January Come and Gone, and a Meme

Hard to believe that January is over and done-with! I can't exactly say that I'm sad to see it go. I think that January and February are the two hardest months for me to get through each year (November too), but the nice thing about February this year is that we're going to the mountains! I'm looking forward to the break! Two more weeks before a blissful 10 days off.

I saw this meme at Crazy Cat Woman's blog yesterday. It's called "8 Things About Us" and consists of 8 things about WonderHubby and me that I haven't blogged before.

1. WH is eight years older than me, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I had dated a series of younger immature types in the years before, so it was such a joyful relief to find someone who was independent, mature and self-reliant.

2. When we eat out, we tend to eat at the same two or three restaurants, at which we always order the same thing. If we know we're going to enjoy it, why rock the boat?

3. WH = spender. Chorus = saver. LOTS of work on communication around this one.

4. If I had to identify one thing that has been hard for us, it would be the reconciliation of differing Christmas traditions. I know it sounds like a trivial thing, but as if the holidays aren't stressful enough, add competing expectations to the mix and you get yourself some grief. In our first Christmas in our little house, the day we put up our Christmas tree, there were tears, someone called someone else a jerk... neither of us really put our best selves forward. We laugh a lot about this now, and we did much better the second time around. I'm looking forward in the coming years to seeing what traditions we create that our OURS, and that we can pass on to our children.

5. I am grateful every single day that WH likes mowing the lawn. But it got to be a bit much when he suggested that we should come home early from the hotel the day after our wedding so that he could mow the lawn before family arrived for lunch.

6. WH has been like Superman in this week of miserable cold. Sidewalks have been shovelled, cars have been plugged in and started and brushed off and warmed up, and until this morning, he's done all the driving on the awful roads. Bless him for all of it!

7. My family very rarely barbecued when I was growing up. It is a syle of cooking that I am learning to LOVE from a man whose family's tradition is that everything, including breakfast, can (and probably should) come from the BBQ. I think that the ribs that he makes are better than those at Local Rib Restaurant. Yum.

8. One of my favourite pictures of the two of us was taken at Loch Lomond in Scotland last summer. I have my pants rolled up, my shoes under my arm and am walking in the water. WH is sensibly walking on the beach with his shoes on his feet. We are walking about 25 feet apart. And yet, despite the different approach and the distance between us, it is a picture of two people clearly connected.

I've Decided that it's time....

TO CUT MY HAIR!

I've been growing my hair for almost two years now, with only an occasional trim from time to time. It's time, amidst the snow and the cold and all the other reasons to feel frumpy, to cut it all off.

I'm thinking about something like this:

(let's say, for the sake of this discussion, that I look kind of like Keira Knightly... BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... I can't even say that with a straight face.)
This is a silly post.

My Grandfather

I was born in 1916 in Dawson City, Yukon. You've probably heard of it... the gold rush and all. I guess that will make me 92 this year, but that's not suprising, given our family's longevity. Nana, my mother, died at 107.

I grew up in the Yukon, before our family moved to Vancouver in the early 30s, where I went to University and studied to be an engineer. I met and married Alice. In 1943, I enlisted in the Air Force as an Aircraftsman Second Class, or an acey-deucy, as they used to call us. Eventually, I flew Coast Patrol in Cansos and the Catalinas on the west coast, and then I was sent East for further training in Arnprior before finishing the war flying coast patrols in Goose Bay, Newfoundland. I was tall and handsome; there are pictures that prove it.

In 1944, our daughter was born, and we named her after her mother and her aunt. I called her Baby. There were boys that came too, eventually three of them. And we lost babies along the way as well. It wasn't uncommon.

After the war, I worked in Vancouver for a few years before I got a job in 1948 as a mining engineer with United Keno Hill. We packed up and headed north, to Northern British Columbia and the Yukon. There was a lot of moving in those years, as mines opened and closed. At Spillamacheen, near Golden, you can still see the house that we lived in if you drive all the way up the mine road. It's the one in the middle, with the hexagonal window. I took the car over the side of that mine road once, and hit the only tree between the road and the Fraser river. Fortunately, the kids weren't in the car, just Alice and me, so we climbed out carefully and walked up to the house. Alice held it together until much later that evening; when she broke down, I picked her up and carried her to bed. There are other stories too; remind me to tell you about the train load of frozen turkeys sometime.

By the time Baby was in high school, we were in Ontario, in the Levack/Sudbury area. We've been in Ontario ever since. The kids are all married now, and there are grandchildren. Seven of them; six boys and a girl. Our three boys and their families stayed in Ontario; Baby and her family moved west many many years ago.
There's a great-grandson too.

Alice and I eventually had to sell the big house in Sudbury. The neighbour bought it, so it was nice to know that the old place would be taken care of. We built a house in Arnprior to be close to our eldest son and his wife. You'll remember that I trained in Arnprior during the war, so I guess I'd come full circle. We liked Arnprior, Alice and me. There were friends, and nice restaurants where we knew the waitresses by name, and we even took a yoga class. I could still drive our big old car around the town, and even in to Ottawa every so often.

There were signs of age. I didn't hear very well anymore, even with the hearing aids, and my memory wasn't great. Emotions seemed to appear more quickly and more uncontrollably than they ever had before. Alice and I celebrated our 50th anniversary, and then our 60th, and the family came to celebrate with us.

And still there were signs of age, more than there had been before.

And then Alice had a stroke. And then she died.

And the signs of age that had been creeping along in me so gradually, all of a sudden accelerated. Our eldest son and his family moved me out of the little house in Arnprior that Alice and I built and into a place where I'd have more help, but the dementia came on so strong and so fast that it was too much for that place to handle, so I was moved again, to the place where I live now. I think I get good care here; there are certainly lots of nurses.

I was born in 1916, so I guess that means I'll turn 92 this year. Ninety-two years of a very good life. I think that I've lived it well.
~~~~~~~~~~~

There's a picture of my grandfather taken when he was a much younger man, standing outside in his undershirt and slacks, with his hands on his hips, and his hat on his head. He was a tall and handsome young man. And another, of my grandparents walking in Toronto, taken by a street photographer. They were a very attractive couple, fashionably dressed. Those two pictures are the way that I always think of him.

How I know I'm meant to be a mother...

When I see the University students walking by outside, and they're poorly dressed for the cold, I have to fight the urge to yank open my window and scream, "WHERE ARE YOUR MITTENS?!"

Another post (at least partly) about the weather

-46C

That's the temperature this morning, with wind chill, in case you were wondering.

And do we shut down schools, stay home under warm blankets, keep off the roads?? Absolutely not. I'm at work, there are no closed schools in the city (though school buses may not run), and the roads are packed with the usual Morning rush-hour, moving at a much slower pace, but moving nonetheless. Such is life on the Prairies. We'll rely on WH's car this week, as it is better equipped with broad winter tires than Flora. The weather is expected to clear by the end of the day, so though it will stay cold, the snow will have stopped and the wind will (hopefully) have died down. Now, that's enough about the weather...

~~~~~~~~~

I went to two lovely concerts this weekend. This symphony on Saturday night, where we heard some really neat programming, featuring primarily Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. I do love big orchestral works, with lots of stuff for cymbals and big drums and brass. The story behind the piece is a bit odd ~ you can read about it here ~ but the music is divine.

On Sunday afternoon, WH sang with the city's professional choir in a concert featuring works connected by the theme of Night, and its bookends of evening and morning. In one piece by Hungarian composer Ligeti, WH sang the Rooster solo - three bars of Hungarian crowing, to be precise. He did an excellent job, and got paid a soloist fee for it! I was proud. My husband, the Hungarian Rooster. "Kikeriki!"

Well, despite the cold, the work seems to keep rolling in, so I should get back to it!

Be WARM, everybody!

Prairie Winter

It is -40. No matter what side of the border you're on, or what temperature scale you use, it is -40 here this evening. It is going to be a very cold week.

And the snow, she has a fallen today too. Lots of snow, compounded by strong wind, meaning that our front walk has disappeared. The weather is miserable.

It is -40.

Update: A couple of hours later, and it's -43.

A Rare Weekend Post

My office is bloggy-central, so I don't normally post on the weekends, but I'm sitting here quietly waiting to go to the symphony tonight with Visiting Friend, so a blog entry seemed like a nice way to pass the time.

I bought a new pair of running shoes this morning; a $75 investment in my goal to run 5km on June 1st. I think the shoes will be good; they're not too white, though they do make my feel look gigantic. WH will go to his chiropractor this week to ask advice about running shoes for his feet, and then we'll put together a plan and get started! We are both in agreement that this would be a pretty cool achievement for both of us, if we can both get it done!

I guess should think about putting something nicer than jeans on, and maybe some makeup on my face. Oh, and brush my hair. Low Maintenance, thy name is Chorus.

Hope all weekends everywhere are going well!