Christmas Greetings
I hope this card finds you well and using old style language as the season inspires. As is my custom, this Christmas wish is likely to be delivered as a New Years Card. I’m okay with that; it gives me the opportunity, then, to look ahead, rather than behind at the year that is almost already forgotten. Early Alzheimer’s perhaps? Nay, check my best before date, there’s nothing early about it.
Getting back on track, I greatly appreciated receiving your last year’s card. It would honestly be nice (as in a real pleasure) to keep in touch with you always, were I capable of such correspondence. Nevertheless, it is a promise that when and if we find ourselves planning a trip to your neighbourhood, we will be certain to include you in our plans.
Last summer we didn’t really travel anywhere. It was the year of Corb; that country crooner, that I’m sure is our best bet for uniting the country in love and admiration, or at least explaining Alberta to the rest of the country. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Please get yerself some Corb Lund CD’s. Get all of them.
Seriously, I wanted very badly to go see this guy, so I started planning our summer holidays with the intention of catching Corb Lund live somewhere. I finally decided Meadowlake Saskatchewan on the August long weekend. Our traveling companions wanted to go back to Dinosaur Prov. Park, so I figured we could do both those things, and have a pretty decent camping road trip. Anyway, no one else was all that hype on Meadowlake Saskatchewan, not even for Corb Lund, and no one in Meadowlake Saskatchewan could be bothered to answer my e-mails seeking confirmation and info on the show, So, there was no trip.
Instead, we went with the Burnetts (Jan’s best friend, her husband and 2 daughters) to Valley Fair (roughly translated: Minneapolis), where we camped by a muddy river, and had lots and lots of fun. So much so that the rest of the party decided we should make this an annual summer feature. I don’t know. I found the trip hard. We blew a van tire on the way down, we blew a trailer tire on the way home; I can’t take that kind of excitement on an annual basis.
The whole point of owning a boat and living in a river community, I would think, would be to spend just as many hours as possible, floating on the water, enjoying the warm Manitoba sunshine and the cool river breeze. I love this place. When you go out on the river in Selkirk, there are so many people that just gather on the shore, every accessible place, they park their cars and bring their lawn chairs and lunches, light fires on the shore, and just enjoy being outside and on the river. If you have no idea; you really have no idea. The spirit of the Icelandic settlers certainly continues to live on in this place.
My big problem these days is that my neighbour doesn’t have a lawn mower, and as a result we have rats. I think he must have more rats than us, but we certainly have enough of our own to not be jealous of him. First I drove a couple of them to the dump. Then I chased one out of the garage. At least I thought I had. Now I have just learned, we have a rat in the basement. So that’s my Christmas project. Combined with the neighbour providing habitat, and Jan’s compassion to let the outside cats live inside full-time (cuz its cold outside), the valiant but futile war against the neighbourhood rats seems to be entirely my responsibility. The upside is, I’m learning quite a bit about rats. I’m rather getting into, getting into the rat’s head. However, I don’t imagine there’s a lot of interest in learning what I’ve learned; so we’ll move on to more Seasonal topics.
Kelsey and her hockey team are having a fabulous year. She’s playing great, and her team has 8 wins and 2 ties so far; dispatching the second place team ten-nothing to finish off the first half of the season yesterday. At school (grade 8) she’s doing great, has a great bunch of new friends this year, she’s busy with activities most lunch hours, and was dismayed that she missed honours with distinction (90% average) by a fraction of one percent. I told her I didn’t care. The reason she missed this goal, that she’d previously consistently met, was that she’s in an enrichment program that causes her to miss regular classes on a regular basis. She’s making friends through her academic strengths… everybody wants to be her partner in French class (for instance).
Hannah (grade 3 already) is taking African Dance and Drumming (and so is Jan). This is a great fit for her. She has always loved dance and drumming. She’s also a Brownie. I want to get her into Piano and Acting, but they’ll have to wait for now. You can only do so much.
Mike is living in the city with Amanda still; so that’s going well. She’s in 3rd year at UofW and primarily interested in Anthropology. He’s working for (too much information), and able to pay his rent and generally manage his affairs, so that’s a nice change from a year or two ago. When/if he decides he wants to go back to school, we’re willing/able to help him to do that. He talks as if he wants to go into business for himself. He’s spending Christmas in Regina with Amanda’s family.
Jan normally takes the summer off, but this year I suggested she just cut back from 4 days to 2 days/week. However, of course come mid-August she was locked out for 7 weeks (CBC). That definitely changed the course of our summer, and what we felt we were able to do. But its not like Jan was then able to stay at home with the kids; driving into the city to walk the picket line for 20 hours/week is no holiday. However, we came away from the experience knowing that if we had to manage with less, we could in fact do it.
And Don? Well this letter finds me, as usual somewhat amused, somewhat cynical, in general pretty content. As you can see, I like to write, but I don’t, much. I have so much I would like to give back, share, pass on. And today, we all have the ability to communicate anything we want, the problem is in the receiving; it is far from guaranteed. But I think myself on balance, pretty happy; happy to be boating, watering animals, cutting the grass, fixing what’s broke, listening to Corb (and we did get to see him in Winnipeg in September - Yay), killing rats and learning just as much as I can about just about anything. And especially happy watching Kelsey play hockey, reading with Hannah, gently guiding Mike in his becoming a man, and supporting Janice in our various challenges. And next year it will be the same - I hope.
Your Friend Always
Don