Bump Free Birthday

We all feel pretty good about ourselves when we remember Orin’s birthday. It comes at such an awkward time- the end of the summer when no one is thinking about birthdays. There is always a flurry in the days before. All sorts of phone calls:  “Does he have this book, or that cologne.” “Does he need more socks?” “Mom, give us some suggestions!” Everyone wants to get it right for the guy that we all adore. This year, it was my turn to be perplexed. I could not think of a thing. Orin literally has a year’s supply of everything, and after this summer, that even includes wasp repellant. So, where do you go from there?

I don’t know if this was an answer to my prayer or Orin’s but this year Heaven came through for both of us. It was as if the angels of all birthday’s – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE - got together and decided that this was going to be a special year. There was one present that none of us could have thought of but that certainly none of us would ever forget. It showed up - something so perfect - and it was better than Christmas and almost as good as a million dollar lottery ticket. Early on that morning, a dozen or so workers and an assortment of all kinds of trucks and road machines presented themselves at the end of our country road.  Big enormous tandem trucks full of tons of gravel, road graders, rollers and a bunch of other machines that I cannot name, all did their "thing". They threw down a new road as precisely and carefully as a dessert chef puts icing on a birthday cake. That is not to say that they did it quickly – no, it took all of one day and half of the next. They kept their machines going back and forth, over and over the surface until it was gloriously smooth and rut free. Just like a masterpiece birthday cake.

When Orin came home that first night – he was astonished. A perfect, smooth road track, ¾’s of a mile long, was there to greet him. A racing man’s dream! Now he has his very own quarter mile drag strip, THREE of them,  all laid out like a long, skinny tablecloth. It was too good to be true.

Orin is a generous guy so you can bet he will let others use the road, especially the 4 other people who’s driveways spill onto it. I wonder if they will be as excited as him when he revs his engine and lays a pile of rubber - smack dab in front of their houses. 

*Just for the record - we would also like to thank the M.D. of Foothills for their contribution in this generous gift. It was certainly our turn for a new road - but I guess we will always thank the Birthday Fairies for the incredible timing!

Shakin' All Over

I had a terrible dream last night. It showed up in my head, just before I woke up and it left me shaky and needing to talk to someone but it was only 6:30 am and too early for phone calls. I had married some “other man”. I guess I got tired of the “Val and Orin” show or maybe Orin just jumped into his fast car and never came home after work any more. I am not sure. That part wasn’t in the dream. But there I was in this room with a complete stranger. His parents came over for dinner and brought a couple of his brothers. He was just so aloof and that whole family was annoying.  Attractive but Annoying. And I just kept going over and asking Orin for advice and feeling really bad that he would likely stop answering my questions pretty soon – because he would probably start dating. And that was a very weird, lonely, awkward thought. You can probably tell – it was a sad dream - borderline nightmare.  Anyway I was so happy to wake up and realize that the man I was NOT lying next to in my warm bed (he had already driven off to work in his fast car) was NOT the guy in the dream. I was THRILLED that my world, with all of it’s problems, disappointments and uniquely intriguing people is still completely in tact. But more than that, I am still married to my comfortable, adorable, greaser husband. That was a huge, delirious relief. And he loves me – I know this: BECAUSE he has already called me twice today to ask me to look for something. BECAUSE  I am the one that sorts his socks and loses his favorite jeans and he doesn’t even get mad - just rolls his eyes. And BECAUSE I just caught the scent of the huge bouquet of roses that he brought home yesterday. 

          HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!!

Actually, You Weren't Invited!

We spend time every summer in Montana’s Flathead Valley; the same lake the same cabin. We love the warm weather – warmer than what we get north of the border. And don’t even think about bringing an umbrella. You won’t need one. Rain happens in the spring - only.  We like that it is close enough to drive, no flights to arrange and no connections to miss. We love fresh cherries at roadside stands. We love picking huckleberries right off the bush. We love the lakes, beautiful Glacier Park. We love it all – well - most of it.

What we don’t love is that we often end up sharing our holiday with uninvited guests.

One summer it was an annoying woodpecker. No one saw him but we heard him every day, early in the morning, and that is when we realized he was pecking away at our roof and not a tree.

One year we could not decide whether we had bed bugs or tiny invisible poisonous spiders. Everyone developed red spots on their chests and stomachs - everyone itched. Especially the people that slept in the bunkroom. People became cranky and began to think of solutions.

"Throw away all the bedding and the pillows!

Burn the mattresses! Rip out all the carpeting !"

We did throw out the pillows and then I put my foot down!

“I am not throwing away one more thing until we find evidence.” 

But that was just the thing. There is no evidence for tiny, invisible, poisonous spiders – they are too tiny and too invisible. And we never found any bed bugs either - just red spots and lots of itching. 

Then one day we met some folks at the grocery store. They were itching and scratching just like us - with the same red spots. Turns out  . . . . . they had swimmer’s itch!  And that is how we learned that our problem had nothing to do with invisible spiders, bed bugs, or the bunkroom. It had to do with duck poop in warm water.

This year we had some other visitors. In fact, the whole state of Montana got to spend time with these guys. Can you figure out  who?

Because of poor cell phone reception you have to take calls outside - but if you are outside the wasps will eat you! (Orin has 15 wasp bites to prove it.) The only option is wasp/hornet spray or a phonebooth!

The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up

This is old news, I know. The Alberta Floods of 2013 happened almost 2 months ago. But this is something I hope I never forget. This is something that I want emblazoned on my soul and in the memories of everyone I know. This was the moment in history when our Prairie home lost her innocence.  When Alberta turned into a land of desolation – almost in a heartbeat. When rain became a cruel enemy, when our beautiful rivers turned into angry destructive tyrants, when Policemen lined up on highways to keep citizen’s out of their homes.

I remember listening to the news on the morning of June 20, 2013. The CBC radio station kept updating reports concerning a swelling creek near Canmore Alberta. Cougar Creek used to be nothing more than that – a creek, small and friendly - picturesque. But on this day, rain began to fall like it had never fallen before. In fact, within 36 hours many places in Alberta received half of the rainfall that they usually receive in an entire year. The rain fell, not gently or even robustly. It rained like a bursting pipe that no one seemed to know how to shut off.

Nothing like this has ever happened in all of Alberta’s history. Part of the problem was too much water from above. But another big issue was the amount of moisture in the ground. It was still spring. There was still melting snowpack to absorb and the ground was so heavy with moisture already that there was literally nowhere for the rain to go.

The 6 Alberta rivers affected by this deluge literally exploded. They overflowed their banks, tore up highways, swept beautiful estate homes off their foundations, and carried them down stream, turned railroad tracks into spiral shaped picket fences and ravaged the downtown core of the bustling city of Calgary, Alberta (3100 buildings flooded and the business district shut down for days). As the rivers began to overflow people had to be evacuated from their homes and places of business. 100,000 Albertans were suddenly, unexpectedly homeless (75,000 from Calgary). In the small town of High River the flood came so quickly that people had to be immediately rounded up and moved to higher, drier ground. Some could not move fast enough and hundreds had to be removed from their rooftops by helicopters. That entire town was evacuated for weeks, some homes will never be saved.

When the waters receded there was enormous destruction to deal with. Toxic mud was left behind in thousands of basements and wherever mud wasn’t – mold was. Nasty explosively expanding mold moved all over, behaving like a psychopath. To help with this onslaught, 2200 armed forces were deployed. They assisted the local police, firemen and other first responders. People offered their homes and their resources to total strangers. Volunteers from every part of the province (and further) came by the thousands and assisted with pumping, shoveling, hauling, pulling out, tearing down, etc. etc. etc. It has been the greatest outpouring of charity and brotherly kindness that Alberta has ever experienced. (What else can you do in the face of the greatest devastation the province has ever known?)

This disaster will cost billions of dollars. This disaster has changed parts of Alberta forever. It will be years before some people know “normal” again. And many fear that there are those who never will.

the Essence of Airportness

Our son Mike is visiting us for the week. He flew in from Vancouver. Mike is a loveable, quirky English major. It is always fun to hear who and what he is reading.

During a past semester one of his professors made a reference to Airport Novels. He called it a category or a genre comparable to Science Fiction, Political Thriller, Mystery, Historical Romance etc. etc. This is interesting because, any airport bookstore has an inventory of titles from a variety of categories. But the actual books in an Airport bookstore also belong to an overall category called Airport Literature or Airport Novels. That is in the words of a bona fide UBC professor of English. And that surprises me.

Anyway, Mike decided to check out the Vancouver Airport Bookstore - more or less in search of the Essence of Airportness. Mike has never bought anything in an Airport Bookstore before except for boxes of Smarties and bags of SPITZ. (that’s because never has any extra money)  So he was sort of mesmerized.  He was in fieldtrip mode and looking a lot like your average UBC student: Cute, Curious and Intellectual. Like he should be reading Dostoevsky or Don Delilo. He settled on a  Nora Roberts book and began leafing through, reading paragraphs here and there and noticing ALL SORTS OF THINGS.  It did not take him long at all to realize that he is not and never will be a Nora Roberts fan. As he reached out to put the book back onto it’s pile someone bumped into the back of him.  The book flew out of his hand and landed on the floor several feet away. Another customer rescued it but instead of just putting it back on the table where it belonged, came across the distance to return it to Mike. As if he and the book belonged to each other. “Excuse me, I think you may have dropped this.”

Mike was a mixture of horrified and embarrassed. “Do I look like I read Nora Roberts books?” he wondered, almost out loud. It was a moment of awkward self-examination. Like getting caught with “your hand in the cookie jar,” so to speak. Like the Christmas I gave my boys tickets to a Backstreet Boys concert and they practically died. “Do we look like Backstreet Boys fans?”

Too bad that Mike felt he was inappropriately typecast, I wonder if Nora Roberts  knows that she has been put into a weird category herself. How does a New York Times bestselling author feel, knowing that the Vancouver literary community describes her as an Airport Author?

Actually, she probably loves that distinction. I bet she makes a fortune from her Airport Bookstore sales, way more money than any UBC professor and probably a lot more than Dostoevsky ever imagined!