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....