Awful Events in Ottawa

I am alarmed at what happened today. I am saddened for the family of the reservist who was shot. But I am also saddened for the family of the shooter, who also lost a son today. I can't imagine their horror. I am even more alarmed at the spewing of hatred I'm seeing on Facebook. Meeting hate with hate is not the way to bring about a peaceful world. We are being perhaps too hasty jumping to conclusions about who and what the shooter was. We don't know if he was a terrorist or if he was mentally ill. We cannot judge the situation so soon with such little information. And if we run around getting militant about it, or start hiding our uniforms in public, or painting everyone with a "foreign" name with one brush, then the terrorists will have won regardless.

My two cents.

Getting back into the groove

I've been home now for, what, five days? And it feels like it's been ages already. Swamped at work, teaching on Sunday, getting the garlic planted, trying to dig the garden so I can mulch it for the winter, trimming roses...well, and I read three books in the last five days...but still, I can't believe only such a short time ago I was so far from home. It felt like another world, really, being on the road, just me and my husband, and carefree in a lovely setting. I find myself missing the fresh cold air coming off Rainy Lake. I miss the traffic-free streets of Fort Frances. I miss my cuddly grandkid and yacking with my son. I miss the freedom of hours to do nothing but walk along the river.

I know some people find it hard to fill their days when they stop working, but I don't think my eventual retirement will be a problem for me at all!

Missing my Granddaughter

There and Back Again

We just returned from a zippy trip to Fort Frances to visit Son Number One and his family. My heroic husband drove the whole 20-hour stretch in one go, both ways, so we could maximize the amount of time we could spend actually visiting. This is what it looked like going up:

 

Signs kept warning us of moose on the road, but we didn't see any. We passed a lot of lakes, with fun names like Fungus Lake and Rabbit Blanket Lake. We went through a town called, I kid you not, Tarbutt and Tarbutt Additional. Indeed. How it got that name, I have no idea. It sounds like a law firm. We ran into all kinds of thrilling names I couldn't pronounce, like Nicickousemenecaning and Mishkeegogamang, and Mitaanjigamiing. I mean really, what do you do when faced with that?

Halfway there, we passed through a little town called White River, which was the birthplace of the real Winnie the Pooh. So I can truly say I've been Beyond the White River!

Fort Frances was a pretty town, on a lovely river. Our hotel was right on the shore of Rainy Lake, and we saw deer one night on the lawn.

 

We took long walks with the granddaughter in the stroller and enjoyed a wonderful time with our family. We truly have much to be thankful for!

And this is what it looked like coming home again:

 

Though a lot of the time it looked like this:

Truly a spectacular trip!

The Lunar Eclipse

I've been buried under a mountain of work and didn't hear there was going to be a lunar eclipse. So when I stepped out the door at 5:30 this morning and saw a nibble had been taken out of the moon, it was an exciting surprise. I'm fascinated by anything to do with space and astronomy. By the time Son #2 and I had walked down to the bus terminal, the moon was half gone, and by the time the bus reached the subway, only the thinnest of slivers was left. By the time the subway reached my office and I returned above ground, the sky was too light to see the moon. (Yes, the commute is that long.) But it was cool to think it was still going on above me, even if I could no longer see it.

The thing that struck me most was, while I was constantly craning out the bus window to watch this neat phenomenon, no one around me so much as gave it a glance. They either didn't notice or didn't care. I wanted to stop in the middle of the street and just stare. I wanted to throw my arms wide and declaim on the smallness of man and the amazingness of the universe. Our bustling and busy-ness seems insignificant in comparison.

These days we can predict eclipses and other astronomical events down to the hour or even the minute. We understand what causes them and we can measure and probe everything. But I think it's good to stop and just let nature dazzle you once in a while. We shouldn't lose our sense of wonder. Even if science can explain the things that used to astonish our ancestors, they're still wonderous.

A Perfect Day

Wild, blustery weather. A romp in the park with my dog in high winds under amazing clouds. Four hours of LDS Conference with messages full of comfort and hope broadcast from Salt Lake City. And two bushels of grapes steadily turning into juice in the steamy kitchen. What more do you need?

Over the Top - What do we really need, anyway?

Someone I know made an offer on a house in Toronto. Now this was a pretty large house in a good area, but it needed major updating, and there was knob-and-tube wiring and asbestos that would have to be dealt with, which are not inexpensive things. It had potential but it wasn't absolutely amazing, or even unique. Well, she didn't get the house. It had multiple buyers interested in it, and eventually went for $400,000 OVER the asking price. My jaw hit the floor when she told me.

I knew Toronto was expensive, but that is just plain ridiculous. Beyond the fact that someone could afford that, there's the fact that someone would be willing to pay that. I mean, I adore looking at real estate, and I have seen many, many houses I would love to buy. But even if I were fantastically rich, there's no way I'd sink that much money into my home. Even in my most dramatic daydreams, I'm nowhere near that end of the scale. When it comes right down to it, it's a shelter, with walls and a roof and drywall and hopefully heat and water. You need somewhere to sleep and eat and stay dry and warm. Really, you don't need much more than that. Our ancestors raised bundles of children in small, modest homes.  Some lived in soddies, some in log cabins. I've seen Italian women churn out fantastic, amazing meals, course after course, on a hotplate in a kitchen not much larger than an Easy-Bake oven. What percentage of our income are we willing to spend on just this one basic need?

There are so many other places to put our funds, so many other causes, and so many people around us who are in need. It doesn't hurt to check our priorities once in a while and justify our financial decisions to ourselves if to no one else. I would rather live in one of those Tiny homes with my belongings in a cardboard box than to live somewhere over-big and over-priced, or to spend that kind of money just for the sake of saying I live in that location. Nowadays you just can't justify extravagant living, not when you're thinking on a global scale.