Penny
This is one of those tales that makes you go hmmmmm.
For this story it is important to know that we waited a long time for our first child.
We tried to start our family and for many years we had no luck. Then we were blessed with our son Bailey that we adopted from an amazing person with an incredible heart. Our first miracle.
Here is the hmmmm part of the story. Lisa, my wife, was having a tarot card reading at our place, and she invited some friends over. Now I have never been one to believe in the dark arts, but I also wouldn't trash them in a dark alley. Since I have never had my cards read, I thought it would be fun to see how it went and if I could trip up the card reader.
So the night comes, and a couple of readings are done and then it's my turn.
Penny the card reader, sits me down and shuffles the cards, I think she had me cut them, and then the card turning starts. She sees a holiday for us somewhere with palms trees. Ok, well that could happen. Turns out she was right, thirteen years later, we went to Florida for the Disney World, Sea World, and Universal trip, there are lots of palms trees there.
This is the good stuff. She sees a change in jobs for me, but not a complete change, a second job is coming. At the time, I'm working on applying with the police. Then, she is looking at a card of a knight on a horse, and she says, ”no it's not that, it is more of a mentoring kind of job and it will happen in a few months”. I'm sure she is wrong, it has to be the police. She is now looking at a card with a fence, this, she says indicates that I will be keeping both jobs at the same time. There is no way I could keep two jobs while being a cop. So, a little later, the time arrives that the job changes are to take place. I get pulled aside at work and told they have to cut my hours. Great, now I have to find another job, or at least a part time position to fill the missing hours. Just by chance, Lisa's cuz says they are hiring where she works. The job is assisting mentally challenged kids and adults in a group home. Hmmm, sounds a lot like mentoring.
Skip ahead a couple of years. Bailey is about three and still no siblings, Penny is back for another reading.
So she starts the shuffling and then the turning of the cards again. Wow, another job change. Still going to be in electronics field, but not exactly the field I'm in at the time, this will happen in a few months. Guess what, I get offered a new position at work more hours, less money. I would still have to keep the other job to make ends meet or take a lay off. I decide to go back to school and learn programming. Not in electronics field as she talked about. She says money will not be a problem with the new job. At last we are going to win the lottery, no such luck. With a little effort things do have a way of working out.
Then the scary prediction. There will be a baby girl. She will be born in thirteen months. I ask her how that would happen since we have been told that we could not birth kids. She takes the cards and splits them in three piles, then asks me to choose one pile. I choose the middle stack. She flips over the top card showing an angel, she says it will be a miracle.
Ok, so here is how this came together. Penny's reading was in July that year. August the next year our daughter Sydnee was born, thirteen months later. Our second miracle. When the time comes to finally start this new job, it happens three years after the baby came, now working installing cable, Internet and digital phone services. As predicted, it’s a job in electronics but not like I had been doing for the previous sixteen years, and the money did get better.
Hmmmmmm.
Do I believe? I would have to say I believe that there are special people in this world for a reason. For some, it is a way to share in a unique way that may take others to have an open mind to understand.
Thursday 26 April 2018
Wednesday 18 April 2018
Night Pleasures
I awaken in the middle of the night barely aware that my hand is already on it moving back and forth.
Slowly, hardly noticing the pressure but starting to feel the pleasure starting to build.
My hand starts to move a little faster, I know I should stop, already I’m reaching that point where I know I may not be able to quit.
My wife is laying next to me, if she wakes I know she’ll be upset.
I can feel the surface getting warmer and I can feel the blood starting to rise to the surface.
A little cream would make it feel so much better but I left it in the living room.
If I don’t stop soon I know I’ll have regrets, why do I still do this?
I have been at this since I was a kid, is it a habit? An addiction? Or is it something else that takes control?
Now, there is more pressure and I’m going faster, the feeling is so good.
Then, just like that, it’s too late.
Stupid eczema.
Now the side of my leg is raw and burning. I can‘t see it in the dark, but I’m sure it’s a crimson red.
How can something feel so damn good hurt so much?
Tomorrow I’m putting the Hydrocortisone cream on BEFORE I go to bed.
Saturday 7 April 2018
Living In A Small Town
Living in a Small Town
From 1962 to 1971 we lived in six small towns. I was born in one in northern Manitoba. Saint Jean Baptiste was the last town before we moved to the big city, it’s the one I remember the best for some reason. I have flashes of the others, but there is something about St.Jean that has always stuck with me. This was a town and a time where the kids could play kick the can until dark, where people gave out homemade popcorn balls at Halloween and the neighbors got together to play cards.
The one missing piece is names for some reason, I was never able to hang onto any names, that’s always bothered me, that I couldn’t contact anyone from that time.
Today the population is only 1700. It’s one of those communities that is just far enough from the city that most wouldn’t want to commute daily, so it’s able to keep its small town charm. I took a drive through it ten years ago to see if I could find our old house, it had been torn down. The town was pretty much as I had remembered it from thirty years prior. There was a kind of comfort in that.
Seeing the vacant lot where the little green and white stucco house and garage once stood, felt odd, I really hoped it would still be standing. I’m not sure how we all fit in that little shack. One of my brothers and I slept on bunk beds in the basement bedroom. We shared the basement with a retaining room for water, which was our water source for the house. I don’t remember where my youngest brother slept, it must have been in my parents room, as he would’ve just been a toddler. The garage wasn’t much more than three walls and doors with a beat up floor. There was a spot up in the rafters you could climb up, then walk across the open 2x4 joists to a covered area where we would hang out. Some how no one ever fell, amazing. We had a huge garden in the summertime, we would pick n go all summer. I have just the faintest memory of a tv, it wasn’t a big part of our day. It’s funny when my kids were younger, they would ask, did you have this show or that show when you were a kid? We didn’t have 24 hour cartoon channels. We had three channels and one didn’t turn on until noon every day.
St. Jean is in a flood zone. The first time dad took us to see the town, was in the spring, and I remember seeing a bridge under water. The town is surrounded by a ring dyke that protects it from overland flooding. Our little house was the second house from the dyke. We saw the water rise pretty high up the side of the dyke in the spring. Once the waters settled back down the river became a place of exploration for us.
Us boys from my street, would pack up a lunch and head out on a hike. On the edge of town, there is a bridge for the train to cross the river that is made out of timber. The wood was treated with oil or something to give it that dark stain look and a smell that still stays with me today. We would head out past the the bridge, climbing over and under it and along the river bank heading out of town. Boys out exploring, blue sky, no sun screen, no cell phones and no worries. The river bank is overgrown with willows, creating a hanging curtain of shimmering green that every once in a while, gives you a peek at the sparkle of the sun shining off the river as you walk by. The grass is tall and dry, grasshoppers spring through the air in front of us as we make our way along. The sound of being there is like nothing anywhere else. The water gurgling and splashing along the bank, willow branches whisper as they move in the breeze, the stirring wings as bugs flee our path, the swishing grasses on our legs and the silence in the air. All that and a warm breeze and the sun on your face through a blue sky. We come across an old building on the edge of a field. It’s outside walls have all greyed from the sun, and the hinges and nails have turned a red brown colour of rust. Inside are spider webs and forgotten artifacts for us to explore, the perfect place for lunch.
The girl that lived next door, her family raised rabbits, and they had a small building just for them. I just realized they probably weren’t raising those rabbits as pets. She was the first girl I French kissed. I’d like to say I already had my moves down back then, but I think she was the one that directed that scene in the hutch.
The boy that lived across the street and I formed the first rock band in St. Jean. We only had one performance, and it was for his mom. He sang, I played drums, well I played cardboard box, but we rocked. We had a transistor radio in the drum, and played along with what ever happened to be on. For our performance, it was The Stampeders. Oh, a transistor radio is like an iPod, except it’s bigger and it’s someone else’s playlist. He had the first ATV I ever saw. It had three wheels and was a whole lot of fun. He had a space behind his house for a track, we spent a lot time back there. The trike had huge tires and we would take turns laying down and driving over each other, and no cell phones to record it.
There was family in town that had three boys, their mom made homemade root beer. I had never had homemade root beer, or have I had it since, and it has alway been what I compare root beer to today. We would be in the front yard practicing our best WWE moves, and she would bring out cucumber sandwiches and cold root beer for us, amazing! It was the best after working on our sleeper moves, body slams, full Nelson’s, and pile drivers on the hard dirt with never an injury, well sometimes an injury, we almost always walked away.
One of the best ever road rashes was from St. Jean. With small towns comes gravel roads. I had a bike that was too big for me and while making a turn, the bike went down with me and I slid along the stones. I scraped my leg from below the knee all the way up to my ribs including my arm. Mom had to wash out the little stones.
Something we don’t see much of in the city, are ditches, in small towns there is no shortage. I don’t know if my kids have ever really experienced a booter. That’s when you walk along the ditches in the fall and spring in rubber boots to test the ice. At some point the ice breaks, or you step in snow covering water and go through, your foot sinks into the ice cold water and rushes over the top of your boot filling it, that's a booter. Then you would end up with this burning red ring around your leg from the top of the rubber boot. Once, we were following snowmobile trails on the river bed in the winter just running along them, we came to a dirt patch and I went to run across it, stepped on the patch and sunk my whole left leg into soft mud. When I pulled my leg out, no boot, and I had to walk back home over the dyke with only one boot on.
St. Jean was where my parents separation started. There was a lot of arguments in that little house. This was also where my rebellious stage in my life started. I once ran away from home then. I took off from school one day, headed out in the world on my own in the winter at about nine years old. I think I was going to the big city of Winnipeg. I didn’t quite make it that far, I was picked up on the highway and taken to the next town, my folks were called and back home I went. Eventually it was determined that I needed someone to talk to, for a little reprogramming or a reset or just a little help on how to deal with the separation. It wasn’t long after that we left the small town for that big city.
I think of those six small towns from time to time and the memories of the kid back then. Could I go back to that life? I like where I’m at now and the life I have.
From 1962 to 1971 we lived in six small towns. I was born in one in northern Manitoba. Saint Jean Baptiste was the last town before we moved to the big city, it’s the one I remember the best for some reason. I have flashes of the others, but there is something about St.Jean that has always stuck with me. This was a town and a time where the kids could play kick the can until dark, where people gave out homemade popcorn balls at Halloween and the neighbors got together to play cards.
The one missing piece is names for some reason, I was never able to hang onto any names, that’s always bothered me, that I couldn’t contact anyone from that time.
Today the population is only 1700. It’s one of those communities that is just far enough from the city that most wouldn’t want to commute daily, so it’s able to keep its small town charm. I took a drive through it ten years ago to see if I could find our old house, it had been torn down. The town was pretty much as I had remembered it from thirty years prior. There was a kind of comfort in that.
Seeing the vacant lot where the little green and white stucco house and garage once stood, felt odd, I really hoped it would still be standing. I’m not sure how we all fit in that little shack. One of my brothers and I slept on bunk beds in the basement bedroom. We shared the basement with a retaining room for water, which was our water source for the house. I don’t remember where my youngest brother slept, it must have been in my parents room, as he would’ve just been a toddler. The garage wasn’t much more than three walls and doors with a beat up floor. There was a spot up in the rafters you could climb up, then walk across the open 2x4 joists to a covered area where we would hang out. Some how no one ever fell, amazing. We had a huge garden in the summertime, we would pick n go all summer. I have just the faintest memory of a tv, it wasn’t a big part of our day. It’s funny when my kids were younger, they would ask, did you have this show or that show when you were a kid? We didn’t have 24 hour cartoon channels. We had three channels and one didn’t turn on until noon every day.
St. Jean is in a flood zone. The first time dad took us to see the town, was in the spring, and I remember seeing a bridge under water. The town is surrounded by a ring dyke that protects it from overland flooding. Our little house was the second house from the dyke. We saw the water rise pretty high up the side of the dyke in the spring. Once the waters settled back down the river became a place of exploration for us.
Us boys from my street, would pack up a lunch and head out on a hike. On the edge of town, there is a bridge for the train to cross the river that is made out of timber. The wood was treated with oil or something to give it that dark stain look and a smell that still stays with me today. We would head out past the the bridge, climbing over and under it and along the river bank heading out of town. Boys out exploring, blue sky, no sun screen, no cell phones and no worries. The river bank is overgrown with willows, creating a hanging curtain of shimmering green that every once in a while, gives you a peek at the sparkle of the sun shining off the river as you walk by. The grass is tall and dry, grasshoppers spring through the air in front of us as we make our way along. The sound of being there is like nothing anywhere else. The water gurgling and splashing along the bank, willow branches whisper as they move in the breeze, the stirring wings as bugs flee our path, the swishing grasses on our legs and the silence in the air. All that and a warm breeze and the sun on your face through a blue sky. We come across an old building on the edge of a field. It’s outside walls have all greyed from the sun, and the hinges and nails have turned a red brown colour of rust. Inside are spider webs and forgotten artifacts for us to explore, the perfect place for lunch.
The girl that lived next door, her family raised rabbits, and they had a small building just for them. I just realized they probably weren’t raising those rabbits as pets. She was the first girl I French kissed. I’d like to say I already had my moves down back then, but I think she was the one that directed that scene in the hutch.
The boy that lived across the street and I formed the first rock band in St. Jean. We only had one performance, and it was for his mom. He sang, I played drums, well I played cardboard box, but we rocked. We had a transistor radio in the drum, and played along with what ever happened to be on. For our performance, it was The Stampeders. Oh, a transistor radio is like an iPod, except it’s bigger and it’s someone else’s playlist. He had the first ATV I ever saw. It had three wheels and was a whole lot of fun. He had a space behind his house for a track, we spent a lot time back there. The trike had huge tires and we would take turns laying down and driving over each other, and no cell phones to record it.
There was family in town that had three boys, their mom made homemade root beer. I had never had homemade root beer, or have I had it since, and it has alway been what I compare root beer to today. We would be in the front yard practicing our best WWE moves, and she would bring out cucumber sandwiches and cold root beer for us, amazing! It was the best after working on our sleeper moves, body slams, full Nelson’s, and pile drivers on the hard dirt with never an injury, well sometimes an injury, we almost always walked away.
One of the best ever road rashes was from St. Jean. With small towns comes gravel roads. I had a bike that was too big for me and while making a turn, the bike went down with me and I slid along the stones. I scraped my leg from below the knee all the way up to my ribs including my arm. Mom had to wash out the little stones.
Something we don’t see much of in the city, are ditches, in small towns there is no shortage. I don’t know if my kids have ever really experienced a booter. That’s when you walk along the ditches in the fall and spring in rubber boots to test the ice. At some point the ice breaks, or you step in snow covering water and go through, your foot sinks into the ice cold water and rushes over the top of your boot filling it, that's a booter. Then you would end up with this burning red ring around your leg from the top of the rubber boot. Once, we were following snowmobile trails on the river bed in the winter just running along them, we came to a dirt patch and I went to run across it, stepped on the patch and sunk my whole left leg into soft mud. When I pulled my leg out, no boot, and I had to walk back home over the dyke with only one boot on.
St. Jean was where my parents separation started. There was a lot of arguments in that little house. This was also where my rebellious stage in my life started. I once ran away from home then. I took off from school one day, headed out in the world on my own in the winter at about nine years old. I think I was going to the big city of Winnipeg. I didn’t quite make it that far, I was picked up on the highway and taken to the next town, my folks were called and back home I went. Eventually it was determined that I needed someone to talk to, for a little reprogramming or a reset or just a little help on how to deal with the separation. It wasn’t long after that we left the small town for that big city.
I think of those six small towns from time to time and the memories of the kid back then. Could I go back to that life? I like where I’m at now and the life I have.
Wednesday 4 April 2018
Basketball 🏀 Parents
Basketball Parents
Our family has been involved in the girls basketball organizations in our area since our daughter was nine, she is now fifteen. She has played in as many as three different leagues in a season and two seasons a year since she started. She played on several different teams for different coaches. This has given us exposure to different cities and venues to play in.
Something we see that doesn’t seem to change from league to league or year to year, is the quality of the refs, the bullying on the court, and the physical aggression.
Our daughter has for the most part always played on teams a year or two older then her, she likes the challenge and goes in knowing that there will be more physical contact. We have seen kids slapped, punched, pushed and pulled on. All of this, right in front of the refs and no calls made. I have had the opportunity to talk to a couple of refs about why some calls are not made. I was told it had to do with time schedules and score leads, both reasons made no sense to me. If you have players making the same errors on the floor, it’s our obligation to take advantage of the opportunity to teach them to be better players, there is also the safety factor to consider. We have seen moving screens where players have been knocked down. We have seen players get knocked to the floor by an opponent that didn’t attempt to get the ball from the ball carrier, in front of the refs, and no foul calls made. When I asked a ref about the aggression, I was told “kids get hurt”: Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for playing hard, but being there with the intension to hurt others, not so much. is it too much to ask that safety and respect a higher priority then the schedule.
We have experienced so many different levels of experience in refs. I’m so in favour of seeing inexperienced refs getting exposure in real game play. What we see often, is one ref that makes most of the calls, while the other runs up and down the court and only uses their whistle to call out of bounds. What ends up happening is calls being made by a ref so far out of the play, that mistakes happen. This frustrates the players and leave confusion in what is and isn’t being called or when. This also means, many fouls are missed or seen by refs that don’t make the calls.
Over the years we are hearing more and more name calling on the court, this has gone past the normal game trash talk. Hearing teen girls calling each other bitch, or the ever effective “C” word or dropping the “F” bomb on each other is disturbing. This has to be something the refs have picked up on and again, this is an opportunity we have to teach our kids respect.
We brought these concerns to the league organization that asked for specific situations where these occurred. When we responded that it was a situation that the league, refs, parents and players, needed to get involved in, they didn’t respond. We have heard of parents contacting league leaders with concerns about team rosters and refs, and received no satisfaction.
In today’s youth basketball and all sports really, as well the zero tolerance in the school systems towards bullying, fair play is promoted and yet this is an environment that has seen little change to improve the interaction and respect between players. League leaders need to start listening to parents and coaches about what they experience and start working with them to find effective solutions. Change is only going to happen when the leagues, refs, coaches, parents and players work together.
Our family has been involved in the girls basketball organizations in our area since our daughter was nine, she is now fifteen. She has played in as many as three different leagues in a season and two seasons a year since she started. She played on several different teams for different coaches. This has given us exposure to different cities and venues to play in.
Something we see that doesn’t seem to change from league to league or year to year, is the quality of the refs, the bullying on the court, and the physical aggression.
Our daughter has for the most part always played on teams a year or two older then her, she likes the challenge and goes in knowing that there will be more physical contact. We have seen kids slapped, punched, pushed and pulled on. All of this, right in front of the refs and no calls made. I have had the opportunity to talk to a couple of refs about why some calls are not made. I was told it had to do with time schedules and score leads, both reasons made no sense to me. If you have players making the same errors on the floor, it’s our obligation to take advantage of the opportunity to teach them to be better players, there is also the safety factor to consider. We have seen moving screens where players have been knocked down. We have seen players get knocked to the floor by an opponent that didn’t attempt to get the ball from the ball carrier, in front of the refs, and no foul calls made. When I asked a ref about the aggression, I was told “kids get hurt”: Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for playing hard, but being there with the intension to hurt others, not so much. is it too much to ask that safety and respect a higher priority then the schedule.
We have experienced so many different levels of experience in refs. I’m so in favour of seeing inexperienced refs getting exposure in real game play. What we see often, is one ref that makes most of the calls, while the other runs up and down the court and only uses their whistle to call out of bounds. What ends up happening is calls being made by a ref so far out of the play, that mistakes happen. This frustrates the players and leave confusion in what is and isn’t being called or when. This also means, many fouls are missed or seen by refs that don’t make the calls.
Over the years we are hearing more and more name calling on the court, this has gone past the normal game trash talk. Hearing teen girls calling each other bitch, or the ever effective “C” word or dropping the “F” bomb on each other is disturbing. This has to be something the refs have picked up on and again, this is an opportunity we have to teach our kids respect.
We brought these concerns to the league organization that asked for specific situations where these occurred. When we responded that it was a situation that the league, refs, parents and players, needed to get involved in, they didn’t respond. We have heard of parents contacting league leaders with concerns about team rosters and refs, and received no satisfaction.
In today’s youth basketball and all sports really, as well the zero tolerance in the school systems towards bullying, fair play is promoted and yet this is an environment that has seen little change to improve the interaction and respect between players. League leaders need to start listening to parents and coaches about what they experience and start working with them to find effective solutions. Change is only going to happen when the leagues, refs, coaches, parents and players work together.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)