She Is Missed

Christmas marks the turning of a new solar year. Three days after the solstice the days begin to lengthen. Light is brought back to us with the promise of warmth to follow. One week later, the Julian calendar marks the New Year. We all go out and celebrate the symbolic passing of old to new, ironically repeating an ageless cycle. Now, a week on from New Year's, is another symbolic date. And again it feels like more than just a date but a real time of change.

It was a year ago today that my Mom passed away. January 8th, 2009 wasn't a time of light, but a time of darkness.

I spent most of that day flying back to Canada to visit my sick mother. As the plane was taxiing into the gate I was suddenly overwhelmed with odd feelings. I became dizzy and extremely nauseous. For a number of minutes all I could do was pant and hold the air sickness bag. I wasn't air sick.

The customs and baggage lines never felt longer. Cell phones don't work within Pearson airport. Something felt surreal. When I finally got to the transport desk, to catch my shuttle to the hospital, I got told I had a message from home.

That whole experience was like having colour turned off. Like a cloud, so thick and black, parked over me. Daylight was almost night. And try as I have, a part of the nausea and a part of the darkness have remained. It's the place in my soul I used to feel my mother. The part that told me when it was her calling on the phone. That part that told me when she died.

And yet today felt different. A year later and the thick dark cloud is slowly lifting. Like the long sloping line of a warm front, the horizon appears to be clear sky.

Today isn't a colourful day. But it is bright. The world outside is entirely white. A thick fog last night fell onto the trees and buildings as a beautiful pure-white ice. My eyes see it as a symbolic start, a point where darkness begins to give room to light. Today marks my new year.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, Prettige Kerstdagen, Feliz Natal!

It's been a bitter-sweet year. At times I feel I'm exactly where I was last year. So much hasn't changed; yet nearly everything feels different. For example, a year ago I was feeling old. Very old. I had just quit smoking and started karate and while I didn't have a lot of breath in my lungs my muscles and bones ached and screamed.

Now? Well, I've posted Fatboy Slim's "Old Pair of Jeans" because I'm happy to be wearing an old pair pulled from the very bottom of my wardrobe. I haven't even bothered trying them recently. But not only do they fit again, my belt is on a notch not seen in 2 years. All thanks to exercise, good food and new-found health.

I have too many thoughts about "the year" to cover right now. Suffice it to say that, unlike this time last year, there's a lot I'm hopeful for. Changes have been a long time in coming, but feel just around the corner.

May your New Year also bring positive changes. I wish you a Merry Christmas and all the best!

An Eye for an Eyelash

CNN is making me feel sick this morning. Please, as citizens of this shared world, pay attention to what's happening in Gaza. Have an opinion and speak it.

My opinion is that after decades of creating the world's largest prison, Isreal is trying to combat criminal activity in that prison with indescriminate airstrikes. AIRSTRIKES people! Not Seal missions infultrating the enemy HQ and capturing the leader... airstikes with massive bombs dropped from F-16s onto apartment blocks in a prison filled with innocents.

Meanwhile an evangelistic preacher on Larry King Live is talking about "How to serve God" or some other version of "Here's what God wants You to Do." I don't spend a lot of time listening to the message of many evangelists, but what I notice is it is all about the individual and God... or the individual and Jesus. Never about the individual and everyone else.

Do you want to know how to please God? Start by being good to everyone else. Done, period. Every religion, every denomination and every chapter/branch/sect agrees. That's the start.

I think, if we use military aircraft to bomb women and children born into a prison, we aren't ready to know any more about "what God wants."

Merry Christmas to all....

My apartment smells so much like Christmas that I keep expecting my mom to step into the living room at any moment. It's the turkey carcass boiling into soup that really makes the difference. And believe it or not, I really made the turkey.

Cooking the turkey is a bit of a special thing in North American culture. I think traditionally passed on from mothers to daughters, it can include great conflict when passed to a daughter-in-law. People outside or new to the family just don't know the right way to do it. Their stuffing is always wrong. Good, often delicious, but wrong.

Such are the mysterious ways of the turkey. Oh, and more so, the stuffing.

Men learn these things from books. It's written down in little formulas... so many minutes per pound for turkey A, given a maximum weight less than X and a stuffing_variable set to yes. Then you wait (ignoring time) until you get that rich "turkey almost burning" smell and you're done. Easy.

And delicous.

I hope everyone enjoyed celebrating the spirit of Christmas (eating too much with family/friends) as much as I did. Merry Christmas all.

Sedarisklas

I heard my first bits of David Sedaris' writing just recently. Specifically, his bit describing Sinterklas is, in my opinion, hillarious.



I've seen it. It's true. I never know what to say. It's like Santa, right? Well, no. But he's about Christmas and wearing red and has helpers. Written back in 1823, "Twas the Night Before Christmas" could never have held this many politically incorrect references. The Dutch have had hundreds and hundreds of years to desensitize themselves to this tradition.


I've even seen it myself. As I said, I never know what to say, so I asked to take their picture.

There is an absurdity to it. Which makes me think of the work of David Sedaris. I would love to write in that style. Except. Is it a style or just clinical depression? Either way it sounds funny. I wonder if he has a different personality he puts on at night or on weekends? I hope he does. I don't think I would want to live my life depressed for the sake of writing better. Especially since writing makes me happy. So I would constantly be hitting writer's block... I'd write, feel happy about it, not be able to write more, then get depressed and write about it. Oh my.

Maybe I'll just stick to writing my own way. Stories about squirrels and chipmunks are for David to write. I'll just let you know about the funnier bits. Like Sinterklas and his 6 to 8 black men.

It keeps staring at me!

There's half a cake sitting in the fridge. I can hear it calling me. It stands between me and the fixings for a proper dinner. I could cut and chop and fix and fry. Boil and blend and stir. Or I could just open a huge space in my fridge by removing and safely disposing of the menacing gâteau.

Yesterday was a blast! Rarely can you have so much fun without leaving the house. In my case, Christmas was myself and three friends in the living room with dozens of DVDs, tons of food, and plenty to drink.

It went pretty well considering my apartment was at the fully rated capacity. I only have 4 plates, 4 large glasses, seating for 3 etc.. So serving a meal to friends was a juggling act of washing, serving and washing. The upside was the near lack of dirty dishwear this morning. My dishpan hands will recover.

But now it's the night after. The sun is down. Everything's clean. I've lit the remaining candles. And that darn cake is calling, calling me from the fridge, reminding me its a limited time offer.

Pardon me, it's uhm... dinner time.

It's all about your tools...

Having the right tool for the job can make things much easier. And using the wrong tool can make life difficult. Or in my case, can make breathing difficult.

Last week I bought the hardware I needed to mount my TV and stereo. My decision to stop using the ten euro hand drill I own and to rent a good one was critical. The professional drill went through the concrete wall "like butter". So easy, so simple. It could have all gone so quickly.

But vacuum cleaners are more complicated beasts than they let on. Indeed I do most of my vacuuming without ever looking at the vacuum. So I had already picked up three holes worth of concrete dust when I noticed; everything going into the hose was subsequently being thrown straight out the back.

The plume of fine dust was momentarily hilarious. The moment was a short one. Apparently if the bag isn't mounted properly into the vacuum, what goes in comes out. But what went in was a discrete pile. What came out was a room filling cloud.

Yet it was all a success! The hard work I expected the holes would give became the cleanup instead. But given the results... could I really complain?!?

And just to keep it all feeling like Christmas, the cable TV works again! Yesterday I called and made a technician's appointment for Thursday. Today I woke up and it was working. Huh? Okay. I suppose the decoder liked how it looks and decided to play the part.

There's still lots of cleaning and arranging to do today. Christmas will be three scuba divers sitting here, watching movies, and eating. So if I'm to host guests, I'd best get on with it. In the mean time though, I just couldn't help but share my latest creation. A work in progress still... but my latest pride and joy.

Oh what a beautiful morning!

A white Christmas in Holland? December 21st will do. Yesterday I awoke to trees covered in ice. Last night a true and proper snowfall blanketted everything else. Isn't it beautiful?

And today is the last work day. Five-day weekend!

Let's just hope the fools at the cable company don't go on vacation before turning my service back on.

Too Many Elves!

Tis the season, Ho Ho Ho, and yada yada. Christmas is wonderful and there's something special about the combination of crisp, cold air and red-hot shopping bargains.

But this is also the time of the year when people start letting their inner elf run amok. (And we all know, amok is not a good way to run.)

Humanity, mainly thanks to hero warriors and wise wizards, has long kept elf-kind in check. We let them make our childrens Christmas pressents, and some times we enjoy their crackers or a pair or made-late-at-night shoes. But we can't suddenly just have elves dancing around just because it's Christmas! What's next? Elf-themed birthday parties? Elf-beach-parties?

(sorry, link only works in MSIE)

As you can see, this can clearly get out of hand quickly. So I beg you; please don't elf yourself this holiday season. No good will come of it! And most importantly, if you do elf yourself, please don't send me the link. I can't listen to that song one more time.

Well... maybe one more time. But then that will be it!