Chirping

As Ter and I were leaving for work the other day, I casually said to one of the bears, “Cardie, you have the con.”

“Okay, Mum,” he replied.

Fast forward to that evening. Ter picked me up from a massage appointment after work and the house was dead dark when we arrived home. She unlocked the door and swung it open for me to go ahead. I started slowly up the stairs, nursing a knee that had just endured a bone-deep fingering courtesy of my RMT.

Chirp! said the smoke detector, advising us that the battery was dead.

“Well, that answers my question,” I remarked.

“What question is that?” Ter asked from below.

“I’d been wondering if that alarm even has a battery.”

Really. Five years into our residency and the alarm hadn’t so much as peeped.

“It’s a nine volt, right?” I asked, trying not to limp as I fetched the stepladder from the back hall.

“I think so,” Ter replied. “Geez, I hope we have a spare.” She went straight to the kitchen stash and hallelujah! A nine volt battery was nestled among the plethora of AAs we keep on hand for our gazillion remotes.

She was brave enough to try the ladder first, but even with my bum knee, she’s not as steady on her feet as I am, so I got the short straw. (Actually, I practically thrust her aside to “let me do it, dammit!”) Up I went, recalling the old alarm at Rockland and what a pain it had been to get into the battery compartment. I can puzzle out just about anything given time, and after a few seconds of eyeballing this one, I pushed on the little door. It popped open without protest. Too easy! I happily pulled the battery and exchanged it for the replacement Ter handed up to me.

All the while, every thirty seconds, the alarm cheerily went Chirp! While I was up there, I decided to test the alarm. Darned near blew out my eardrums, but the thing worked so I closed the compartment door and came down the ladder. Ter and I high-fived, did the power pose (there’s nothing two girls and a Tiguan can’t do!), and I hefted the ladder down the hall.

I opened the back door and … Chirp!

Ter and I traded scowls. “That battery must be dead too,” I said.

“Gods know how old it is,” she morosely agreed.

I brought back the ladder. She steadied it and I climbed back up to see what the frack was going on. I pulled the battery and flipped it end to end. “Oh yeah,” I said, “it’s been leaking.”

“Great,” she said, dryly. We looked at each other until one of us suggested we might be able to leave it until morning.

The alarm disagreed. Chirp!

Turns out its one of those safety coded ones that’s wired into the house and won’t shut up unless a working battery is installed.

I came back down the ladder. “I’ll go,” I said, meaning to the hardware store.

Ter gave me the shark-Finn look. “Not with your knee. I’ll go.” But I think it was more to spare herself the intermittent and insistent Chirp!

She was back in twenty minutes, the new battery was installed and the ladder posted in its designated spot shortly thereafter. Blessed silence descended. My knee was treated to some ice, and the evening passed as usual. We only wondered for a minute or two exactly when the alarm had begun to chirp, as no one had been home for most of the day and the bears weren’t saying.

But the next work day, as we were getting ready to leave, Cardigan piped up, “Mum, I don’t want to have the con anymore.”

Aches and Pains

Well, crap. When they told me my arthritis would burn out in eight or ten years, they forgot to mention that I’d have to deal with repercussions. Maybe I should have seen it coming, but I totally missed that the damage done to my joints as a teen would come back to bite me in middle age.

Recently, and by that I mean as adults, my mum and wee sister have both been diagnosed with RA, and each of them has said to me that they don’t know how I lived with it all those years ago.

Truth is, neither do I.

Credit the strength and energy of youth ... and a poor memory for hard times. I did it because I had to, but it must have been tough. There were long stretches when I couldn’t move worth a darn; I do recall being camped on the couch with a book and blanket while Dad and my sibs trooped off to work and school. I missed a lot of school that first year, and in subsequent years, too.

I’m thinking on it now because the past few weeks have been particularly annoying. It’s not just my hinges or ball-and-sockets, either. My tendonitis is back with a vengeance (though I imagine curtailing my colouring might help alleviate the situation), and I’ve been to a bunch of appointments while trying to solve the mystery of my right knee. It’s fine when I’m not moving around and it’s fine when I’m standing still, but try to walk on it and it bites back. I’m not complaining—okay, maybe I am—but I am pondering the precondition and why it’s acting up right now.

The last time I was racked up like this was in 2011/12, when I was so stressed about the home situation that my back kept going out. And, yes, I am somewhat stressed at present—though this time, home is not the arena. There’s a lot going on at work, some good, some not so much, and all happening at the same time. For me, “change management” often means “pain management” and once my mental angst is done, my physical angst should follow suit.

I had a good talk with my executive director last week. I was razzing him about losing his phone and his keys and his building access card, suggesting that an idiot string might be in order, when he looked at me and wondered aloud what the heck was going on. He’s a young man; he shouldn’t be so scattered. I shrugged and said, “It’s evidence of too many daggers in the air.”

I may just have answered my own question. These days, coping skills are stretched to their absolute limits; life is not supposed to be an extreme sport, yet it’s certainly acting like one. We have so much coming at us so fast that we can’t possibly handle everything at once—and yet we try. We fear that failing will mark us as failures, but why does it have to be our fault? Humans are not designed to multi-task. We’re meant to do one thing at a time, but with so many knives in the air, how many of us are doing anything to the best of our innate ability?

No wonder my knees are acting up.

Nobel Poet

I have no problem with Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize for Poetry. He may not be able to sing for toffee, but few poets can. It’s the poetry that earns the recognition, and someone with a body of work as extensive and influential as Dylan’s deserves all the credit he can get.

Same goes for Leonard Cohen, by the way. It may be my maple leaf showing, but I’d sign a petition to have him awarded the same prize (regrettably posthumously) since I find his poetry/lyrics/sentiments more moving than Dylan’s.

I sort of digress.

I own no Dylan albums. I only know what songs I’ve heard on the radio. I love the impression of him done by Don Ferguson of the Royal Canadian Air Farce, mostly because it highlights the mumbled nasal twang that enables most folks to pick out no more than an occasional word. But Bob Dylan is responsible for one of the few bright sparks in my 2011 “Holiday From Hell”.

Up until 2015, when they stopped producing it, the annual Starbucks Christmas CD was anticipated with all the energy and excitement of a kid for, well, Christmas. I have all but one disc in the collection, my favourite being Let it Snow, released in 2011. Even the cover art is fabulous. It’s still among the first discs to hit rotation at the start of the festive season. Every song on it is a winner—including Dylan’s. In fact, his is one of my favourite tracks.

Not because he wrote it (he didn’t). Not because he recorded it (for a charitable cause). Not for any other reason than the cornball foot stompin’ headbangin’ country-fried tempo had my Ter dancing around the kitchen in a truly rare fit of present-moment glee. To this day, whenever I hear it, I am reminded of a sparkle in the snowstorm that became a whopping dump and nearly destroyed us.

The poet goofed, though. Another Dylan track was featured on the Bucky’s disc the following Christmas, and alas, it’s the one track I consistently skip.

Proof that even a Nobel Prize winner can make mistakes.

Gone Fiction

Almost halfway through November and this is my third post? One might think disaster has struck! A computer malfunction, perhaps? Global catastrophe? Plague? In some measure, all of the above may apply. My computer is fine—gods know, it hasn’t been overworked of late. The global catastrophe was the outcome of the US election. Plague-wise, Ter has been checked by her first cold in years (that’s what we get for starting the homeopathic flu program last week). She’s a fighter, though. She hasn’t missed a beat despite ongoing congestion and coughing fits, but in truth, none of the above explains why the Rebellion has been silent.

Truth is, I’ve started a new story. If I treat it like dessert and write my veggies first, I won’t get it done before my appetite is gone; not that blogging is a chore, but it can interfere with the fiction flow, and after so many months of struggle with a novel that won’t cooperate and a bunch of beginnings that won’t move past the halfway point, this one has gained some serious momentum and I intend to roll with it.

It’s liberating to drop the gloves and go for something just because I want to do it. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I tend to write in chronological order, a practice that served me well enough during the Fixed Fire storm. Blogging and short stories have shown me the joy of bouncing around from one idea to another rather than the next in line. It’s also messed with me a bit. One day a few weeks ago, after a futile stab at forcing my muse, I asked myself what I wanted to write rather than what I felt I should write, and the answer came so quickly that I knew it was for real.

So I’ve leapfrogged over a couple of FF volumes and tackled the story of Book 9: the reunion of the brother and sister who were separated at the end of Treason. I’m working specifically with him right now, wanting to get his story out before switching to another’s angle; it’s a novel-sized project with a few points of view, but again, breaking new writing ground, I’m focusing on one character at a time and planning to weave the threads together once they’re all done.

My journey continues to inspire the usual mélange of philosophy, comedy, drama, hockey woes and food porn. Life is a curious mix of black and white and fifty shades of  ... well, you get it. And, fascinating as everything is right now, I am more fascinated by someone else’s story.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

With love,

The Best of Times

Remember the good old days? Your first car, your first love, your first real job? The days when you were part of a posse? When every weekend was spent at the movies and you couldn’t wait for the new (insert artist here) album? When you got by on three hours of sleep because life was so fresh and vibrant that sleep was an inconvenience?

I came of age in the 1980s. That’s when I hooked up with Ter, we got our own place, and I got my first loan to buy Blue Thunder. I spent one summer in Europe. I discovered Sting and Duran Duran. I had a good government job and a kinda sorta boyfriend (and that’s the last you’ll hear of that, ever). I dabbled with vampires and wrote a fictional band biography because there was no reason not to. I not only ran with the cool crowd, I was one of the executive. So many good memories were born in those years. Some painful ones, too, but whatever. For me, the 80s were all about growing up and growing out, leaving kidhood behind and becoming an adult. I spent them figuring out who I was, and I had so much fun doing it that I still perceive the 80s through rosy lenses, as expertly polished as the slickest Bryan Ferry tune.

So imagine the surprise when I saw a recent documentary about the state of the world during my glory days. The Falkland War. The cold war. The drought in Ethiopia. Reaganomics. The threatened rainforest. AIDS. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The Challenger explosion. Ted Bundy.

I was living la vida loca and the world was in chaos.

“Surprise” isn’t the right word. I knew about these things on a peripheral level, but they didn’t affect me at the time. Despite the world going crazy around me, those years remain among the happiest of my entire life. Oblivious years? Self-absorbed years? Or just years spent in pursuit of myself, the shaping of the woman I was destined to become?

My point? Those times were not the best because of what was happening around me. They were the best because of what was happening within me. Consider the best years of your life. Think about what happened to make them so, then look outward to what the world was going through at the same time. I bet it was as nutty, as tumultuous and uncertain and just plain scary, as it is now. If so, then I suggest that the “good old days” we old folks long for had little to do with the state of the world and everything to do with where we were as individuals. The 1980s were not as golden as I’ve always believed. Neither were the 50s, 60s, or 70s, though I’m sure lots of people remember them as fondly.

My second favourite Styx song is called TheBest of Times. I heard it on the oldies (!!) station a few days ago, and I smiled because the sentiment is as relevant today as it was thirtysome years ago:

The headlines read these are the worst of times

I do believe it’s true

I feel so helpless, like a boat against the tide

I wish the summer winds could bring back paradise

But I know, when the world turns upside down

Baby I know, you’ll always be around

The best of times

Are when I’m alone with you

Some rain, some shine

We’ll make this a world for two

Those memories of yesterday will last a lifetime

We’ll take the best, forget the rest, and someday we’ll find

These are the best of times

With love,

Orange is the New Black

In no way, shape or form do I support, condone or agree with the outcome of the US election. I haven’t felt that sick in front of the TV since I watched the Twin Towers collapse on 9/11. I am a democratic socialist who supported Bernie Sanders, so I admit to harbouring reservations about Hillary in office, but still—the lesser of two evils, right?

Moot point, Ru. Despite the effect this singular decision will have on the entire planet, only a select number among the global population had a say in making it. The American people have spoken. The rest of us (and those who voted for the unsuccessful candidates) will have to live with it.

Ironically, they wanted change in 2008, and they got it. Maybe it wasn’t what they’d envisioned, or there was too much of it with too little time to adjust (humans are not as progressive as we think), or maybe those descendants of the original settlers are freaked out by their former majority becoming the new minority—whatever the case, the end result of yesterday’s vote is necessary.

You can only duct-tape a leaky system for so long before it blows completely, and I suspect a Democratic win last night would have been just another Band-Aid on the bleed. Well, we called down the thunder, so get ready for the BOOM!

I say “we” because it’s been my experience that humans, much as we whine about wanting change, really prefer things to stay the same. Institutional failure may be partly responsible for the orange outcome of this ground-rattling election, but the devolution of society has as great a part to play in the demise of what came before it.

True change is often painful. Disasters, whether natural or man-made, always precede a rebuild of some sort; we only choose to improve our toys. Improving conditions for the poor, for refugees and immigrants, for the working class, even for the earth itself, isn’t usually in anyone’s self-interest until it becomes imperative. No one who voted for Obama’s successor was voting for the good of others. They were voting for themselves … and that’s pretty well what they got. Those who voted for the other candidates (remote as the independents’ chances were, they still deserve to be recognized) were likely more community-minded and globally aware, but were shown to be in the minority.

America is broken. Of course it can be fixed. It can rise from the ashes and emerge stronger, better, and braver than it was yesterday. Did they pick the guy to get it to that place? Hell, no! Healing a wound never begins on the top. It begins deep down, close to the bone; that’s where the rebuild begins. Recovery is up to the people. It’s up to families and neighbours and co-workers and community leaders to make a difference at the local level. They will have to get each other through the next few years. They can do it; they just have to be willing to do the work themselves rather than relying on the tangerine head to do it for them.

I am sympathetic, truly. I appreciate the fear and desperation of the folks who voted as I would have voted; alas for them, the democratic process must be respected even when you don’t get who you want.

As for the crashing of Canada’s immigration website when the numbers started firming up, I guess socialism is looking pretty good to some of our neighbours now, eh?

I wish them well. I believe they can do better. I hope the people will join and become a stronger nation by working together, by showing kindness and compassion to themselves and each other. The human spirit, when focused and tuned in, is fiercely inspiring. We are capable of great and wondrous things.

With love and hope,