A More Current Moment

Let’s see…About eight years ago or so, we went with my daughter’s family to a corn maze just outside of Calgary. It was really a pretty sad corn maze, the corn was more or less picked clean of the stalks and those stalks were brown as opposed to green. They were also pretty thinly spaced and there was no chance at all of getting lost or trapped by Alberta’s version of the Children of the Corn. Still, it was fun for a three year old and for old eyes reliving the magic of youth.

One of the most wonderful things they had there was an inflated pad that was about the size of a tennis court. The kids got to take off their shoes and bounce to their hearts content. I would have loved to bounce as well, but I feared that the pad wouldn’t be rated for my weight category. Of course I took pictures and one in particular captured the joy Hurricane was feeling at that moment. He was in mid bounce, had his right arm thrust up to the sky and would have been yelling “FUCK YEAH!!!” if he were any older. I love that picture.

I decided to do a carving of him as he was that particular moment in time. I got his head done pretty good…ish and that was about it. I had difficulty getting a hook on the carving and didn’t think I would do it justice. Hurricane saw the head while we were in the workshop making something and I told him that it was him and was working on a carving but had stopped. I promised that I would finish it someday, but not right now. Every time we go to the workshop he will pick up his head and I feel bad about not ever finishing it.

Well, his birthday is in a few days, so I thought that eight years was a long enough time to have put off the carving. I gathered Hurricanes head and a few other pieces that I had started during the intervening years to see what needed to be done. Since he was in his stocking feet in the picture I decided to carve those first. I noticed the knife could be sharper so I put a razor edge on it. Yes, I should have put on the glove that I use when I do carving and the leather thumb of course, but I was just doing a small touch up. Well, the knife slipped and cut deeply into my thumb. Blood was flowing and I was so angry with myself for being so stupid on many different levels.

Louise and I got the bleeding under control and I drove to the walk in clinic to have it looked after. Eventually the doctor came into the examining room and asked me if I thought I needed stitches. I had hoped that he would look at the cut and make the decision himself, but I figured yes it couldn’t hurt. I was walked to the back room and lay down on the table while a nurse got everything ready. I looked around the room and I realized that it hadn’t changed at all in the thirty or so years since the last time I lay down on the table. That time I had put a circular saw into my wrist and thankfully the doctor made the decision to stitch my wrist.

Well, a couple of needles, stitches and some bandages saw me back to normal and home to figure out how I was going to manage my day to day life using mostly my left hand. I managed thirty years ago and I suppose I could figure it out again.

Needless to say, the carving for Hurricane has been put on hold once again. I will look at it again, but have been thinking that maybe I should find a more current moment to capture his likeness in wood. It couldn’t hurt…or could it?

License

Last week, Louise discovered that she didn’t have her driver’s license; well at least it wasn’t where it should be. It was concerning, but not terribly so because she has a distressing habit of just taking the cards from her purse, wallet, pocket that she will need for the next few hours. I don’t know how she keeps track of things and any sensible person (me) would keep all of their cards with them at all times.

As I said, it wasn’t a major concern, but it is the kind of thing that will eventually drive me crazy. I decided that she would have to look for her license by herself and I would sit back, reading my book and huff every now in then in a superior manner. I know that she was looking for it, but she seemed to be doing it whenever I was out of the room or nose deep into my book. Every now and then I would ask if she had looked in her purse or coat pocket and she would give me one of those looks that said “Of course…do you think I am an idiot?” I would nod my head and internally I would say that I know where my license is, the hidden flap on the left side of my wallet. Although I made the comment to myself, I felt pretty superior.

A day or two passed and I randomly searched dresser tops, coat pockets, both cars and found myself on my belly with a flashlight looking under beds and couches. It had disappeared without a trace! There is only one thing that could have happened; someone either broke into our house in the middle of the night or into the car while Louise was paddling at the reservoir and took her license. Pretty smart when you think about it, the guy has Louise’s ID and can set up a phone identity and charge all sorts of things to bogus cards. Well, unless the driver’s license is someplace that has so far not been searched.

Yesterday Louise decided that enough time had passed and she needed to get a replacement license to which I reluctantly agreed. We had to get the new 2020 sticker for the car anyways so off to the Registry office we went. We waited in line for about thirty minutes and every two minutes or so I told Louise about the time I just walked in and there was no one in line at all! She more or less ignored me after the first three tellings. We finally got to the girl behind the counter and Louise signed all of the necessary papers for the license and registration. She had the girl check the organ donation box on her license so that Louise can save some lives. I decided to check my license to see when it expires so that I could eventually put the organ donation option on my license. I looked at my grey on grey picture and then to my horror found out that the license had expired in September of 2017!

How is that possible? How could I forget? How did I manage to rent a car in Hawaii last month? Oh well, at least I was in the right place to get a replacement. Well, not really as it turns out. After three months you have to provide other government ID (passport), Provincial medical card and a letter with name and address on it mailed within the past couple of months to prove residency. Shit! Well, I guess that I will be returning to the Registry place sooner rather than later.

We decided to go to Tim Horton’s for a coffee and celebrate Louise’s new license and I suppose my stupidity. Louise paid for the coffees and I went to the table with the coffees while she chatted with the woman behind the counter. Louise was headed to the table when the woman at the counter asked her if she had picked up her drivers license that she had left on the counter a few days earlier…………………………………..

What?

Guess we should have gone for coffee first today.

I sat at the table thinking how odd the world was when it occurred to me that Louise losing her license, the search, the trip to the registries office was the universe rearranging itself to tell me that my license had expired. You just have got to love it when the planets align to help you out. 

Now, if I can only have the universe get behind telling me six numbers between one and forty nine.

sob

It is 9:00 o’clock on a Sunday morning the 5^th of May when all around the world people are preparing to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and I am preparing to go out and shovel the three inches of snow off of my sidewalk. Maybe I should chug down a Mexican beer or a shot or two of tequila before I go out.

 

Oh, I know that “the snow won’t last” and “we live in Canada” or “we can sure use the moisture”, but those are just things people say to accept that Mother Nature just punched us in the balls. It would have been better to have the moisture come down as a warm rain so that the little shoots and buds don’t freeze their little tips off. You don’t see any snow in a tropical rain forest and those plants seem to do just fine. Hell, I walked the West Coast Trail on the coast of Vancouver Island which is in a temperate rain forest and the trees grew larger than any I had ever seen before. They get the on bit of snow on the island, but nothing to complain about. My buddy lives on the island and he complains that every now and then he has to wait a day before the light dusting of snow disappears. Poor baby!

The warm weather is just around the corner and before you know it I will spend time working outside, biking, cutting the lawn and just generally puttering about. We aren’t likely to get much more snow and once the temperature gets to “seasonal” I won’t have a lot to complain about.

 

I did just return from two weeks in Hawaii which does colour the way I look at this snow. Not one day (or night) went below 23°C and my knees were bare for the entire time. The water was warm but refreshing and the little rain that fell was liquid as opposed to solid. We always had to open the windows when we got in the car to let the very hot air escape before we cranked up the AC. It was best to BBQ so that you didn’t needlessly heat the condo while cooking supper. Cool drinks were the order of the day whereas here I am seldom without a hot coffee or tea. Oh well…I will return.

Speaking of return, I guess I should go and clean off the walks. We have family coming over to celebrate Cinco de Mayo this afternoon and I would hate for them to slip on the ice or snow. Maybe I will make ten or so small snowmen to welcome them to our home and warn Mother Nature that I am Canadian, the snow won’t last and my lawn will benefit from the snow when it melts…sob!