family

What I Did On My Summer Vacation


I sorta went on vacation this summer and didn’t let any of you know about it, didn’t I?

It’s not that I planned anything or went anywhere or even slouched from one interesting activity to a completely slothful and relaxing one.

I simply neglected you, dear readers.

And I didn’t have much to say. Or news to report.

The heart attack aftermath appears to be on an upswing after a fretfully frightening bout with medication side-effects and reactions.

Rob broke into an angry red puffy scratchy rash just after my mother’s visit ended. Much hemming and hawing by doctors followed and finally he was taken off of three meds that he didn’t need anyway, but are “protocol”.

I do not like “protocol”, Sam I Am. It drips laziness, and my own take on medical folk is that if I can Google it – it can’t be rocket science – so work a little, okay?

My mother came to visit? Did I mention she was coming? Or was that just Facebook? I confuse the two, think I’ve blogged something I only updated or updated something I actually blogged. The only people who really know are those who read here and are my friends/family/or people I am merely curious enough about to friend.

It was a good visit, but she reads over my shoulder while I am working. A little thing and I know that many daughters would love to have such trivial issues with their moms, but after a week it grates like moldy cheese.

Half-hearted stabs at stay-cationy stuff were attempted during her visit and in the last week because we needed to cancel our real vacation to Yellowstone. Couldn’t safely be Stateside with Rob’s issues and he still hasn’t been “officially” stamped with the “carry-on” seal of medical approval.

There was the Farmer’s Market in St. Albert, which is no place to take a near-eighty year old woman, an eight year-old and a guy who’s recently had a heart attack.

But we went anyway.

Shopped. And I never do that. Which really came home to me when I pruned my wardrobe for our upcoming garage sale and was startled by how little I had to start with and how much less there is now.

Rob takes up more closet space than I do.

I think I have one pair of jeans, and they are capris and two pair of shorts.

It’s so sad that Rob suggested I snag a pair of yoga pants he saw on sale the last time we were at Costco.

Oh, and I shop for my clothes at Costco and Walmart.

How the mighty have fallen.

Shopping with Mom is like shopping with Dee – it’s all about them – which made it interesting to watch my mother’s reaction to her granddaughter’s completely mercenary non-interest in Grandma’s choice of stores. Mom deals only slightly better with not being the center of attention on shopping trips than Dee does.

But in spite of the amusement, it was wearying.

Having a Grandma on the premises is handy however. A couple of days after she arrived, she manned the deck when Rob needed to visit the ER again. I have never had the convenience of family close at hand during crunchy times. Eye-opening really because being far away all the time, I’ve never cultivated a habit of counting on anyone when the going ups and toughens.

She held up but her age was apparent by the end of the day. She is not spry and fatigues more easily than she would care to have anyone comment upon.

But my, handy-dandy. Such a treat.

Losers that we are, Rob and I failed to take advantage of the opportunity to schedule a date night. I thought about it but remembering that I had to drive, I quickly discarded the notion.

I am not at all sorry that Rob is officially sanctioned to drive again. Let’s just say that the four weeks he couldn’t drive were endured by us both and let it go.

Summer mostly came and is gone. Truly. Fall’s heralds trumpet from the turning leaves to the winged ants squirming from the ground. The thermometer dips below 10c every night and the sun’s angling toward the horizon again.

We took in a few local sites. Visited Fort Edmonton, a historical village where that Brad Pitt movie about Jesse James was filmed a few years ago. Trekked out to Vegreville to see the giant Pysanka, a Easter-ish egg of frightening proportions.

Last weekend we cheered Mick on at the Edmonton Dragon Boat Festival. We hadn’t planned to go everyday, but Edie’d gone camping with her new beau, Silver, and there was drama on the dragon boat team which left Mick a bit stranded in terms of support.*

And today?

School is nearly upon us. Rob – fingers crossed – goes back to work next week. And me? Back to my schedule, which I have missed a lot.

I like fall.

*It will come as no surprise to older folk that the twenties are still fraught with middle school angst. A couple on the dragon boat team is having “issues” and Mick was unfairly painted as “the other woman” for not recognizing that the man half of the couple was probably being more than just friendly in his daily texting of her. The couple is unmarried, together for five years and while she talks of future knot tying and babies, he says nothing. Tragic but hardly something a person wants to get dragged into the middle of. Naturally lines were drawn. Sides taken. Mick as the only single woman in the group was already probably “suspect” and the rest of the hens jumped with beaks sharp and claws ready. Mick for her part didn’t bite and while in a sane version of life that would count for something, it didn’t help her win anyone over. So we hung out. Even Dee managed to hang in though she wasn’t able to suppress  her obvious boredom toward the end.

Travel Observations


In spite of its less than stellar beginning, the trip back to Iowa has exceeded expectations. We have seen, were seen, and by this time tomorrow – the goddess willing – we will be getting ready to land in Minneapolis for the final leg of our journey home. Home, where apparently winter is getting ready to take up his nine month residence. No joke. Snow by week’s end. I plan to console myself with a new pair of winter boots.

The wedding went off with only the slightest of hitches. The groomsmen were hungover and the bride’s wedding band had been sized too small. Aside from that every detail announced my niece – her personality, taste and style. Only she could use every shade of pink known to man in a way that was elegant rather than Disney princess.

The hotel where we stayed was on the plaza recreation of a canal street that had only just been finished the last time I visited Pella with Will. It is – interestingly – just across the street from his grandmother’s house, a house she bought with the proceeds of the life insurance policy of Will’s late father. I noted that the building belongs to a historical preservation society now. I haven’t any idea where Lucy is. She could be dead. She is old enough to be dead.

Rob and I walked the town square on Sunday morning. The day was crisply fall. As Rob snapped a photo here and there, it occurred to me that this was what Will and I had done on that last visit. It was Easter of 2001. We’d been coerced/guilted into including his relatives on a stop on our way back from my folks. After a quick bite, we’d escaped the dagger looks of disappointment from his mother for a stroll in rather bitter spring air. She was angry because Will’s cousin announced her pregnancy that day and there she was without a grandbaby or one on the way.

“I should be the one wearing the grandma shirts,” she complained to him.

We strolled the canal that day. Took photos. Never dreaming that someday he would be dead and I would be there again, remarried and ruminating a bit on the twistyness of life.

Staying in a hotel on our own has become this wonderful treat. It’s like Idaho Falls again except we do get outside the room for more than just food. I am not sure how much longer we will be able to leave Dee with my mom overnight. It struck me forcibly this trip that she is nearing eighty. The nephews One and Two stay the weekends with her frequently, but they are used to the autonomy. And so are their parents. We are not as keen on the running wild aspect for Dee. Fostering independence is one thing and leaving children with the impression that they are the masters of their known universe is quite another.

We spent Sunday afternoon at the wedding brunch. Sis and Bride each made promises to sit and chat with me that really never came to fruition. I was not disappointed because I have been a bride and know that personal time is premium. Everyone wants to bask in your glow.

I did have time to talk a bit with Sis about things more personal. She was asking about the memoir and I mentioned that I was afraid I might offend or hurt feelings with my take on life back then.

“I feel badly that I didn’t help more,” she said. “I should have been there more for you at the end.”

We’ve never discussed this. I was distant for many months because of the events of those last days, but I never told her how hurt I was or that I was upset by it. Mostly because there was no point. Sis is my family, and there is no question of our connection.

“I was upset,” I admitted. “But I have come to realize that there is no handbook for events like these and people will do what they are able. You can’t ask more from anyone than they have to give and you accept people as they are or not. I am okay now. And I made my mistakes too.”

The time with immediate family has been pleasant to actual fun. Rob and BIL get along much better than BIL and Will ever did. It makes hanging out possible. Although we don’t have a lot in common. I am a “dance mom” and DNOS is a hockey mom. They are Republicans and we are Canadians, so many topical conversations are off limits. We are middle-aged though and have historical mile-markers in common. Sadly, we are also old enough now to veer off into discussions of the physical betrayals of age. BIL regaled us with his bladder habits.

While here I have shopped. And will shop again today. It’s hard not to consume when in the land of consumption. Leafing through the Sunday flyers in the paper, I happened upon the Target ads. I actually hugged them. We don’t have Target. I couldn’t live here again and not become a devotee of the place. Best that I am a foreigner.

At the wedding brunch, I spent quite a while chatting with Sis’s Norwegian cousin, Helge*, and his wife. I am not surprised to find that I have more in common from a common sense stance with Europeans than with people from my homeland. I haven’t ever met Helge before though they come to visit at least once a year. He invited Rob and I to call upon them when we are overseas if we should ever make it to Norway.

Today is our last day of non-travel. There is a laundry list of things to do with Mom, and actual laundry, to do. Wish us luck for tomorrow. We will be victims of the system.

*Quick aside, we noted that Chicago had lost its Olympic bid and after listening to Helge recount with considerable disgust the practice the U.S. has adopted of photographing and fingerprinting foreign visitors, I am not surprised. Rob didn’t have his vitals captured and secured at customs though there were large signs everywhere reminding people that they could be and what the process was. Canadians are still exempt for the moment. I am a bit disconcerted by my country’s need to collect and store data. It sounds more Nazi than healthcare to me.

It’s Friday. Here’s Your Update.


Since I have been posting updates the last few weeks, I decided to again, but mainly because I am a little wrung out creatively speaking. I have written about four pieces over at 50 something Moms and adding pages to the memoir plus written the Christmas letter, a snarky little ditty that says nothing people who truly know us don’t already know and yet manages to remind others they could be keeping in better touch if they tried harder.

I am swamped with “to do’s” and find this amazing because I wasn’t this busy when I was gainfully employed. I have the Strathcona Writers website to try and log on to and update (not to mention create a blog and a Facebook group for) and the Fort writing group anthology is just taking off and is much more work than any of us thought it would be. And isn’t that usually the case?

My brother has been in touch several times this week too. There are things to worry about but not in print. Suffice to say, he is a long way from okay, but not in any danger that anyone in the family is aware of at this point.

Yesterday was my birthday. BabyD gave me a book called The Art of Column Writing that a writing friend and fellow blogger recommended. She is one who thinks I have the makings of a good columnist, one of my goals in the first quarter of the new year.

Yes, my year is now divided into frames of time as though I were a corporation. I am getting ready to map out the coming weeks and even meeting with someone at the bank on Monday to set up a “business account” because even though I have no inflow, I have expenses and, I think, a good business woman keeps those things separate from the household accounts for tax purposes – right?

Like a business card. I have gotten it into my head I need one. Now I just have to figure out what it should look like and say.

Rob gave me a digital voice recorder for my birthday. Instead of stopping in my tracks to pull out my notebook and a  pen (provided I can find them in my stuffed little purse – there is something else I need to “update”), I can whip out my recorder (yeah, definitely gonna need a new purse) and talk to myself. That will provide the locals something to give me “the look” about.

I got “the look” today from the spin instructor at the gym while I was snapping photos of the equipment for a piece I am going to write for 50something Moms.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking pictures for a column I am writing for a blog.”

And then comes the look. The one reserved for those of us who are a little bit off.

Tonight the Christmas Train is stopping here in Jo’berg. Country singers, sleigh rides and a bonfire with eats.

Later tonight the temps plummet and the weekend highs will be in the minus 20 c and colder range with minus 31c by Monday morning. Not cold enough for BabyD to need to be driven to school. Buses will run until minus 40. School, by the way, is never called off. Canadians are incredibly sensible about travel and road conditions. If they feel the roads are too bad to drive, they simply don’t. They don’t go to work. They don’t take their kids to school. There don’t seem to be repercussions for this because everyone from high up to lowest on the pole are of the same mind on the matter.

I am taking the elevation of my age by another year in stride. A thorough assessment reveals that I am not too fat, the skin under my chin is soft but not waddly and the white in my hair can still be camouflaged with minimal intervention. I do have crows feet. I am wearing progressive lens. But overall I appear to be maintaining.