In my home now in an older district with fewer children, I sit at the door with a bowl of packaged mini-chocolate treats and a jar of change for Unicef. Weather mild, just above freezing, the front gate is opened adorned with fall decorations of an old curling broom, a sprig of dried herbs and an orange and green melon. The pumpkin set out earlier in the afternoon was a victim of a prank, smashed on the sidewalk.

How many years have I repeated this scene in other houses and neighbourhoods? This year it is just me and the dog!

Not quite certain of the almost 12, grade 7 young ‘un in my life, this afternoon I was a "parent supervisor” at her 2-hour junior high dance. In a darkened gym, with loud thumping music and steps from the Macarena to line dancing, contest for the top 10 costumes, raised arms and cheers, groups of teens moved to the beat more often in huddles of 5 or 6 than in pairs.

Dressed in black tights, and sweater and long tail, I remember myself at 11 in grade 7 as a black cat, the last year I went out with my best friend, Janet. My own daughter at 17, dressed in a yellow and green hooded dragon outfit, it was her last year as she touted her pre-schooler niece and friends. Needing to fly that night back to boarding school in Victoria, she was still in her outfit at the airport when she realized she had forgotten her plane ticket!

The year I gave out toothbrushes and coupons to the city swimming pools, instead of candy, my girls said I was cheap.

Very rarely now is the call “ Halloween Apples “. In this age of checking treats carefully and concern over spiritual warfare and other diabolical influences, am I just being nostalgic when I remember simpler times the fun of dressing up and door-to-door collecting?

I am thankful for my AMA membership but t'eed that my car died late last night in the A&W lot...one of those things after a tiring W-E. Sitting with my 2-1 mozza burger deal because I was too tired to cook listening to relaxing CBC radio and everything goes dead! Fortunately had the cell but not thrilled on an hour wait time.They came boosted and followed me home but it may be the alternator so i will see what happens today.

For the last few weekends have been "on call" for coverage at one of the local hospitals in maternity. Normally fairly quiet where I call in early and check in the afternoon, different than when up north I am not being paid to be on call so  more flexibility in my hours. This weekend however abit more drama, as two apprehensions of newborns due to family situations:  one a crack-concaine mom and other FASD mom and uncertainty of family support or ability to manage. As a hospital social worker, I cannot do child protection  and thus the involvement of the crises team, who actually come to the hospital and serve the papers. The babes then remain in the ICN until a foster family placement.. However in one situation extended family members were quite determined to take home the baby and as a result security was involved, an exit via ER entrance, many calls from nursing staff, myself and the crises workers.

My best find of the weekend was an older Minolta  35 mm camera and zoom lens from the church rummage sale, which once home discovered the same model of one I had years ago and hopefully I can find some lenses that fit!

I am going to do abit of a blog clean up of my subscriptions eliminating those who do not have sites that are active or take the time to comment when visiting mine.

I get offered a pair of good seats to the last Eskimo home game! Launched out on this cold night with thermos, blanket and toque and mitts only to find myself in the middle of a section of Saskatchewan Rough Rider fans! definitely a cold but great game...tied 29-29 at the end end it went into overtime, with alas edmonton losing. The Eskimos Fleming with 7 seconds to go kicked a winning field goal and disallowed due to a holding penalty.  Football is one of the few spectator sports I understand and enjoy but iImust admit watching the fans was almost as entertaining as on the field,

It was not long ago that I have done relief social work in the community of  Kugluktuk. I spent four Christmases there from 2002 to 2005 and have a heart for many of the children and families.This story is one of the most touching I have seen in a long time with remarkable resiliency and determination shown of the youth in Kugluktuk. Unfortunately the situations shown are a reality in many of our northern communities.

http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/aboriginal_issues_/battling_the_bottle.html

Battling the Bottle
October 22, 2007 (Runs 14:01)
Bootleggers. Drunkenness. Suicide. Kugluktuk, Nunavut has plenty of problems. But this time, the children are demanding solutions

In our Saturday writing circle this was the exercise and my own work. the task was to write a prayer or mediation with the prompts  of everyday items. Why not try some of your own and see what comes..

Some of our items included a AA battery, a pink sea shell, a thankyou card with roses, an alarm clock, OJ tetra pack

Oh Lord, I try and take time to listen first thing in the morning as I roll over to see the flashing digital display on my radio alarm clock, rolling over as I come into consciousness, transitioning from a half sleep of images, remembrances and dream world. Perhaps also brief awakenings and interrupted sleep by news items on CBC-1,international news from other side of the planet in Africa, Australia or Slovakia. My mind struggles, "what time? what day? what schedule? and the dog needs a walk." You and my "to do" list. I move towards consciousness and first light but now darker mornings, remind me that you are the First Light, the one and only source of all creation and the beginning of this day. May I remember thankfulness of your presence, as I sip my orange juice or tend the fading garden and prune the cherry and wild rose bushes,
 

now with leaves turned, and branches bare, shorn and discarded. Shorn and discarded, the process of pruning, cutting away diseased limbs, a necessary process, dear Lord, as I struggle to hold onto the last remnants of summer and resist the change of the coming season of darkness. Remind me, in gentle moments that I am but the pot and you, the potter, I am the delicate colored sea shell but you control the waves, the tides and the seasons. As I move towards the light of morning in appreciation and thoughtfulness, abba father and wise mother, I will listen. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know

It has been a busy two weeks and I have been up and down in my emotional and physical energy levels, at times grumpy and totally spent at the end of the day feeling like I have accomplished little and other days very much enjoying the fall weather and my various activities.

Thanksgiving saw a gathering of a crew of about 10 for a Saturday potluck  where I did a honey mustard covered ham. Potlucks are great because always such a variety of dishes..we had spinach salad with mandarin oranges to spicy baked beans. Amelia visited from Vancouver and one of her challenges was practicing on a standard as she borrowed a friends car to drive to Calgary…the only hitch was one has to remember to take off the hand brake or one will stall several times as she did in the Esso station on Sunday.

October yard work has included digging, fertilizing, thinning plants and putting in tulips and lillies. In my pruning discovered that a hand saw is much easier to use than a skill saw.  These are the fall colors of the cherry and rose bush before the pruning.

At one point I had considered the possibility of seeing if I could go north for a few weeks in November, and it is especially hard when one know there is a need as in my last posting in Arctic Bay….get news from other co-workers and saddened to hear of a suicide in a family I have worked with.

However, I think it will probably be December or January until I am free to go because of commitments here in Edmonton.
So some of my activities have included..

Interspersed between being on call for the hospital and yard work, attended some lectures from Litfest last weekend. LitFest is Canada’s only Creative Non-fiction  The theme this year was Hot North---a number of writers on the Arctic which I enjoyed.. One book I am reading and cannot put down is Melanie McGrath's the Long Exile. A british writer she has done her research well and it documents the movement of Inuit families from the west side of Hudson bay in the early 50s the to the stark and almost uninhabitable high Arctic of Ellesmere Island. It begins with Robert Flarety's filming of Nanook in 1923, a very idealized view of Eskimo life and traces the families from there including the son he left. Went to two sessions with Donna Hamar, another social worker who also does casual social work in the north. Panel discussion and booksigning with anthropologist, Nancy Wachowich, and  Rhoda Katsak from Pond Inlet, on a three-generation life history project which eventually became a book entitled Saqiyuq: Stories from the Lives of Three Inuit Women.

Blessing of the animals last Sunday ..this one would let impatient snorts.Just over a year this young dog was pulling and ready to investigate others

a friend Wendy and 11 year old Jake

and finally Dysis

"My turn"
    

received this in an e-mail from a friend...you may have already seen it but thought very unique..

Stuart Brown describes Norbert Rosing's striking images of a wild polar bear playing with sled dogs in  Churhchill Manitoba.

The photographer was sure that he was going to see the end of his huskies
 when the polar bear materialized out of the blue, as it were:


Obviously it was a well-fed Bear...

The Polar Bear

returned every night that week to play with the dogs.



     

Today
Sunrise:     7:46
Sunset:     18:56
Moonrise:     4:58
Moonset:     18:02

I can testify to that in what I experienced over the dinner hour and hope this story brings a chuckle to your day.

Have you ever been frustrated by being on hold for an extended time or dialed repeatedly trying to find a real live person at the other end of the phone? Well that was the situation with my friend Liz.

We had been scheduled to get together this evening at 7 PM to work on a report together and I thought things were abit odd when I phoned twice and got a repeated clicking sound but thought “ oh well she will phone me”….and she DID! Calling from the neighbour’s  house, where she had been on hold for 30 minutes, Liz asked me to call her cable company because all her phones were down. Instead I offered to come down to her house with my cell phone.

What you have to realize is that Liz, who is a carpenter and works 10-hour days, lives with her two teen girls, Katherine, 14 and my Makayla ,11. in one of two large houses in the bottom of Mill Creek ravine. Surrounded by parkland, hiking trails and picnic tables, these houses are few that remain near the center of the city and abit of a zoning oddity…. one can have animals like ducks and geese, cell phone reception is very intermittent and always seems to be problems with the cable and other hook ups. The other house is owned by a family of musicans and scientists. Tonight, they are having a formal dinner party of orchestra conductors from various groups from the ESO to the university bands. Liz has just got home from work, in her blue jeans and other grubs, standing in the foyer on hold to the cable company, as each of the guests arrive! You can imagine her frustration and embarrassment.

By the time I get there, she is back at home, she has finished off her glass of wine, offers me a beer and takes one herself. Dinner hasn’t happened so the girls are heating up smokies. My cell works and one of the girls dials and holds until we get the cable company technician  Keith. There are only two ways to get a real live personin these situations Liz informs me, either stay on hold or call the sales office. Keith has many questions about dial tone and clicking sounds and has Liz running around plugging and unplugging extensions in the house and garage. In the interim, Makayla has the cell phone and carries on a conversation with the technician on his day and how hers at school was BORING.

Dogs… well, this was the next addition to the mayhem occurring just as we think progress is happening… Dysis, my husky. is sleeping peacefully in the living room after sniffing the whole house, when the doorbell rings, a long chiming echoing bell! Dysis trots to the door. It is the neighbour hostess, who has brought over her dog for Liz to watch, as the dog is too active in the dinner party. Her dog is a boxer puppy of about a year named “Kitty”! Dysis escapes as the door is opened and both of the dogs are off !!  Heading of course straight to the rear of the other house and around the goose pen, who are squawking very annoyed at the intrusion. I run after Dysis and Katherine, in stocking feet, catches Kitty. Finally back in the house there is much running around, a few growls and puddle of pee as territories are established. For the dogs, it is all delightful play and finally. they are banished to the outside deck.

Liz at this point, is saying she can’t hear the technician, as she is trying to book a service call, can we turn up the volume on the cell and I take the my cell outside. A time is finally booked for Thursday by me with the company and Liz in the background swearing she hopes they will compensate her. The girls finished their smokies, and Liz got hers while I got left over turkey and cranberries. Couldn’t find my can of beer and girls asked if it was non-alcoholic in case they found it.

When all is finally settled, I burst out laughing and it felt so..oo good… this is real life!