I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Depressing Stories

I see that book (I Feel Bad About My Neck) everywhere and think to myself, who the hell is this Nora Ephron and why should she feel bad about her neck?

It wasn't until I happened to have been feeling particularly bad about Meg Ryan's botched nose and lips (she used to be so gorgeous pre-2001) after watching her latest dismal movie, My Mom's Boyfriend, and did some googling, that I found out that Nora Ephron is a bigwig Hollywood screenwriter who wrote Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and When Harry Met Sally, among other big movie hits.

Interesting stuff. Well, OK, maybe not. What is interesting, is that last week after doing the Seattle Underground Tour (a must-see/do activity for anyone, local yocal or otherwise, looking to kill a couple of hours in old downtown Seattle), we made our way to Elliot Bay Books in Pioneer Square. Elliot Bay Books has got to be one of the best bookstores ever. I adore it. But for some reason, it always reminds me of the charming bookstore in the movie, You've Got Mail. Turns out, however, that downstairs in the underground bowels of Elliot Bay Books is where they would shoot the coffee shop scenes for Frasier. I never knew that until last week.

Anyways, you're probably wondering why I feel bad about my neck. Or perhaps not. In either case, the reason I feel bad about my neck is that a scary thing happened to me on my way home from the specialty Irish shop in Seattle a couple of days ago, where we went in search of Irish dancing socks for Holy Daughter, who will be dancing in her first official competition at month's end.

I was on the I-5, minding my own rush hour business as our lane came to its predictable stop-n-go halt, when all of a sudden an SUV came up out of nowhere and ploughed into the rear end of my vehicle. Can you say Holy freakin' scary, batman? The kids and I were all OK, luckily and praise be to God, but my ass end isn't. It's flattened and crumpled and dented and extremely bruised.

And I feel bad about my neck.

My daughter and I had a doctor's visit yesterday and we are both suffering minor effects of whiplash - mine is mostly a right arm muscular pain extending all the way from my forearm up through to my shoulder and lower neck and back - likely caused from gripping the steering wheel and holding on for dear life at the point of impact, as we were pushed up to the car in front. Her's is an upper back pain. Her booster seat flew forward towards me and then was flung back wherein she bonked her head against it.

I also felt bad for the poor fellows in the car I hit. They were enroute from Vancouver, BC to attend The Foo Fighters concert in downtown Seattle but ended up getting stuck waiting on the side of the I-5 and enduring the stares and honks of lurking motorists, as we all did, some 75 minutes for the state trooper to arrive.

As with all sad twists of fate, crash and circumstance, timing is everything. My son stoically observed not many minutes after the accident that had I only listened to him and detoured for a bite to eat as he had requested, we would have not been in the scenario we found ourselves to be in. Woulda coulda shoulda is schmidta though.

It happened, as schmidt tends to do, just before we were about to embark on a camping trip for a week. We now have to cancel said trip, on account of not being able to pull the tent trailer, but as luck would have it, were able to salvage our state park getaway in small part by being able to find a nearby cabin rental for virtually the same price as a campsite. So we are now doing a marine rather than mountain retreat but I no longer have to stress about cooking with propane.

I'm also thankful to the God of small things that the repair shop did not deem the Odyssey a complete right-off, as is the trend in auto repair.

So in the meantime - which sounds to be 3 weeks - we'll be pimping a ride in a rental car, which as it turns out, means a red Ford Edge for this upcoming week of vay-cay. Which also means the kids will be sitting beside each other. Which is a cardinal sin in this family on account of being within intimate proximity to poke, punch, pinch, jab and jeer and pester one another. Which is the depressing part of this story.

I wonder if there's a special place in heaven for mothers, like say a luxe spa with the sign "Pas les Enfantes dans la Heavenly Spa, si vous plait."

Now that's my idea of heaven.

Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer

Lazy
Today was the first day in a long while that the whole house (save Holy Hub, who is a 5am creature of work habit) slept in. Holy Son awoke at 10:50 am. Long live sloth.

And yet summer, in all its lazy splendour, barely begins and evidence of its demise is all around us. The more audacious leaves of the bunch dare to turn colour. Bathing suits are already marked down for clearance in the stores as the merchandisers impatiently prepare to bring the back to school stuff in. And the seasonal camping gear displays are now slim to nil. How sad is that?

Summer is short enough already. But I'm doing my best to ignore the department stores and their mixed up calendar.

Crazy
The latter part of June saw us prepping for our crazy Canuck street party. We were mostly on track with getting the house in order and food/drink together when we received a last minute call from out-of-town (country actually) friends that they were a couple of hours away and heading our direction with baby in tow.

The weather was gorgeous during their stay and one of the highlights was being able to attend the local Canadian Consulate barbeque, with Canadian wines and beers on perma-pour and Cadbury chocolate bars in huge abundance. We got to play hose hockey - our team name was The Touques - and we sucked which was not entirely good, considering the game entailed blowing a ping pong ball through various team member hoses attached to the sides of the blow-up hockey "arena" through to the opponent's goal.

These friends departed on the last Monday of June but not before said young mat-leave wife, who shall remain nameless, divested herself of the equivalent of someone's annual salary on anything and everything she could think to buy, most especially if it sported a designer name and a stiletto heel. We see our fair share of Canadian visitors who come to shop but she took the proverbial cake. Our friend advises that the shopping didn't let up even enroute back to the border. They couldn't even open their car door without something falling out. It brings new meaning to the term loaded. May the Lord have mercy on him. They've barely been married a year. He's in for it, I think.

I like when our life is graced with real shoppers though. It helps put things into perspective for Holy Hub, who harbours the erroneous belief that I'm a shopper. She's way out of my league, I'm afraid.

Anyways, no sooner did they drive off, then sheets were being washed and changed for our next arrival, a few hours later, of my sis-in-law, who caught took the Clipper over from Victoria with nanaimo bar ingredients in tow (Bird's vanilla custard pudding mix). At 5am the next day, I was busy making a triple batch of this quintessentially Canadian dessert for our party that night.

We were blessed to have 83 degree weather for the party that night and hosted the entire affair on our front driveway, which is quite large. Somewhere between 40 and 50 people showed up from the cul de sac, our old neighborhood and various other nooks and crannies of our life here. Holy Daughter set up a Canada Customs booth and our cardboard cut-out Mountie acted as sufficient deterrent for those hoping to sneak into the country without appropriate i.d.

Lucky for them, she was feeling generous that night. She permitted library cards, Costco and Safeway cards and even a red and white debit card. All visitors were then duly branded with a Canada tattoo and allowed entrance, but not before having to attempt to answer a series on not so skilled-testing questions about Canada. Holy Hub passed with flying colours - I barely did. I couldn't resist throwing a dud question into the mix that even the Canadians in the crowd answered wrong - see if you can find it.

1. What are Canada’s two national sports?
A. Ice Hockey, Basketball B. Baseball, Tennis C. Basketball, Lacrosse D. Lacrosse, Ice Hockey

2. How many lakes are there in Canada?
A. Unknown B. 500 thousand C. 1 million D. 5 million

3. Who was the first Prime Minister of Canada?
A. Alexander Mackenzie B. John A. MacDonald C. Louis Riel D. Wilfred Laurier

4. Canada has two national symbols. What are they?
A. Beaver & Maple Leaf B. Maple Leaf & Moose C. Beaver & Grizzly Bear D. Moose & Salmon

5. Canada has the longest covered bridge in the world (1,282 feet long). Where is it located?
A. West Montrose, ON B. La Sarre, QE C. Gold River, BC D. Hartland, NB

6. What university developed the world's first anti-gravity suit?
A. University of Toronto B. Simon Fraser University C. University of British Columbia D. Queen’s University

7. Andrew Bonar Law was the only Canadian ever to do what?
A. Win the Indianapolis 500 B. Serve as Prime Minister of Great Britain C. Board the MIR space station D. Win the Tour De France

8. How many National Parks are there in Canada?
A. 84 B. 25 C. 40 D. 60

9. In which year did Canada adopt the metric system?
A. 1975 B. 1985 C. 1967 D. 1970

10. How many time zones are there in Canada?
A. 6 B. 8 C. 4 D. 5

11. What is the highest mountain in Canada?
A. Mount Forbe B. Mount Logan C. Mount Kitchener D. Mount Lefroy

12. What is the longest river in Canada?
A. Fraser River B. St. Laurence River C. Mackenzie River D. Red River

13. What is Canada's most northern island?
A. Queen Charlotte B. Ellesmere C. Victoria D. Baffin

14. Which of the following authors is not Canadian?
A. W.O. Mitchell B. Margaret Atwood C. A.A. Milne D. Michael Ondaatje

15. Which Province has the largest concentration of moose in North America?
A. Alberta B. British Columbia C. Newfoundland D. Quebec

16. When was “Oh Canada” proclaimed as Canada’s national anthem?
A. 1870 B. 1935 C. 1980 D. 1999

17. What year did Canada quit using dog sleds as the main mode of transportation?
A. 1898 B. 1903 C. 1911 D. 1932

18. Which one of these inventions was not Canadian?
A. Roller skate B. Basketball C. IMAX D. Artificial Heart

19. Which one of these games was not created in Canada?
A. Trivia Pursuit B. Pictionary C. Scrabble D. Balderdash

20. 80% of Canadians live where?
A. In Igloos B. In Ontario C. With a Caribou D. Close to the US border

We featured Hockey Night in Canada street shootouts and Capture the Americanadian Flag in the back forest for the kids, while adults got to eat, drink Canadian beer or our own special yuckaflux, another Canadian tradition, and be merry. Holy Hub, who wore a cowboy hat made of out Molson Canadian beer boxes, made a saskatoon berry (a crunchy blue-ish berry indigenous to Alberta and Saskatchewan) cobbler in the Dutch oven that proved popular with Canadians and Americans alike. I looked equally as festive, decked out as I was with my Mountie-ish hat and RCMP apron.

And a fine time was had by all. One neighbour whispered that the block has never seen so much fun.


But the fun and frivolity didn't stop there. We then kicked into Holy Hub birthday mode with family celebrations starting the very next day, since Holy Hub and I were planning to be out for the evening of his birthday. Not just anywhere out but at the BB King concert, no less. A few months ago, I went searching the Net to see if I could maybe surprise Holy Hub with a flight to wherever BB King happened to be playing the night of his birthday. Imagine my surprise to find out that he was booked to play here, of all far flung places. Gotta love synchronicity.

So off we went, with little more than our newly-purchased beach chairs in tow, to our first outdoor concert at the local winery. Talk about feeling like a couple of naked, country bumpkins showing up to the city faire. All the couples - and that was pretty much the demographic - 50+ white couples - were decked out with little picnic baskets, bottles of wine, intricately-etched wine glasses, miniature cutting boards with cheese knives, imported cheeses, grapes, the whole wine and cheese enchilada.

I had thought to pack some cookies and chips. We bought our wine and our kiosk dinner there and then proceeded to sip serupticiously out of plastic cups and dine in dubious plastic fork and plate pleasure. And then we did what all good concert goers do - we grooved to the King. He was as much a delight to listen to, as he regailed the crowd with tales of yesteryear and now, as he was to watch. 82 years old and still oozing the blues. It was fun. I haven't smiled that much or felt inclined to break into musically-inspired tears so much in a very long time.

So little wonder that come the 4th of July, I was plum tuckered. We flew an American flag on the house for the first time - it was a landmark day in liminal citizenry. Attempting to hit the hay at 9pm that night in these parts, however, was an exercise in futility. Whereas our old neighbourhood was pretty quiet and devoid of covert pyros, our new neighborhood was a vestige of such. Firecrackers were shooting off from every side and in every direction. I felt like I was the lone dud popcorn kernel in a pan of hot oil that night. I finally gave up, got up, and with Holy Hub and the kids newly returned from their high hilltop fireworks viewing vantage point one neighborhood over, I joined them for a quick dogwalk around the block.

Hazy
Not even a week later, we would return for the same walk around the block in order to view the charred remains of a neighbour's house that went up in flames in the wee hours of yestermorn when, to quote Edgar Alan Poe, "each seperate dying ember" (of the lady's squashed cigarette butt) "wrought its ghost upon the floor." It was a cataclysmic awakening outside our bedroom window with fire sirens wailing, helicopters hovering, embers exploding, flames raging and smoke billowing.

And it was surreal on many fronts, to say the least. I had just finished drafting my memoir chapter on Fire, which details our own family tale of how much went up in smoke the day our house burned to the ground on January 7, 1970. Fire was very much on my mind. It's never been very far outside my consciousness, actually.

When I was the same age as Holy Son now, a house nearby to our own in Kenilworth blew-up - the fatality of a gas leak. I remember riding my bike over and standing there, aghast and in wide-eyed stare at the gaping hole where their house and home once stood.

As I trace our own married life and times - (two decades come August), I can't help but notice how often we have been touched by tragedy equally as close to home. In Edmonton circa mid-9os and only a few blocks away from our house, a young mother was brutally murdered by an intruder. Holy Hub studiously went about installing a house alarm system for us and I slept with one eye open each night for years thereafter.

In Islamabad, a Swiss man was senselessly murdered while hiking on the scenic-lookout hiking trail across the road from our home. Holy Hub studiously went about fostering increased security and international relations in our parts by plying the Checkpoint Charlie police at our corner with all-you-can-drink tea and chat.

One year later back in Canada, our brother's house caught fire. All escaped relatively unscathed but as I recall, he wore that tragedy with "like father, like son" pride for years to come.

And then not long after settling into our Calgary home, our neighbor just three houses up was found dead at her front entry landing ~ supposed the legacy of a random intrusion. But those of us who knew her to be estranged from her disturbed husband, an aldermanic hopeful in the previous civic election and fundamental Christian with a troubled teenhood, knew different. Rumours quickly spread of how the kids were found locked in their bedroom upstairs. What mother locks her kids in their bedroom unless fearing a danger far greater than fire?

Three years ago, tragedy again struck close. Shortly after moving to the U.S., we awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of fire engines. Turns out, a disgrunted divorceed man a couple of blocks away had set fire to the house for the insurance claim. The house next door caught fire, as well, and three years later, it has only just been rebuilt. The burnt remains and blacked shell of a car in the attached garage of Mr. Arsonist's house (who now sits in jail to ponder the perils of playing with fire) stand as testament to his bonfire of vanity.

And here again, the home fires burned. "A spark neglected makes a mighty fire" is perhaps the greatest of Herrick's understatements, as our now homeless neighbors have learned.

Suffice to say, I'm thankful for a little quiet on the western front from hereonin this summer. The closest I wish to get to fire this summer is at marshmallow stick's length away, superstitiously chanting "I hate white rabbits."

Summer in the City

The kids end their school years today and tomorrow respectively. They only attend school for 2 hours on the last day and I always question, why they do this when they already have a half-day on Wednesdays. Why not tack on that two hours to Wednesday and give them the last day off altogether. How stupid and bureacratic and political and did I mention dumb?

So I have one last hour before summer madness begins.

It won't be madness so much for the first while, as we intend to relish the advent of no fixed schedule and homework. Holy Son was still studying up until the night before last. It's been a full-on year for him with school work but he's done really well. Straight As except for German and even then, his mark would probably count for an A- in a different grading system.

The best part of summer is not having to run around with the after-school activities like soccer, dance, jazz band, youth theater, Brownies and Boy Scouts, cello lessons...the list goes on and on in this insane house.

And that's partly why I've scaled back our summer plans, which would have seen us running around Western Canada visiting friends and family and schlepping suitcases in tow. We've always been vagabonds - it has fairly defined us these past two decades but I have to be honest, for the first time ever, I feel no burning desire to hit the road by plane, train or automobile. I worried this might be a sign of aging - this desire to cocoon - but I think it has more to do with coming off a very tiring year with the kids and house buying just prior to the market tanking.

Speaking of tanking, the good news of the day is that the Boeing Tanker deal is back on the table. This makes me happy if only because we happen to be a Boeing family. I hope they get their fair shot at the bid this time.

Anyways, that aside, we've also been busy gearing up for a Canada Day barbeque party we'll be hosting July 1st, on Canada's 141st birthday. This is the very opposite of cocooning, I realize, but I've been feeling lately as though I've been channeling the ghost of Erma Bombeck. I've been putting off having anyone come over because I feel bad about our lack of furniture, and our minimal decorating, and that I haven't painted yet so all the walls are pretty stark. And that some of our black plates are chipped, and that I don't have a full set of wine glasses.

And that people will come over and sneer, judge and zillow, and then make semi-apologetic comments to the effect that we must feel awful that we bought our house at the height of the housing market boom and now it has softened drastically. It's been like the conference of the neurotic birds in my brain - all this chattering of reasons why not to host friends, except the birds have not been mystical so much as foreboding and Hitchcockian.

Anyways, I re-read the Erma Bombeck poem - you know the one: If I Had My Life to Live Over....

If I had my life to live over, I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television - and more while watching life.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you's".. More "I'm sorrys"...

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute... look at it and really see it ... live it...and never give it back.

***********

And so in the spirit of Erma's redux, I'm going to finally unbutton the hatches, throw open the doors and bring together an eclectic assortment of Curt's co-workers, our neighbors, old neighborhood friends and school acquaintances, etc. for a street party. We've promised fun, food, drink, frivolity and Canadian wackiness and by golly, that's what we'll deliver. And so what if the house isn't totally together....who cares.

It's such a useless worry, as is the one where I worry incessantly about mixing the various peoples in my life - the partiers with the teetolers, the introverts with the extroverts, the conversatives with the liberals. I worry about it being a melting pot about to boil over, when the reality is that it usually makes for a tasty, simmering pot of fun. At least history has shown that to be so when we've hosted similar open house events.

My RCMP red surge apron is arriving in the mail, along with a number of Canadiana goodies my blessed MIL was kind enough to ship.

And so that will be the kickoff to summer and hopefully the start of some desperately-needed sunny weather, if only because I've special-ordered it to arrive in time for the party.

Godspeed the sun, the summer and a little bit of easy living.

Games Without Frontiers

The Iceman Cometh
If you were to play Name That Tune in 5 notes (OK, max 12) and ask all 33.4 million Canadians to play along, you'd get a 99,9% accuracy rate on one particular song.

What tune am I referring to? Canada's penultimate anthem, of course. The one Wayne Gretzky dubiously dubs Canada's best song and arguably, the one that is the most identifiable sound in hockey, next to a slapshot.

If you're Canadian or a weekend NHL fan, then you know the tune and you also know the recent hooplah surrounding it. It's the Hockey Night in Canada theme song and the news of the week is that the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) is supposedly giving thought to not renewing the licensing on it.

I say 'supposedly' because we all know there was something rotten in the state of Ottawa and television negotiations in going viral with this "leaked" news. It's likely all part of the negotiations - appeal to the national sentiment in order to bring some sense and sensibility to an unsettled, $2.5 licensing lawsuit that the CBC wants the composer to make go away. Unsettling is definitely the word of the day in the matter. The outcry and uproar this has caused cannot even begin to be measured. It's a veritable afront to our national identity.

It's as near and dear to Canucks as God Bless America is to Americans. Perhaps even more so.

The song, composed by Doris Claman, came into being in the late 60s and it soon became the musical Saturday night battle cry and beacon call to armchair hockey fans nationwide to gather round their black and white, rabbit-eared television sets to watch Canada's hockey greats duke it out on ice. One didn't need to look at a clock if the TV was on....you just knew what time it was when you heard those opening melody...duhn da duhn daduhn, duhn da duhndaduhn, duhn da duhn daduhn duh....doodoodoodoo dooodoooo (tune fades significantly offkey)...

Ask any Canadian, go ahead. We all have our own rendition and way of bastardizing the HNIC theme song. Some of us go deep baratone, some whistle, some even brandish an air hockey stick and feign superstar hockey player position while doing so. But we all know it. It's permanently etched on our psyche to the degree that if there were to be tribal lineups in heaven, all the dead Canadian angels could easily be the choir at the heavenly hockey match.

That's the funny thing about being Canadian. We don't have much to show for our cultural identity that we can truly brand and brag about internationally - not like many other nations. But the few things we have - like our Molson beer, and our Tim Horton's doughnuts and our hockey theme song and our toques and curling brooms - we hang onto those tenaciously and if anyone tries to take those away, we get very pugnacious and well, like right some panicky, eh.

*Update*: CTV announced yesterday that they have bought the rights to the song, which is the ultimate in media scoops, considering this was a CBC deal, and that they intend to use the song during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Way to go, CTV. We love you. And they know this. They had the foresight to see that Canadians will feel a heightened sense of gratitude, loyalty and warm fuzzies now when they think of CTV. That's how much we love our song. For shame, CBC, although that's the difference between private sector take-action decisiveness and crown corporation procrastination.

Games Without Frontiers

Andre has a red flag, Chiang Ching's is blue

They all have hills to fly them on except for Lin Tai Yu

Dressing up in costumes, playing silly games

Hiding out in tree-tops shouting out rude names

Whistling tunes we hide in the dunes by the seaside

Whistling tunes we piss on the goons in the jungle

It's a knockout

If looks could kill they probably will

In games without frontiers-wars without tears

Peter Gabriel, "Games Without Frontiers"

I never gave much thought to my Canadianness in Canada. It has only been through travel and living elsewhere as an expat that I've been able to see my nationality and my home and native land in new perspective and through new eyes.

I still get the accent thing all the time....people noticing that I apparently have one. And of course, while I've adapted to new ways of being ~ such as Americanizing my spelling, and alternating between saying either z or zed when verbalizing my e-mail address to locals, in direct correlation to how accommodating and/or sadistic I'm feeling when they inquire, "can you repeat that, I didn't hear that last letter?"), or refraining from barking whenever a neighbor talks about their roof (Holy Hub and I now just look at each other and smile and wink instead). It's a round-about kinda way of saying that while I've integrated, I'm still fiercely, fiercely Canadian.

I like to think I've become a little less tribal and apologetic in the three years since moving here though. My angry imperialism rants have lessened (somewhat), American politics leaves me feeling more indifferent than not of late, and I'm beginning to warm up to the notion that as light-year different as Americans and Canadian are in both worldview and character, we are perhaps not to very far apart.

But then schmidt happens that tests my magnanimousness. Like this article in Parade magazine last Sunday, which really pissed me off. Sometimes there is no better way to descibe a certain slant of anger than being pissed off. And I say that because those are the very words I uttered to the republic upon reading the propaganda, I mean article, from beginning to end. Although God knows, there will not be an end in sight to the issue soon. Pissed off also fits because the high Arctic is nothing if not the last unclaimed geographic pissing match and yet another so-called Great Game to be played between power-hungry nations.

Which, just thinking about the whole thing again, gives me pause for desperate prayer. Dear Great Game Scorekeeper, if Stephen Harper has nothing more to show for his legacy as PM in this early years of this new millennium, let it at least be that he does the right thing in our extreme north strong and free. And if you're going to let anyone else piss on the tundra snow, let it then be Norway or Denmark.

I don't trust this whole hunger for oil thing and the fact that all of a sudden, the U.S. has suddenly wised up to the fact that oil rights and mining reserves are unnaturally/unfairly rich in northern Alberta, the NWT and in Nunavut. I'm wating for the other shoe to drop - first Iraq, then Iran, next it will be Canada that will become the new enemy of the States. I can't fathom what hidden weapon of mass destruction we might be accused of hiding except stockpiles of hockey pucks, curling rocks and doughnut holes.

So all that said, I take back what I said about becoming less tribal. In some ways, being an expat in a foreign land has manifested in me a heightened sense of tribalism. I suppose that's only natural. Yet there's a lonely kind of liminality that an expat inherits upon receiving the exit stamp in the passport and thereby stepping off the precipice of kindred soil. The liminality is akin to any other cultural rite of passage from youth to adult, single to married, virgin to whore. You are no longer what you were before, and not quite wholly the other either.

As an expat, you remain on threshold ground between the two, able to see and participate ~ albeit only superficially ~ in the events, customs, rituals of both tribes. But you don't quite belong entirely with either group. It's a curious thing. You become, instead, an Iyerian citizen of a larger land outside nationalistic borders, even as you still identify and sympathize with the concerns and angsts of the overlapped tribes you have a toehold in. In its simplist, visual form, you can envision the expat as occupying the space between two overlapped circles.

So, in some ways I feel more tribal and emic, and in other ways, more like a long-distance etic - an Audubonian with Eddie Bauer binoculars and a keener vision to see the forest through the trees. I watch this Great Game play out on earth's northenmost ice, and I swear and I can almost hear the theme song for Hockey Night and Canada and see the Canada Kicks Ass banners waving ~ banners, incidentally, that owe their roots to the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the former USSR, in which Canada kicked some serious Russian zhopa.

It's hard not to get caught up in it all. Sung to the tune of, "when two tribes go to war, a point is all that you can score."

Holy Son and I played the game of Risk awhile back. It was interesting in a surreal kind of way. We both wanted Alberta - it was a small measure of homeland security, I suspect. He was intent on conquering it all whilst I was quasi-cool with amassing a collection of equatorial islands and such, ever while recognizing that no man or woman is an island. Suffice to say, before long, he blew me out of the water with all his strategic dominions and republics and armies and newfound geo-greed. I had nary a leg nor isthmus to stake my flag into - I went from Churchillian "I will never surrender" threats and promises, to finally having to lisp, "'isth mus end, this not so great game of ours. The world is your's - may you take great care with it." This was after much concession and not a small measure of a particularly fine-tasting shiraz. I noticed the more wine I drank, the more land I,too, wanted to consume, which made me ponder if alcohol and foreign affairs are perhaps a dangerous combustion.

I played an experiential seminar game once upon a time called the Game of Life. I played it eons before reality TV came into existence. The point of the game was, ultimately, not traditional win/lose tactics but rather, for participants to garner experiential insight around how they "do" life and play the game. Do I play to win at all costs? Do I sit back and let others take control? What's my stratego? ~ these were and remain the burning questions. If all of this is but a game, how are you playing it? And what I realized is that I'm a push/pull dichotomy of fascist and serf - I'm a contortionist who suffers each time I flip from take charge to take cover. Perhaps we're all a bit that way, which might explain why the inhumane game of war and peace seems destined to continue. We haven't donned our own oxygen masks nor mastered control of the puck in the interior affairs game. In economic terms, we're not export ready. That's my version of the story and I'll defend it to the death, on this day anyways. Tomorrow is a new day, a new game, a new frontier. Who knows what flag I'll be carrying then, or which silly games I'll be playing or rude names I'll be shouting out.

Speaking of tomorrow, if you clicked the two tribes link and heard the song then you may well have heard my favorite lyrics de semaine, which read, "if any member the family should die whilst in the shelter, put them outside, but remember to tag them first for identification purposes."

We've been listening to that song in the car the last couple of days and I'm trying to get the kids to commit it to memory, because the way I figure it, you just never know when you may need to utter such sage words of advice to others. It's been kind of amusing though because Holy Daughter has been asking all kinds of questions - "what does that mean ~ tag the body? How do they tag you if you're dead?," and my favorite, "but if you're dead, who cares?" She has a point, insofar as the historical record has pretty much proven as much on the global lack of care thereof.

Sometimes I feel guilty that I clutter their minds with meaningless fodder but at other times, I'm pretty certain they'll thank me for this daily bread I've fed them. One day, I'm sure. Perhaps when they're tagging my body and dressing me up in army boots. And when they do, I'll be sure to roll over. 'Cuz that's a mother for you - always trying to get the last punk in there.

White Supremacy

I've been talking, thinking, threatening this for awhile. And I've finally done it.

I've ditched all things white that were beginning to consume my diet, pollute my eco-system and take up excess cargo space therein. I've been feeling really sick lately and my suspicion has been that it's a digestive issue.

So I decided to start eliminating, starting with the evil whityies. But I suppose I should clarify - it's not all things white so much as most things white. On Wednesday, I cut out coffee, dairy, sugar and gluten from my diet. By Wednesday night, I was back to an espresso shot with a wee sprinkle of sugar-in-the-raw in it. On account of the fact that I had my weekly Artist's Way meeting at the local Starbucks and well, I'm weak and insipid when it comes to sniffing coffee fumes. By Thursday morning, I was drinking my morning with coffee mate versus 1/2 and 1/3 creamer. So I'm still consuming about 4 tspns of brown sugar a day but that is it. It beats having to pop aspirin for awhile.

But the gluten and dairy - those are two culprits I want to focus my energy on steadfastly avoiding. So far, so good - I'm more conscious about grabbing whole foods although I still haven't figured out what to do about the grains. I'm just tickled that corn tortillas with salsa is an acceptable, gluten-free snack.

Anyhoo, we'll see how it goes.

And no small conicidence, we've just joined a local swim and tennis club (nothing like an aversion to wearing a bathing suit in public to fuel motivation for an elimination diet) and the kids are busy getting up to speed with swim lessons. They are both 2-3 years behind their peers in swimming ability, from what I've been able to gauge. In fact, Holy Son towers over most of the others in his swim class, including his instructor, a junior or senior who happens to go to his school. But he's cool with it and I'm hoping that with a few weeks of intensive lessons under their swim belts, they'll both be much more comfortable in the water. And of course, a summer spent hanging at the pool should help matters, as well.

I do not relish the fact of hanging by the pool, however. I hate water, as in I can't stand getting my face wet or having anyone splash nearby me. And I'm not a comfortable swimmer although I will consider taking lessons to push past some of my aqua/hydrophobia. Because I would like to take up swimming as a form of exercise now that we have this membership.

I like this time of year though. Where all thoughts are eyeballed to the summer season ahead and the advent of no school. School activities are winding down - Holy Son had his final orchestra concert last night. They played the Pink Panther theme song and he ended up winning an award for Best Sense of Humor amongst his orchestral peers.

Holy Daughter is gearing up for her year-end ballet recital and is still actively nagging us to register her in a summer feis, which is an Irish dancing competition where they compete for trophies.

And I'm gearing up to have nothing on the schedule, which explains why I haven't made any summer plans yet. I am feeling very anarchistic and anti-social lately. There are a handful of visit plans we would, could, should be making back home due north, but to be honest, we have such a crazy, busy schedule for 9 months of the year that I just feel no desire to travel any distance in excess of an hour by plane, train or automobile. And if this sounds rather anal-retentive, so be it. I'm pooped out ~ physically and figuratively.

Which is why like my good friend, Theo LeSieg and his pal Alice Low, I, too, like the things that summer brings. I say, bring it on.

And speaking of bring it on, tonight is date night with Holy Hub - no kids for the entire night. Can you believe we haven't even made a definitive plan for the evening yet? How to tell we've been married 20 years?

Dispatches from the Wet Coast

I'm convinced Mother Nature is either:

a) drunk and stoned on too much Fijian kava
b) on an impromptu sabbatical
that did not permit training a suitable replacement in time
c) a very sick and twisted demi-goddess
d) going through menopause

I'm going with (d) ~ final answer. How else to explain the hot flashes followed by extreme dip in temperature in these parts lately? No word of a lie, we've experienced a 50 degree climate dive just in this past week. This time last week, it was 100. Today, it's 50, cold and yucky.

Has to be menopause but let me assure you, there ain't nothing musical about it, unless you count the raindrops pissing on the tin can outside, which are causing that annoying clink, clank, ting, tang sound. Oh yeah, and the dim strains of my whining while the background viola gently weeps.

All hail the long weekend - literally, figuratively and meterologically. For many of us secular
folk, the May long weekend is sacreligiously set aside not to commemorate the Queen's birthday (Canadians just recovered from their long weekend in her honour just last weekend - but God save the old bat, she's ancient, what of it?)

Nor to pay homage to the American war dead (so sue me - I'm Canadian - we pay our respects 11/11 of each year). The May long weekend, for as long as I can remember, has always been about going camping. And invariably, said camping has always entailed rain, snow, hail, sleet, and all other manners of foul weather. We so live in the wrong corner of the world.

And so it is with great cynicism that we head out this evening for wilderness parts slightly due north where the snow still flies.

Getting out of Dodge will be so sweet and to be honest, even if it is raining, we've come a long way from the days of being holed up in a tent. I'm still really digging our tent trailer - which is our camping home away from home.

Between you me, the wall, and every Googler searching cyberspace for tent trailers and shitty weather patterns, rainy day weather whilst camping is often an ironic excuse to seek shelter inside the tent trailer, play games and eat Spitz. Not to mention a fine opportunity to stare out in abject pity and bemusement at the drowned-rat tent city campers next door, who make it pithily obvious that this is their first time camping, if only because they failed to remove the REI and Joe's price tags from their gear, and because they're still struggling to figure out how to button down the hatches and set up all their tarps. I love playing Rear Window out our canvas peephole by alternating my spyglass between the ruling class motorhome types with their satellite TV hookup on one side, and the peasant tenters on the other.

Poor souls, I think to myself of the peasants, ever while moving a few inches away from the furnace register that is at that very moment pumping too much heat through the cozy confines of our Coleman camp shack. But, of course, trailer trash that I am, I don't really feel overly concerned with their wellbeing. We've more than done our time and crime roughing it in the great outdoors and I gladly pass the tikki torch to the likes of such intrepid types.

Two decades of layering clothes and looking like the abominible snowman meets Mary Poppins on her first camping expedition is more than an initiation period. I've shivered in tents playing cards in torrential rain, I've stood at the fire holding a golf umbrella while Holy Hub cooked, and I've sat in the car fogging up the windows and watching the rainstorm pelt down, all the while
wondering why exactly "they" claim camping is supposed to be fun. And what I've come to realize in zen realism fashion, is that washing dishes and drinking moonshine by the light of the same in the great outdoors in the freezing cold is one of the best hand and belly warmer combos ever.

The little schmidtlets love camping.

Holy Son, despite being a boy scout on the chase for Eagle, is perhaps the penultimate fan of the tent trailer. He can invariably be found hiding out, playing his Nintendo DS or cards or eating
snacks or whatever. Anything to avoid being outside. This cracks me up. And ever the doting mother, I feel compelled to keep him company inside.

Holy Daughter, on the other hand, is the postergirl for her father's motto - which essentially reads as: "if you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space." So suffice to say, she's always out exploring the environs out and about in whatever State Park village we happen to find ourselves temporarily living in. Rain, shine, cold, hot - she's out there.

And Holy Hub? Well he's like the grand Bhodhisattva of Camping. He achieved his black belt in
camping sometime circa early 90s in the Canadian Rockies. It was a self-appointed status - but then enlightenment of any kind is rather like that, isn't it?

Yes, without him, the rest of us Schmidts are essentially up Schmidt Creek without a paddle in the great outdoors. He handles everything with great adroitness if not a few well-poised mumblings. From set-up to tear-down to open-fire cooking to gourmet Dutch oven delights to propane stove lighting and water duty and lantern lighting and midnight hour bonfire stoking and firepit pyrotechnics, he da man. He is to Coleman what the Marlboro Man was to
cigarettes.

And me? Hmm, I guess you could say that I'm like the Martha Stewart of camping. I handle the other important things - you know, the fru fru stuff like sleeping bag making and fidgeting with curtain ties and tent trailer sweeping and picnic table cloth clipping and table setting and dish washing and reading and striking just the right pose with my giant purple plastic wine glass, as I sit and smile pleasantly at passerbyers from my campchair perch in front of the fire.

We're camping in the Snoqualmie-Mt. Baker Forest District at the very edge of the mountains this weekend and apparently, our particular campground, while open, has only just been ploughed clear of the white stuff ~ a testament to the freakishly long winter we had this so-called spring. So we'll be camping and hiking in the snow. Indeed, it must be the May long weekend.

Although having said that, Western Canadians had a lovely long weekend last Saturday-Monday. Temperatures were in the high 80s and into the 90s.

We will not be so lucky - we'll be packing our gortex and boots and toques and gloves - ready to brave whatever Mother Nature's alternate deems fit to dole out. Suffice to say we'll definitely be running the trailer furnace this weekend, God willing.

And failing the gortex, there's always alcohol. One bourbon, one scotch, and one beer on Holy Hub's end and a bottle of shiraz and some Baja Tango orange cream liqueur on mine equals three sheets to the Cascadina mountain wind. All that much better, I suspect, to numb the effects of near-hypothermia.

Yes, it's a veritable how-to manual on how to be a happy camper and other exciting and schmidty tales. Full story at 11.

Mom's the Word

I'm reading The Thirteenth Tale right now. The best gauge I have for books that truly captivate me is that I get annoyed when real life and circumstances impose themselves upon my reading time. I hate having to put these rare books down to eat, sleep and honour appointments and schedule commitments. The Thirteenth Tale is such a book.

I love 'word nerd' authors. It becomes immediately obvious that Diane Setterfield is one. I suspect it's her study of French literature that has honed her sense of the particular in sentence structure. She selects only the most fitting words and phrases to describe her characters and scenes, or so it seems. And then there is the placing and slant synonymic of her word choice. Whereas some authors might stick their pronouns in conventional places, she seems to mix them up and thus, toy with both the semantics and the reader, thereby conveying "a certain ambiguity in the expression." She does this on page 141, with Charlie Angelfield's epitaph, which reads:

CHARLIE ANGELFIELD
HE IS GONE INTO THE DARK NIGHT.
WE SHALL NEVER SEE HIM MORE.

Yes, it's a good book, a very fine book. I am now at the Middles section of the book, which follows, most naturally, after Beginnings, of course. Her chapter on The Friendly Giant was splendid. Like all Canadian children of a certain age and form, I came of age with The Friendly Giant. And so it is that I relate in part and mythic imagination.

Here is a slice from the chapter.

"Tell me..." the stranger began, and I suspected he had needed to pluck up the courage to ask his question. "Do you have a mother?"
I felt a start of surprise. People hardly ever notice me for long enough to ask me personal questions.
"Do you mind? Forgive me for asking, but--How can I put it? Families are a matter of...of...But if you'd rather not--I am sorry."
"It's all right," I said slowly. "I don't mind." And actually I didn't. Perhaps it was the series of shocks I'd had, or else the influence of this queer setting, but it seemed that anything I might say about myself here, to this man, would remain forever in this place, with him, and have no currency anywhere else in the world. Whatever I said to him would have no consequences. So I answered his question. "Yes, I do have a mother."
"A mother! How--Oh, how--" A curiously intense expressed came into his eyes, a sadness or a longing. "What could be pleasanter than to have a mother!" he finally exclaimed. It was clearly an invitation to say more.
"You don't have a mother, then?" I asked.
Aurelius's face twisted momentarily. "Sadly--I have always wanted--Or a father, come to that. Even brothers or sisters. Anyone who actually belonged to me. As a child I used to pretend. I made up an entire family. Generations of it! You'd have laughed!" There was nothing to laugh at in his face as he spoke. "But as to an actual mother...a factual, known mother...Of course everybody has a mother, don't they? I know that. It's a question of knowing who that mother is. And I have always hoped that one day--For it's not out of the question, is it? And so I have never given up hope."
"Ah."
"It's a very sorry thing." He gave a shrug that he wanted to be casual, but wasn't. "I should have liked to have a mother."
"Mr. Love--"
"Aurelius, please."
"Aurelius. You know, with mothers, things aren't always as pleasant as you might suppose."
"Ah?" It seemed to have the force of a great revelation to him. He peered closely at me, "Squabbles?"
"Not exactly."
He frowned. "Misunderstandings?"
I shook my head.
"Worse?" He was stupefied. He sought what the problem might be in the sky, in the woods, and finally, in my eyes.
"Secrets," I told him.

On a lighter maternal note, I found the fatherly sequel to the Mom Song made legendary in Youtubeland....check it out. She's captured dadsense in minutia, I think.

And Happy Mother's Day weekend to all mothers great and small out there. May you bear no secrets.