It's that time of the week again ...

I start watching the clock at lunch time, calculating how long it is until 1:30 in Jack’s afternoon.  I wonder where his mom and dad are, if they’re at the clinic already, how they are feeling this week – hopeful? Exhausted?  Anxious?  Peaceful?  All or some of the above at any given time?

 

Mostly I pray, over and over again, under my breath.  Lord.  Sustain them.  Sustain us all.  And preserve this little life You have chosen to create.

 

You can pray, too.  Please?

What I had for breakfast

One fried egg, glistening with melted Harvati cheese.

Served by a grinning 12 year old girl with two braids in her hair.

It's a lucky lucky life.

Also ...

because I know you are losing sleep over it, there are five little girls and they have strange outlandish names because they live in a mythical world, where everyone has made up names.

Because just writing a novel isn't enough of a challenge.

Perhaps an apology is in order

So TechnoGuy dislikes large bunches of keys. He has two key rings, one for each vehicle we have, and a System. He hangs the keys for the van in the wee key cupboard by the front door, and if he should need the van, he hangs the car keys in the cupboard and takes the van keys. This system works very well for him.

It works well with my system, too, which is Try to keep track of my own keys, but if you're really desperate, use his. Which are always hanging in the cupboard. Only, make sure you put them back before you get caught.

Last week his keys went missing.

I had not lost my keys recently, so my conscience was clear.

"I haven't used the van", he said.

"I didn't take your keys", I asserted.

So we were at an impasse, but the man didn't have a great memory when he was twenty. And that was more than just one decade ago.

Over the past week, I've often wondered how he managed to lose his keys when he hadn't been driving the van. Eventually I decided one of the kids must have used them to start the van.

Until last night, when I put on my long winter coat, which I rarely wear, to walk the dog.

Would you believe one of the children took his keys out of the key cupboard for the sole purpose of hiding them in my coat pocket?

You'd be the only one.

Middle of the Night Conversation

TechnoBoy: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

Me: Buddy.  Roll over on your side.

 

Repeat about 700 times.

 

Me:  Remember  how you said the next time this happened, I should just ask you to move to the couch, and you'd go?  So we would both get a bit of sleep?

 

TechnoBoy:  Ok.  ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

Repeat three times.

 

Cue maniacal laughter (mine)   "Sweetie.  Do you have a clue what I'm saying?"

 

TB:  I love you too.

 

I lie there and plan a blog entry entitled "The One Where I Realize There Are People Who Are Sleeping Alone, And Yes, I Am Lucky."

 

That gets me through another half an hour.

 

TB: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ 

 

And then he rolled over, and started moaning and snoring simultaneously.

 

Still a small price to pay for getting to be his wife.

Early morning conversation

Me, to Child X:   Are  you wearing a clean shirt?

 

X:  Probably.

 

Me:  Let me see it.

 

X:  NO!

 

Me:  Why on earth not?

 

X:  You won't think it's clean.

 

X eventually lets me see the shirt.

 

Me:  Go take that off.  You've been wearing it for two weeks straight!

 

X:  (looks down)  I don't see any dirt.

 

Me:  It STINKS.

 

X:  Not to me.

 

Me:  Take.  The.  Shirt.  Off.

 

X:  I don't have any other long sleeved shirts.

 

Me:  What about this one? or this one? or this one?

 

X:  Too small, too ugly, I don't like that one today.

 

Me:  Right.  This one then.  Go put it on.

 

X: But -

 

Me:  NOW.

 

X calls from the bathroom:  Can I wear a T-shirt over this shirt?

 

Me: Yes.

 

X.   Okay I'm ready.

 

Me:  Where is the clean shirt I gave you?

 

X:  You said I could just put a T-shirt over this one.

 

Me:  You have been wearing that shirt for two weeks!!  You can't hide the smell with a T-shirt!

 

Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

 

For future reference

So if you're dumping windshield washer fluid into your vehicle and think "Huh. That's odd. It usually takes the whole jug."?

Pay attention to that thought.

I checked the label on the thing I was pouring the windshield wiper fluid into. It was labelled "coolant".

Should you do this, if your next thought is "Yikes. That might matter."?

Pay attention to that thought.

I called TechnoHasAClueWhatCoolantIsFor.

"Hello, I love you" I said.


"I love you too" he said.

"I hope you still love me 30 seconds from now." Deep breath. "Ijustpouredwindshieldwasherfluidintothecoolantreservoir."

There was a much longer pause than I was comfortable with.

"Is the van still running?" he asked, finally, with great care.

"No, I turned it off before I opened the hood."

Relief tsunami'd, cell to cell.

So the bottom line is, yes, it matters, no, don't do it, and *phew* dodged that bullet. Someone helped me find the part where the hose from the reservoir connected to the radiator and we disconnected that, and thankfully, in this weather, the risk of an overheated engine is relatively low.

Quotables

“Fairy stories are more than true, not because they tell us there are dragons, but because they tell us they can be defeated.” G.K. Chesterton

“Sometimes the best way to show people true things is from a direction they had not imagined truth coming.” Neil Gaiman

How to Have A Lovely Saturday

First you get on a bus, but not just any bus, the oh-so-comfy and affordable Red Arrow express, to go to a different city to meet a dear friend for lunch.

Have lunch, and a long, serious discussion. Stay at the restaurant for more than a few hours.

Walk across the parking lot to a Starbucks, grab a table and have this conversation:

"Well we could try mints and gum."

"There might not be 40 pieces of gum in this package, though."

"Excuse me, are these mints all the same colour?"

The cashier finally has to ask. "What sort of game are you playing?"

"well we have an expansion pak and she" pointing "remembered the cards but not the trains."

"and I'm from Calgary and she's from BigOntarioCity, so there's no going home to get them."

Play Ticket To Ride, the Switzerland edition for about three hours, wander back to the bus, stopping to buy a salad to eat on the bus, and a weighty volume of the poetry of Langston Hughes.

And the gum was too big, but the mints worked just fine.

The things you don't realize ...

...making up a world, is how many names you’ll have to come up with?

 

Apparently I like names that start with B.  And K.  And L.  And that’s about it.

 

So now that I’ve almost decided that seven little girls is too many to name, for such peripheral characters, I need names.  Why are they helping anyway?  Why is Eral’s family sticking their noses into this story???  And why won’t Laurel speak already?

 

Okay the “writing on the bus” thing is getting old – can’t get the laptop either close enough, or far away.   Nitpicky old moo, that’s what I am.

 

(next post :  How to Have a Lovely Saturday, complete with pictures.)

 

 

Okay this is just wild

"Any sufficiently developed technology looks like magic." (a famous person)

So here I am on the bus from Calgary to Edmonton, going up to spend a few hours with a dear friend, and I have free internet access AND there is a laptop plug in at every seat. So I'm blogging and MSN'ing with my daughter and travelling.

Yes, Angie, I'm also working on the book. Sort of stuck. Need an answer. That's where the five of you that read this come in -

How many little girls, exactly, is Lorana looking after? just how many children did Eral's sister have?

Also do we care where Eral is? I know I don't.

As you were.