I thought I’d start participating in the weekly photo challenges. Some of the weekly themes are somewhat obscure, but this one – Oceans – is a nice one. Here are this week’s offerings.
Not really an ocean, but gives a hint of the vastness
Cape Town, South Africa.
Long Island - seeing the ocean for the first time
Couldn't resist this one - eyes the colour of the ocean
Go on, I dare you! Ask me how I feel!
Well, since you ask… I am streaming with a cold, my head is congested, I am sneezing non-stop, and because of my upcoming wedding, I am stressed to the hilt.
And yet…
I feel GREAT!!!
So I have a cold. But it’s only a cold. I don’t have cancer, or multiple sclerosis, or HIV.
So I’m too sick to run right now, and will quite possibly have to miss my race this weekend. But I have two legs that work, and I am physically fit, and I will run again when this cold is gone. I have it way easier than my amazing friend Fran, who has become a runner despite the fact that she lives with cystic fibrosis.
And OK, it’s still a little chilly for my liking, and we’re still getting the odd snowfall in late March. But I live in Canada, not Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya, and all we get falling out of the sky is snow and rain, not bullets.
When I go outside, I have to wear a coat. When people in Japan go out, they have to wear masks to avoid inhaling dust from earthquake and tsumani debris, and they have to worry about radiaion poisoning.
I am stressed from wedding planning. I know people who are stressed from divorce, and other people, like my Mom, who grieve for their soulmates who are no longer here.
While we’re on the subject, every day I grieve for the wonderful Dad who raised me. I have a friend who grew up without a true Dad, but with a child rapist who happened to be her father by biology only.
I spend two hours a day commuting, and there are days when it becomes overwhelming. But I have a job to commute to. I can afford to feed my family and buy birthday presents for my children.
It is true, I do have a child with autism, and every day brings its own unique challenges. But I have my kids, and every time I hug them I think of my other amazing friend Amy, who sat at her baby’s bedside for five months before cradling him in her arms as he died.
So how do I feel?
I’d say my life is pretty darned good, and I am truly grateful for what I have.
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hurricanemaine/3429008592/)
Go on, I dare you! Ask me how I feel!
Well, since you ask… I am streaming with a cold, my head is congested, I am sneezing non-stop, and because of my upcoming wedding, I am stressed to the hilt.
And yet…
I feel GREAT!!!
So I have a cold. But it’s only a cold. I don’t have cancer, or multiple sclerosis, or HIV.
So I’m too sick to run right now, and will quite possibly have to miss my race this weekend. But I have two legs that work, and I am physically fit, and I will run again when this cold is gone. I have it way easier than my amazing friend Fran, who has become a runner despite the fact that she lives with cystic fibrosis.
And OK, it’s still a little chilly for my liking, and we’re still getting the odd snowfall in late March. But I live in Canada, not Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya, and all we get falling out of the sky is snow and rain, not bullets.
When I go outside, I have to wear a coat. When people in Japan go out, they have to wear masks to avoid inhaling dust from earthquake and tsumani debris, and they have to worry about radiaion poisoning.
I am stressed from wedding planning. I know people who are stressed from divorce, and other people, like my Mom, who grieve for their soulmates who are no longer here.
While we’re on the subject, every day I grieve for the wonderful Dad who raised me. I have a friend who grew up without a true Dad, but with a child rapist who happened to be her father by biology only.
I spend two hours a day commuting, and there are days when it becomes overwhelming. But I have a job to commute to. I can afford to feed my family and buy birthday presents for my children.
It is true, I do have a child with autism, and every day brings its own unique challenges. But I have my kids, and every time I hug them I think of my other amazing friend Amy, who sat at her baby’s bedside for five months before cradling him in her arms as he died.
So how do I feel?
I’d say my life is pretty darned good, and I am truly grateful for what I have.
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hurricanemaine/3429008592/)
33 days to go.
It’s all coming up so quickly. 33 days until I tie the knot with my beloved, and there’s still so much to be done.
Decor and flowers to be arranged.
Hair to be arranged after my hairdresser backed out.
Cake to be arranged after my probable cake person backed out.
Limo service to be arranged.
Guest favours to be sorted out.
Wedding night hotel to be booked.
Child-related logistics to be sorted out…
Seating charts to be done and place cards to be printed.
And that’s just the stuff that I can remember off the top of my head. It doesn’t count all of the stuff that I have no doubt not thought about…
I can do this. Of course I can.
33 days is plenty of time.
33 days to go.
It’s all coming up so quickly. 33 days until I tie the knot with my beloved, and there’s still so much to be done.
Decor and flowers to be arranged.
Hair to be arranged after my hairdresser backed out.
Cake to be arranged after my probable cake person backed out.
Limo service to be arranged.
Guest favours to be sorted out.
Wedding night hotel to be booked.
Child-related logistics to be sorted out…
Seating charts to be done and place cards to be printed.
And that’s just the stuff that I can remember off the top of my head. It doesn’t count all of the stuff that I have no doubt not thought about…
I can do this. Of course I can.
33 days is plenty of time.
From a very tender age, George has been fascinated with garage doors. Garages themselves hold little interest for him, but the doors are an endless source of interest and entertainment. Right in the beginning, when he was barely old enough to walk, he would insist on being able to watch the garage doors open and close. Understanding this, of course, was a challenge for us, since George had no functional language to speak of at that time, and could not communicate his desires. We had many, many meltdowns borne of the fact that our boy had this thing he wanted and could not ask for. We accidentally discovered the issue when someone happened to close the garage in the middle of a meltdown. As soon as the door started to move, George instantly calmed down.
George is not fond of garages that are left open. They are pointless to him. An open garage does not have a visible door for him to examine in its minutest detail, and even now, when we are at large in our neighbourhood, we have to watch George to make sure he does not take off in the direction of any open garage he happens to see. If he gets into an open garage, he starts hunting around for the mechanism with which to close it, and this can create an awkward situation for the homeowner whose garage is thus targeted.
In the last couple of years, George has been able to satisfy his garage door obsession by watching YouTube videos featuring – you guessed it – garage doors. You would be amazed at how many videos there are dedicated to this subject. Many of them are demonstrations of garage door opening systems presented by salesmen or manufacturers. That’s good enough for George: he watches the videos over and over, and gives the appearance of actually absorbing the words that are spoken by the presenters. It wouldn’t surprise me: George’s speech is not up to much, but his receptive language is actually quite good.
About six months ago the knowledge came to me that there is such a thing as Garage Door Racing. My son found it on YouTube. To participate in this unlikely activity, all you need is a double garage, and two people, each one with a garage door controller. You start with both doors open, and when the signal is given, each person presses the button on their controller. The person whose door is completely closed first, wins the race.
I know, I know.
But clearly someone enjoys it.
About two weeks ago we started a new phase of the whole garage door thing. George found a YouTube video featuring a guy cutting into a garage door with a jigsaw. He immediately went off and gathered several long pieces of Lego. He stacked them together in a tower that I later realized was a fairly realistic emulation of a garage door. Then he found a toy jigsaw that someone had given to one of the boys. Armed with the Lego and the jigsaw, he returned to the computer and played the video again. Except this time, he copied the video by “cutting” his version of a garage door with his toy jigsaw.
Since then, he has spent many happy moments pretending to cut his door, both with and without the computer. I am encouraged by the pretend play, even if the pretending is of a somewhat unconventional nature. Gerard is encouraged because his son is showing an interest in power tools.
Today we ran into a bit of a problem. Because I have a cold and took a sick day, I was home when George’s school bus dropped him off this afternoon. He came inside, and without even taking his coat off, he ran into the living room, retrieved his toy jigsaw, and then ran back to the front door and tried to go outside. It turned out that he wanted to use his toy jigsaw on the actual garage door.
Great. That’s all we need. Already I am picturing a day when I come home to find our garage door chopped up into pieces.
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dumbledad/3398173944)
We had a nice George-vs-Autism moment this afternoon while we were driving down the highway. The four of us were on our way to the tuxedo place to get Gerard’s measurements taken.
George was unusually calm: usually when we are out in the car, he insists on McDonalds, Tim Hortons, Wendy’s, or whatever fast food place happens to be closest to where we are. One thing that he definitely has no issues with is his memory – he only has to pass through a neighbourhood once for the locations of stores and restaurants to be indelibly stamped in his mind. As a result, our drives are accompanied by a running commentary. “I want McDonalds chicken burger, please, yes. I want Tim Hortons cheese bagel, please, yes. I want Baby Burger, please yes.” As we drive past a place, taking it out of the running, he starts targeting whatever place will come next.
Today, though, he was silent but alert. He was quietly observing the world as we whizzed by it, and as we approached a bridge going over the highway, he suddenly and animatedly said, “Look at the bridge! Look at the bridge!”
Parents of neurotypicals who have never been exposed to autism are probably reading this and saying, “Yeah? And?”
This is a big huge holy-crap-that’s-phenomenal deal. A completely spontaneous utterance, appropriate to the situation, made for the purposes of social communication.
It was a beautiful moment indeed.
Funny, the things that have power to bring tears to my eyes.
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/3815822976)
Kibbutz Yakum, Israel. In my tree.
This post is a continuation of the story of my time in Israel in the early 1990’s…
Moments after I had finally fallen into a fitful, uncomfortable sleep, I was jolted awake by the sound of a man speaking in a language I did not understand. By the time my exhausted mind had registered where I was, the Hebrew had morphed into accented English: We’re on final approach to Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. Return to your seats, fasten your seatbelts, etc. etc.
This was it. The beginning of what would probably not be an entirely new life, but it would at least be a temporary escape from my regular life. I was more than a little anxious. Here I was, a shy, socially awkward person with recent trauma under my belt, in a strange new land with strange new people. What was I thinking? I didn’t know how to interact with other people at the best of times. I had a sudden fear that I would be way out of my depth here. I wanted to turn around and run back onto the plane I had just left.
There were about fifteen of us going into the Kibbutz program. We made a somewhat motley group, standing on the sidewalk outside the airport with our luggage, waiting for our transportation. Our huddle was thrown into disconcerted disarray when a pair of Israeli men who were walking down the sidewalk didn’t make efforts to circumvent our little group, instead marching straight through the middle of us, talking animatedly to each other and offering us loud, lively, incomprehensible greetings. Somehow their exuberant friendliness negated any sense of rudeness or intrusion. Our coordinator explained to us that this is just the way many Israeli people are.
After what seemed like an interminable wait in the cold and the rain, six of us were bundled into a minivan along with our luggage. Our coordinator said goodbye and wished us luck, and then the van door slammed shut and we were flying down the road. About an hour later we arrived at the place that would be home for the next several months: Kibbutz Yakum, near the coastal town of Netanya, about an hour’s drive north of Tel Aviv.
Once we had arrived at Yakum, we were divided into pairs and given rooms in the volunteer village. Lesley, a woman who ate scary quantities of food and yet remained impossibly skinny, was paired with Antoinette, whose claim to fame was that she was a distant relative of former South African president F. W. De Klerk. My roommate was tall Loren, with whom I struck up an immediate and lasting friendship. The only two men in our group were placed together: Alex, a gentle, kind-hearted soul with obvious developmental delays, and Wayne, who had sat beside me on the plane.
Once we had dumped our luggage in our rooms, one of the other volunteers, a Swiss man by the name of Ollie, fetched us and took us to the dining hall. He led us to a table occupied by an ancient woman called Nurit, who turned out to be the volunteer coordinator. It was her job to schedule and post the volunteers’ working rosters. Most of the jobs were rotated weekly, but if a volunteer liked a particular job, he or she could request to be permanently assigned to it.
By the time Nurit had told us how everything worked and given us a tour of the place, it was dinnertime. At that point we were so exhausted that we barely registered anything about the food or the people who were sharing the table with us. We had all planned to have dinner and then go straight to bed for some much-needed sleep, but our fellow volunteers had other ideas. They took us to the clubhouse, where they had set up a welcome party in our honour.
It would have been rude to refuse. Despite the fact that we started the party feeling ill from exhaustion, we wound up having a fantastic time. We stayed up late, drinking and talking and laughing with our new friends until the small hours of the morning.
Thus began our new life as Kibbutz Yakum volunteers.
I got my first exposure to Canadian politics two days after I arrived here, when I saw a news report about an attack on the then Prime Minister, Jean Chretien. A man claiming to represent victimized people in Canadian society broke security ranks and hit Chretien in the face – with a pie. I wasn’t too clear on what message this action was supposed to convey. Did the pie represent something? Was this an example of the Canadian reputation for politeness (“Sorry, Mr. Prime Minister, but I really don’t agree with the way you are running the country, but I’m way too nice to actually hurt you, so here’s a pie instead.”)
Having grown up in South Africa during the last days and the ultimate fall of Apartheid, and having been present at such auspicious occasions as the release of Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s first democratic election, I was used to political volatility. But still, I found the whole pie thing distinctly… odd.
Since living here, I have always found Canadian politics to be somewhat tame and boring. I do not mean that in a negative way. Tame and boring is good. It means that you are dealing with issues like employment, the economy, healthcare – the kind of stuff that governments should worry about on a day-to-day basis. You are not having to spend all of your time thinking about international sanctions that are completely choking your country, a crime rate so high that a murder barely gets a mention in the middle pages of a community newspaper, a police force that is so badly paid that officers resort to taking financial bribes just to make ends meet (not that I’m justifying bribery and corruption, but c’mon, if you’re expecting someone to risk their life, at least pay them a living wage), and many other crisis points that governments should only have to think about once in a blue moon.
By the time I had been here for three years or so, I had developed a theory. It goes like this:
Theory: Politicians have to argue, even if they don’t have anything to argue about.
Corollary: A great way to really add to the excitement is by bringing down the government and holding a federal election.
After Jean Chretien decided to call it quits ( can’t blame him – the dude was getting a bit long in the tooth, chronologically speaking), he passed the reins to Paul Martin. When election time rolled around the following year, Paul Martin held onto his post but only won a minority government. This meant that at any time, the opposition parties could band together and pass a motion of no-confidence, triggering an election. This is exactly what happened, which is how we wound up with Stephen Harper, the current Head Honcho.
Stephen Harper won a minority government as well. Two years later the opposition parties brought down his government, but he kept his Prime Minister seat in the resulting election (another minority government).
Two years after that, the opposition parties brought down his government again, but he kept his Prime Minister seat in the resulting election (and another minority government).
Now, about three years later, Stephen Harper’s government is on the verge of falling yet again. On this very afternoon, the opposition parties are almost certainly going to defeat the government on the basis of the federal budget, and an election will be held in the Spring.
The only difference (from my perspective anyway) between this occasion and the previous ones is that this time, I will get to vote and thereby earn the right to complain. I have a long-held belief that people do not have any place complaining about a government if they were not bothered to go out and put an “X” on a piece of cardboard. This time, however, I will be eligible to vote.
Which of course means that I will have to decide who to vote for.
For the benefit of those living outside of Canada, I should explain that Canadians do not actually vote directly for the Prime Minister. They vote for a local Member of Parliament (MP), who is usually affiliated with one of the major political parties. The head of the party that winds up with the most MP’s gets to be the Prime Minister.
In an ideal world, this would work fine. In an ideal world, you just know that the MP’s of a political party are united in what they stand for.
In the real world, however, this system of voting can pose quite a dilemma.
Here’s the scenario: You really, really like the guy who’s running locally for your preferred political party. You feel that he has a keen grasp of the issues that are important, and you believe that he will represent your best interests at federal level. However, you cannot stand the head of that political party. You would rather set your face on fire than have him as Prime Minister. You don’t trust him and you believe that the only thing he cares about is his own personal agenda.
On the other hand, the MP candidate for the other political party, the party you would not normally support, is not someone you would typically vote for. But the head of that political party would, you believe, make a better Prime Minister than his opponent. He may not represent all of your beliefs, and he may not have the same priorities you might like, but you think that he does at least have some integrity. You think that he has Canadian interests at heart, whereas the other guy absolutely doesn’t.
So how do you cast your ballot? Do you vote for the local guy you like, knowing that this would also represent a vote for someone you cannot stand? Or do you vote for the other guy in support of your preferred Prime Ministerial candidate, knowing that you are also voting for an MP who does not represent your priorities and beliefs?
Update: breaking news is that the Canadian government has indeed been defeated on a no-confidence motion. A federal election will be held in May.
Disclaimer: the hypothetical scenarios described above are not a statement of actual circumstances, nor are they a reflection of my political leanings. They are hypothetical questions only.
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kahtava/241834777)
My first-ever dog, who had the somewhat regal name of Judge, was what we refer to in South Africa as a “pavement special”. He was a mixed-breed, and I have no idea what his lineage was. His mother, Kentucky, was a mixed bag herself, and we don’t even know who the father was. This doesn’t speak volumes for Kentucky’s moral values, but I guess this is less of a problem when you’re a dog.
Judge was about the height of a lab retriever but had the relative proportions of a bulldog. His facial features resembled those of Clifford The Big Red Dog, except that Judge was a couple of shades lighter than chocolate brown. He had enormous feet that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a St. Bernard. It was as if God, when He was done creating dogs, assembled all of the leftover dog bits and used them to make Judge.
I was young when we got Judge. So young that I have no memory of him coming into our family. To me, he was always there. According to my parents, however, he and I instantly took a shine to each other and we became inseparable. He was a big dog, especially from my toddler perspective, but he was unfailingly gentle. Although my parents were always vigilant, they never had to worry about whether I was safe with Judge.
My relationship with Judge had to be temporarily put on hold when I six. My Dad’s employers sent him on a three-year secondment to the United States, and we all went with him. We were able to bring our two fox terriers with us, along with our two cats, but Judge and Kentucky had to stay home as long-term residents of a local kennel. It seemed patently unfair to me that I had to leave my dog behind while my brother got to bring his dog, a fox terrier named Bianca, who was affectionately referred to as the Bionic Watermelon. I took some solace from the fact that my Siamese cat, Megan, accompanied us.
Three years later, we returned to South Africa. Me and my brother, our parents, the two dogs, one of the original cats, a new cat named Sarah who had been acquired to help me get over the loss of Megan during our stay, and a stray ginger cat named Ginger Peasley who had adopted us (Ginger Peasley was mean to everybody except my Dad, upon whom he lavished unending affection).
On our return to South Africa, we went to the kennels to claim Judge and Kentucky. I don’t remember much about the reunion, but I do recall that in very short order, Judge and I were best of friends again. My fears that he had forgotten me during our three-year separation were totally unfounded, and Judge and I frolicked happily together for several more years.
One day, shortly after the next-door neighbour’s dog had been run over and killed by the milkman (deliberately, we’re sure of it), Judge got sick. He was fine when he woke up in the morning, but by mid-afternoon he was lying helplessly on his side, breathing shallowly and too weak to even lift his head. By dinnertime, my beloved dog was dead.
We don’t know for sure what happened. We suspect the milkman, who by all appearances, had a toxic hatred for dogs. There was no way to prove anything, of course, but we did stop having our milk delivered after that.
Over the years, we have said goodbye to many dogs and cats. A few have died of old age; most have been euthanazed due to illness. My cat Sarah, who we brought back with us from America, lived to a ripe old age before her hips gave in. Mean old Ginger Peasley had heart trouble, although he did attain a good age. Bianca the Bionic Watermelon developed kidney problems.Kentucky, Judge’s mother, outlived all of the animals of her generation. She lived to a very respectable age and then simply didn’t wake up one morning.
Every time one of these four-legged friends has died, many tears have been shed. Today, one more was added to their number as my Mom made the heartbreaking decision to have her old dog Bella put to sleep. Bella lived a good life, but her body was failing bit by bit and it was clear that her time was up. It is a sad day for my Mom, whose dogs and cats are her companions.
I’d be willing to bet, though, that Bella and Judge and all the rest of them are having a hoot in Dog Heaven. It must be complete chaos there.
My only question is this: Do cats go to Dog Heaven?
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beeldenzeggenmeer/297619009)
