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Tonight's dinner highlight:
Declan: Hey Dad, Mommy hurt her toe today!
Me: Yes... she told me when I got home.
Declan: Yeah! On the frikkin' stairs!
Add to this Declan's recent sore throat making him sound like a pre-pubescent Tom Waits, and hilarity ensued.
We pulled into the Timmy Ho's drive through after the boys' gymnastics class this morning. We had to hurry and couldn't take the time to walk in and dine because Amy, new-age liberated woman that she is, went and got herself a part time job and has to work today from 11 AM to 8 PM.
So we had to hit the drive through.
I said, "Uh oh," as soon as we pulled up to the speaker to order.
Amy said, "What is it?"
"I wish I had a Sharpie," I replied.
"What for?" she queried.
"To fix this sign taped to the order thingie," I said with obvious grammatical hauteur.
It read:
DEAR VALUED CUSTOMERS
WE ARE OUT OF STEEPED TEA
SORRY
INCONVENIENCE
And I would have used a Sharpie to fix it thus:
DEAR VALUED CUSTOMERS:
WE ARE OUT OF STEEPED TEA;
SORRY FOR THE
INCONVENIENCE.
Amy rolled her eyes and there was obvious relief in her voice when she told me that the truck in front of us was moving ahead and we should do likewise.
It's still bugging me right now.
Dear Diary,
Went to the front door early this morning with the intention of clearing the front walk and driveway of the night's accumulation of snow. Upon opening the portal I was confronted with a monochromatic wall of hard-packed snow from toe to jamb. Initial investigations with a broom handle revealed sufficient thickness to deter even as stalwart a digger as I.
Resorted to cracking open a bedroom window and climbing out that way, saved only by its being on the lee side of the house, and so marginally protected from the drifting effects of the gale-force winds. Walking around to the front of the house took the better part of 15 minutes, blinded as I was by the driving snow and encumbered by wading through drifts as high as my hips.
Clearing the front door took until noon. My right pinkie is turning black and, having lost both physical sensation as well as the nail, I may have to gnaw it off at the third joint to prevent the gangrene from spreading.
Lunch was the last box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, shared between four of us. The dog just whined and we ignored him. The weakest must be culled. After lunch we let the dog out to attend to the call of nature, and inadvertently forgot about him for over an hour while watching some really cool battle scenes in the movie 300. (It looks so warm in Sparta!) Electricity, thankfully, has been mostly reliable, but the gas cut out some time in the middle of the night, so we have candles burning and all the elements on the electric stove are dialled up to Max. We're doing what we can for the third degree burns on the oldest boy's hand, but we don't hold out much hope against amputation once an ambulance is able to make it to the house. The smell of burnt flesh is making me hungry. (My wife thinks that's gross, but I can see the primal look in her own eyes, too.)
Remembering the dog, I again dug out the build-up at the front door and waded through the backyard in the vain hope of an ad hoc search and rescue. I found nothing but disappearing evidence of paw prints much too large to attribute to a Jack Russell, and can only surmise that our erstwhile canine companion succumbed to a ravening pack of wild wolves, emboldened by the encroachment of winter's icy grip, and so extending their range into the suburbs of Canadia.
I refuse to venture outside again alone, or as the slowest person in a group.
Water no longer flows from our taps. A main burst several blocks away and that, combined with our lack of natural gas to heat what's in the house, has resulted in our having to melt snow to sustain ourselves. There will be no shortage of water. Or sponge baths.
Best as I can tell, supper is going to consist of what pretzel and goldfish cracker leavings can be scavenged from sofa cushions in the living room and the basement. My sons' snacking inefficiencies, so long the root of much of my ire, may yet pull our family through this climatological nadir. Mother Nature, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
The worst blow, though, has struck at the very core of our moral fibre. Hardy and resilient as we are, there's a part of me that quails at what we now have to endure. Our high-speed wireless is out, and we have resorted to surfing the internet via a 56-k baud dial-up connection.
Please pray for us.
---------------------------------------------
* - this is not an arbitrary number; I checked, and the first permanent snowfall of the season was on 21st November 2007, which was 153 days ago.
A shot of the backyard from our kitchen window, taken fresh this morning:
And another one of the driveway, also hot off the compact flash card from my Canon camera this fine Sunday morn:
The hanging pop bottle is a bird feeder I helped Dex make at pre-school a couple weeks ago.
The only reason the car is that clean is because I went for a quick McDonald's run for breakfast this morning. The boys are with Granny and Grumpy after a sleepover, so Amy and I treated ourselves to a healthy breakfast to make ourselves feel better.
Forecast is for a total of a FOOT of snow by the end of the weekend.
FUN!!
My company is working to submit a rather large bid worth several hundred million dollars for yet another prospective oil sands project north of Ft. McMurray (about a 4 hour drive from where I live).
Given the glut of existing oil sands operations up there, projects in various stages of construction, and endless queues of investors clamoring to cash in on $100+ oil with future projects, there is no lack of activity in the north-eastern part of my province. As more and more capital projects get started up there, there is a closer environmental eye cast on the region, making construction practices the subject of more scrutiny than just about anywhere else in North America. To use the current lingo, the carbon footprint of the region is far too large for even the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.
Thus, when we bid on projects, the contractors are subject to the exact same environmental regulations imposed on our client, and we have to account for adhering to these regulations in our bids. For this newest bid, it has fallen to me to proof-read, edit, and re-write much of the technical and commercial submissions that will accompany our final price. (I seem to have developed a reputation as a grammar faerie and overall English pedant. Engineers, generally, suck at talking good.)
Thankfully, it looks like there might be a few humourous respites during the dry slog through the miasma of execution plans and contractual qualifications. The Lead Estimator warned me to read the various submissions within the context of initial clients requests, some of which are rather more outlandish than even what we have become accustomed to.
We have to, for example, submit a Roadkill Mitigation Strategy. The project site is off the main highway, and will eventually be spider-webbed with gravel access roads and plenty of contractor traffic. I don't think they'll go for a summary of "You kill it, you grill it."
A large part of our scope of work will be the clearing and grubbing of the site. (That just means bulldozing down the annoying trees so we can get at the oil, piling them up and burning the ones that can't be salvaged for timber.) This particular contract insists that all work on the site must make allowances for the local aboriginal elders during their forays into the forest to harvest medicinal herbs. Basically, don't bulldoze the Indians.
Sometimes I really like my job.
I cannot describe in words how stunningly gorgeous it has been all weekend. (Sunday nearing noon as I type this.)
Saturday was warm and sunny and melty. The boys and I were outside playing in the front yard for a good part of the afternoon. They both wanted to be pirates, since Tavish normally has to be the same thing Declan is, or the perfect foil to what he is. I don't know how or when they decide these things. They were both pirates yesterday. But when Dex is Spider-Man, Tavish reveals himself to be Doc Apple-Pores. (Doctor Octopus for those who don't speak 'Tavish'.)
I had to convince them a number of times that hitting each other with their stick swords was a bad idea. Same with my truck. Things were pretty smooth after that.
At one point Tavish was wielding his sword, staring up at the sky and stabbing and jumping with great effort. I followed his gaze and realised he was squinting intently up at the mid-day moon. With each stab and jump he said, "Reach it!"
I told him, "Maybe in a few years when you grow up a bit, Tav."
"Yeah... maybe..."
Tavish the junior pirate wielding his two swords.
Declan sometimes shows amazingly brief glimpses of what he's going to look like when he's older. It's even rarer that we can capture it. I think he's about 20 here.
He was carrying around one of the last chunks of snow, having named it "Trophy" and calling it his pet. A few minutes later, one of the larger chunks of limestone from our front garden has usurped the name and fickle place in his heart. When asked why he simply replied, "It's warmer."
With these words, about a week and a half ago, my wife charmed me.
I have to admit, she was right. If she were to say it again now, a week and a half later, she may still be right. Perhaps I should ask her. Then again, perhaps I shouldn't.
We were on our way out the door with the boys and I was grumping about how difficult and time-consuming a process it often is just to get all four of us dressed and out the door. Most of the difficulty, and my subsequent ire, lying with our sons. I too often let it get to me. Amy took that particular time to point out that I really need to lighten up and be, well, less of an asshole.
I feel I should take this next space to reinforce the stance I took immediately upon hearing that: I wasn't offended. I think it's safe to say I rarely am by my wife. We have stumbled upon a rather idyllic situation where I am a fellow who appreciates honest feedback, even when it rears up as constructive criticism, and my darling Amy is a woman with the God-given gift of implacable honesty. Did I mention unrestrained? Because it's that too.
It's partly in the delivery, too, quite frankly. My attitude right at that moment was that of being one with my inner asshole (really gritting my teeth and squinching my eyelids), and Amy was simply poking it in that sensitive spot under the armpit that can't help but elicit a reaction of some sort. Plus, there's this way she has (with me, anyway) of casting her eyes down and her head a little to the side and saying what she has to say with a real element of self-effacing bluntness in her tone. Then she looks up at me with her guileless eyes, blinks once or twice without saying anything, and looks down again as she puts on her own shoes to head out.
It's times like that my only reaction - internal and external - is that of: yeah... I guess I have been acting sort of like an asshole, eh?
It's complicated, but I think I'm going to chalk it up to not taking enough time for myself and so exhibiting that frustration pretty much just as soon as I walk in the door after work in the evenings. My inner asshole's been looking for an outlet all day, and GOD DAMN but that stack of dirty dishes by the sink is enough of a catalyst to let him out!
[Hang on... I have to refill my scotch. I'm now out of the Auchentoshan so I'll have to downgrade to the Glenfiddich.]
Where was I? Oh yes, being an asshole.
I am a man who thrives on a certain degree of order and predictability (as anyone who knows me will tell you), so you can well imagine that living in a house with two small boys aged two and four is pretty much anathema to my very existence right now. And yes, I do - often - let that get to me. My frustration, at times, is palpable, unpleasant, internalised, and almost wholly impotent. Silly, really.
I know, I mean I KNOW, that entropy will win. The whole universe is an open system, for Christ's sake. The odds are stacked astronomously against me, but still, there is this part of me that wants to contain my tiny little corner of the Local Fluff and make of it something with an element of predictability and structure.
I blame work, too. It's been throwing me for an occasional loop since 2003. That's when we were sold and have been enmeshed in the inexorable and rather ugly process of becoming a bureaucratic corporation for the past five years. Educational and eye-opening, yes. Fun? Not so much.
Used to be that hiring a "new guy" was reason enough for different people to take him out for lunch his whole first week. "Did you see the New Guy?" "No! Who is he? Let's go meet him and take him to Earl's for wings and beer!" "Yeah! On the company dime, wooo!"
Now, and for the past few years, it's been a frikkin' revolving door. So while our overall payroll has more than tripled since I started, I am now one of the single longest-serving employees of well over 2,000. Mine erstwhile construction brothers in arms have been fleeing, falling and forsaking their posts, and that, too, is rather more entropic than befits my nature.
June will mark nine years with the same company for me (since university graduation), and I can probably count on one hand now those of 2,500 who have been employed there longer. It feels like individuals matter less and can more easily fall through the cracks, and, knowing that, are often more inclined to do so.
I need a vacation.
Thankfully, I have one coming up for a week and a half in May. Most of that time will be mine, and that will be a good thing for everybody in contact with me. And for me most of all.
I miss my wife too, which is no small part of my transformation into an asshole. My day starts most often around 5.30 in the morning (I *try* to exercise first thing most days), and continues through until about nine o'clock in the evening. I figure that's about when I can put my feet up a little without too much of a guilty twinge. The boys are in bed, shopping is put away, dishes are done, the house is generally tidy, (nothing wet and/or alive on the floor, anyway), and distractions are at their lowest. Amy's normally the first one in bed, and I sometimes trail behind her by an hour or more, depending on what else I feel I HAVE to do before allowing myself the luxury of our memory-foam mattress. Real quality time with my missus, then, is, to quote a young Obi-Wan Kenobi, "...elsewhere, elusive."
I want to know her on a daily basis more than I do, in terms spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and biblical. But of course, knowing women as well as we all do, there are elements of that desire rather more complicated than others, especially where fatigue and doing the dishes at 10 PM enter into it. (I wear latex on a nightly basis, but it's only ever to prevent dishpan hands.)
So, frustrated by my perceived inability to satiate what I think of as the majority of my wants, I vent my frustration in the manner only a tried and true introvert can: I become an asshole to those closest to me.
With all that under the bridge now, here's hoping to a fine April and a marvelous vacation/recuperation in May. It's supposed to be absolutely fucking balmy here this weekend, so the melting and the sun and my total lack of pants will also do wonders for my demeanour.
Here's to me being less of an asshole.
I have nothing to say right now other than I've changed the banner for the month.
(I have a post in the can for later in the week... just gotta get around to finishing it.)
But damn! That is one good looking boy my wife and I made.
As a sort of aside, I was tucking him into bed the other night, and the three things he ALWAYS asks for are: his magnetic drawing board, his moose backpack, and Jango, before he's ready to go to sleep. So I walked into his room after reading him and Tavish their story for the night with the drawing board and the backpack in my hands.
Me: "Here's your drawing board and your backpack, Dex."
Him: "Where's Jango, Dad?"
Me: "Well, I'm going to get him right now."
Him: "Because you don't have three arms, right Dad?"
Me: "That's right, Dex."
I walked out of his room to get Jango, laughing my frickin' ASS off. That kid is way too smart for his own good.
