a broken bone and he does this thing with his thumb in the small of my back that makes me purr like a kitten...

Where was I?

Right. And he can fly a plane. Or he would fly a plane, if he had a plane to fly. Turns out that after much careful deliberation and serious research and a drive all the way down to the other side of Calgary and back, he now, in fact, has a plane to  fly.  So help me.

Normally I would be pounding out the story in great detail, outlining the hours spent wringing hands over the decision, the coordination of the sale, the fork lift, the hacksaw, the box-spring mattress, the 78 year old British expat who's accent simply makes the story sparkle... but I'm too busy hyperventilating into a paper bag.

Husband bought a plane. With wings and an engine. And two seats. To fly. I love this man so much I can barely breathe, literally, but I have watched him Hulk out on a keyboard because "the volume control is sticky." I don't know if now is the time for the "unconditional support" speech or the "I'm only getting in that thing if you swear off sugar" speech. Probably a little of both.

Husband is capable, clever and cunning. He can fix, build or finagle anything and that apparently includes a two-seater Zodiac 601 HD in bright blue. He's so damn happy to have a project to work on that I can't help but be excited right along with him, even if it means I eventually have to take a ride in the thing I have secretly named "Smurfette".  Husband's enthusiasm builds a fire in my soul that fills my days with so much warmth and light that my joy is visible from space. 

And with all the extra gas tanks he has planned for Smurfette,
our inevitable flaming descent onto the prairies north of Winnipeg will be as well.