Happy New Year

Well, that was a year for us - from seeing Charlie (the spud) baptised, to having a really hot summer, to seeing a 99yr old mother gradually going down hill (although there seems to be no doubt now that we will be with her in February for her 100th), to enjoying a quiet Christmas on our own with the dog and (to paraphrase Dylan Thomas), two cats in their furabouts lying by the fire.

To whomever reads this, we hope your year is good, your fireplace is full of crackling wood, and your families are as happy as ours.

The indominable heart

So here I am, a few days helping to look after mother. She is ok....but at the stage where she really wants to "go" - but the heart just won't stop beating. What a constitution....tonight the brother and sister-in-law have gone out so yrs truly is the primary care-giver. Thanks to a detailed 2-page missive from the sis-in-law, I think I can cope. What is a geophysicist doing as a nurse-maid to a 99yr old??? Answer - it's your mother, idiot! Just do it! Will I be as lucky to be so looked after when my functions start to run down? Anyone out there have advice? Anyway, here we sit in front of the fire, mother enjoying the quiet as everyone else is out. HELLLLLLLLP!!

Life?

On my way to visit with my elderly mother - really elderly....Not too many people reach the age of 99 and there are indications that she will be with us for her 100th on Feb 1st 2008. As I wait for my flight to Victoria, my thoughts are on the fragility of life. How many of us can expect to reach such an age? As I sit here at age 68, waiting to get on the waiting list for a new hip, I wonder which set of genes are forefront in my body - my father's, who died at age 78 with totally closed arteries? Or my mother's, who has the same scottish bloodlines as the late Queen Mother? Hopefully the latter - Dad was on medication for high blood pressure at age 40+, but I do have the same relatively low bp that mother has always had. Interesting the psychology here...mother is very tired, would like to go, but her heart is really too strong to stop. It is the peripherals that are letting her down - eyesight starting to fail, various functions gradually shutting down. So I wonder about how fragile life really is? We can walk into the path of a bus while totally healthy, or we can hang on with everything failing....

Which do you wish for? Having volunteered in a long care facility, and having taken my choir to sing in such places, the last thing I want to be is one of them. But when the time really comes, I suspect that my body and mind are going to fight to stay on. When you read on obit that says "she (he) passed on peacefully with her (his) family around. Does anyone really go peacefully into that good night?

Winter? Already? Why not?

Sometimes it is necessary to make a really early start in the morning - need to get to the college before the parking lot is full - especially the handicap spaces. Except, this morning, there was 4cm of snow on the deck, in the drive and on the car. Bugger. The really weird thing was that, after turning out of the village onto the highway - no snow. Talk about selective weather patterns. We seem to live in a microclimate. Can't relate the number of times that, driving west from Calgary, there have been huge black clouds to the south (the village of Priddis getting it in the neck), huge black clouds to the north (Cochrane getting their just desserts) - and over the house - clear blue sky. Well, it seems that the weather gods got their own back on us last night. No snow at all except on us. At least we could see that there were no bear tracks in the drive...

More bumps in the night

Just a short note to those of you who might be contemplating the acquisition of a kitten or two. There is an absolutely fail-safe game for kittens to keep them amused and out from underfoot. A large brown paper bag on its side on the floor, and they will be right there in it, playing and having a great time. Just one tip - don't (as we did) leave it in the bedroom overnight. Do you have any idea what the sound of loud rustling noises at 2am will do to your sleep patterns? Or your blood pressure? Especially if you happen to be dreaming about bears on the back deck?

Things that go bump in the night....

Just read Hoto's blog (in London with Sparx and the spud, and totally jealous...)

Here on the home front,we have heard strange sounds in the middle of the night. We live in the country, and when the golf club people have all driven home, it can be really quiet. So when there are strange noises, one tends to wake up in a start and think mentally about bears, cougars, intruders.....but WE HAVE NEW KITTENS!....
They have discovered the stairs to the basement. There is nothing down there that they can harm, but lots that they can play with. Sleep has been disturbed with weird sounds - which, of course, sets off Sandy the dog, who is hell-bent on protecting the property at all costs from any thing out of the ordinary. Spell "sleep deprivation". Why do we do these things to ourselves? Must be a deep-seated desire for self torture - "maybe I will be a better person for this?"

The Cats!!......

Beginning to remember what it was like to have two small creatures in the house. No, no, not Hoto (Hoto cleans up), nor Steph (Notes from inside my head))....although Sparx, with the spud, is reminding me of those days. No - now it is the ex-barn cats who seem to think they have died and gone to heaven - the kibble appears as if mana, the house is warm, there are no other cats to compete with, and the dog thinks they are little angels come to enhance her life experience. Ya, right. The net result is that the kibble is devoured at midnight or later (loud crunchy sounds) followed by a visit to the latrine (loud scratching sounds accompanied by the swish of kitty litter hitting the carpet at high velocity), followed by the necessary play time (thundering paws down the hardwood floors, along with the scrabbling effect when one goes around a corner too fast). The bags under my eyes are sagging further and further down my cheeks - maybe they will mistake me for a bloodhound and decide I am just another dog to tease....

Oh God, one of them has just found the stash of remotes on the side table and is distributing them around the living room....dumb dog, can't she keep two small kittens under control??

And, of course, we are heading into an Alberta winter, so the likelyhood of them going outside to play and get rid of all that feline energy is getting vanishingly smaller...

Maybe one of my clients will have a job for me in South America....

Finally it;s MY turn - REALLY mired in the bog

I really should have started this two days ago, but I didn't know how to blog - first boggy squelch, and I have been, well, exhausted, second boggy squelch.

With apologies to our son

It all actually began on Tuesday - our Nanton based buddies were coming up to lunch to do a trade - trees for lamb and manure, with some super tomatoes thrown in. And L remarked - "you were talking about cats - do you still want one, or two?" As the other half was hanging out somewhere else I said "oh yes, thankyou", so into the pot went a couple of barn cats...

They arrived in assorted plastic containers and L remarked that we probably wouldn't want the little one as it went completely berserk on being actually touched by human hands and bit through his heavy work gloves. The bigger of the two, (both as yet unsexed) was totally suave, sophisticated and at peace - he (was obvious at 12 weeks) sniffed noses with Sandy through his enclosure so we let him loose. Instant raport - rubbing and sniffing and when cat got up onto dog's favourite chair, dog merely wagged her tail. On the other hand the little one was placed into the bedroom to gain some sort of peace and quiet, whereupon it escaped up into the bedsprings and remained there for most of the night.

It was decided that I would sleep in the spare room with Sandy who was a bit overexcited, and B would oversee the kitties. It came down from It's perch in the springs to eat, copiously and we discovered that even an entire life (all 8 - 9 weeks) spent in a barn and running free across the yard was not enough to stop them from recognising the virtues of a dirt box. However, Sandy did not want to be cut off from her new friends and her adored master so she whined her way into her usual place, her bed at the bottom of ours. So with three animals safely in B's hands, I pulled the covers over my head and tried to sleep.

A loud scream issued forth from the master bedroom. I bolted into action expecting to find Sandy with a bloody face being attacked by half an pound of striped fur. I had left the cat box at the foot of the bed. Sandy had jumped up to grab a belly scratch and on jumping down to her bed, had landed on the edge of the catbox. After copious swearing, some of it actually imaginative, as when I trod in... no not necessary to go there. Sleep of a kind was restored and B left for work in the morning muttering "this was a bloody mistake", with me twittering and placating behind him. Luckily he never discovered the poops on the carpet.

Day two saw two cats exploring - it was hard to actually see them, I caught glimpses of tails disappearing under furniture. Heard scrunching kitty kibble but no kitties seen. I wanted to name them and came up with Jack for the elder one - as in "I'm all right Jack" as he indubitably is but as we still have not been able to pick up the little one so it is called Barneycat. They are both tabbies with some yellow in the markings and to cut a long story short, are settling in nicely.

Saturday morning: apart from being awakened by the thundering of tiny hooves up and down the corridor durng the latter part of the night, all is well today. Neither cat will allow itself to be picked up. Barnycat will not be touched, but FatJack is laid back about belly and ear rubs. It will take a while, but we will have two lovely cats and Sandy is delighted.

Visit to Victoria

Well, have been here a week now, came when mother was still in hospital. She broke her hip in a fall last Thursday. She was discharged from said hospital the following Wednesday - "no room at the inn" - in other words, no beds in the rehab ward for her, so home she goes..... no criticism of the actual care she received, the staff were great - just not enough of them and the ones on duty were run off their feet. Another example of a severely underfunded and understaffed health care system. When will our politians get off their butts, stop courting big business with their (often unpaid) tax dollars, and start thinking about the people who (perhaps foolishly) elected them? Why should our elderly people suffer for lack of decent care levels in a society as wealthy as ours? I was about to say that any intelligent politician...but of course that is an oxymoron. No, it seems that it is impossible to say it politely - the system sucks. And too many of those that are supposed to lead it also suck - greedily at the public purse.

Mortality...

So previous posts included items about the female half of this team going to Victoria to "Granny sit"...MY 99yr old mother has been staying with the brother and sister-in-law, and when they go away, someone has to be there...Well, the classic has happened, and mother is in hospital having hip surgery after a fall. At 99, what are the chances under a general anaesthetic??? So I began remembering the life of this lady...three sons, born 7 years apart (think - depression, world war two, separating the births). And part of it was raising the first two on her own - the father being away for nearly 7 years in the war. Plus she coped with a crusty old father-in-law during the war years. I remember her coping with various crises - scraped knees, yrs truly on a run-away tricycle down a steep hill in Oak Bay, the older brother nearly severing a thumb chopping wood, the younger brother breaking an elbow, yrs truly nearly having his Achilles Tendon severed...how on Earth did she cope? I guess the way every parent copes - with love, a strong stomach and everlasting faith. Makes some of our worries look pretty trivial. Nevertheless, even though one expects the worst when a loved one is 99, the actuallity is hard to take.
One hopes for the best - but, at 99, there can be few regrets. Just think - she saw the development of better cars, the advent of jet flight, the development of computers and the internet..and I am sure I have missed a lot of what she experienced. She was beginning to plan what she wanted for her 100th next February. May she achieve that goal.

Age creepeth on...

So the right hip was getting pretty sore, and the mobility was going downhill rapidly (this is him, not her...).

A visit to the doctor, a new x-ray, and lo and behold - a handicap sticker for the car.

Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never knew how good it is to park so close to the store or the post office. That is, it would be really good to know if there weren't some other bugger (also with the sticker) ALREADY PARKED THERE! Hmmff. I could really get into the crusty old fart routine if I reallly wanted to. However, the privilege comes with a sad thought. In all my days I never thought I would join the league of the physically handicapped. I realise now that my body is not immortal (as we all thougth in our 20's), and all those days of leaping about the gym floor playing vicious competetive badminton had a price. Plus the joys of down-hill skiing (started at age 40) which, in retrospect, may have been a mistake. BUT I can say - "I did that, so I was lucky". So if anyone young is reading this (which I doubt), think carefully about those hours on the gym floor, those km's of jogging (another high-impact sport) and take care of those muscles and tendons.

You just may end up trying to park in the handicapped spot, only to find someone else beat you to it.

End of August...

So once again the female half has been away for a week granny sitting - Mother is 99 years old, very bright but cannot be left alone. Since the brother and sisterin-law (where she lives) were to be away, it was Hazel's job to go out to the coast (Victoria BC) and do the honours. Yrs truly had to stay behind because of work....so guess who has been up at 6am to walk the dog (have to do a blog about her) before leaving to earn the bread....

Meanwhile the grandson is wreaking havoc in London (see "Notes from within my head") posted by Sparx...

That's all for now - oh - the weather here in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains has turned hot again. Also the berry crop in the high reaches has been very poor - so we are dealing with an influx of black bears, one of which tried to demolish the composter. So now we are building a bear-proof (we hope) enclosure around said delicious snacking counter for said bears....

Back at it...

SO - finally back blogging after a long hiatus. Been quite the year - saw our Grandson christened in France (cross reference sparx blog ("Notes from inside my head" - she is our daughter)...that was in May, fabulous time in France - out 2000km on the rental car. Then a very hot summer here in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, while the male half of this team spent 6 weeks working in Quito, Ecuador. 9500' altitude, cool and comfortable. Will post pics an maybe a video or two. WHen I get them off hte cameras ind into the machine.Now it's August, cooler weather and the leaves starting to turn - even had our ritual first frost of the year. That's all for now.

Friday and SNOW....

So I took her to the airport this morning (she went to Victoria to help celebrate my mother's 99th birthday - work has kept me from going). Travel to the airport takes about an hour. By the time I saw her off, the snow had started in earnest - took me two hours to get home. Was supposed to go back to Calgary for a meeting at 1:30 - no way....RCMP and city cops both saying "stay off the roads". Quite happy to. After third sweeping of the white stuff off the deck in two hours, said "screw this" - drink and feet up in the lounger definitely the order of the day.

second time around

Living in the country as we do, having pets is a calculated risk. Up to last Sunday morning (at around 4am) we had two - Sandy, the rescue dog who has turned out to be the worlds best dog (not according to our neighbour, who says her Newfs are better), and Toby, a loveable blonde bubblehead. He tore out the cat flap, and has not been seen since. We know there has been a Lynx in the area, so hope Toby's end was swift. On the other hand, he may just be two-timing and is holed up comfortably in someone else's house....

SO that is our sad news this week. Hazel takes off for Victoria this coming weekend - so guess who gets to walk the dog, do the housework while still consulting and teaching to keep the wolf from the door.

sigh.....

So here we are, our first attempt at a blog.