Another Adventure With Grandma

I went to my best friend's cottage for a few days, with the Bean and the Humvee in tow. This is what I learned:
1. Women who elect to have children in their fifties are seriously flawed (stupid, naive, two bricks short, maybe more). There's a reason the baby works close down pretty much on their own at this age. We should never fool with Mother Nature. Ever.
2.The ability to make horrendous piecrust is not inherited. My Mom made great piecrust. I, who can make/bake pretty much anything, cannot make a piecrust to save my life. In fact it may be declared a weapon of mass destruction. My daughter however, can make piecrust to rival my Mom's. And her fig and whiskey pie is the best.
3. Vegetarianism is a learned behaviour. When cooking for/with my daughter who is vegetarian. Who would miss the meat with things like a mushroom lasagne with dried lobster and porcini mushrooms, and fresh shiotaki, white, cremini and oyster mushrooms combined with two pounds of cheese? Or the lightest of home made ricotta gnocchi with fresh mozzarella and a delectable tomato sauce?
4. Advanced verbal skills do not mean advanced reasoning skills. It's sometimes hard to remember that the Humvee is short of 2. However, I am trying hard to figure out why this is also true of many adults I know.
5. Grandma of the Year? Won't likely be me. Locked the kid out of the house earlier this year, then left him on his own while his Mom was in the outhouse. See # 1.
6. Deerflies and kids don't mix. Particularly true of adult children.
7. A sunny "Hi Grandma!" will always rock my world!
Until we meet in the GWN, provided I retrieve my computer in Yellowknife. Look it up.
Salud!

Arctic Antics

1. I'm Just Wild About Harry: That's our Jack of all trades at Cambridge Bay. Said to me one morning after what I thought was a successful struggle with my hair gel : "What happened to your hair?" Gee, thanks?

2. Where's Waldo? Okay, where's my computer? There is an advantage to owning essentially three computers even though I am by myself. Because when stupidity sets in and you leave your computer in the overhead bin of a stupid small plane chartered by stupid Canadian North because their stupid big 737 wasn't working, then you have something to fall back on.
3. Non Service With a Smile: I remembered my computer while waiting in the security line up in Yellowknife. Went to the airline counter. No one from Canadian North would go across to the Arctic West hangar to retrieve it, neither would the Arctic folks deliver it. Oddly, they never contacted Canadian North about it, you know, when they had two hours to deliver it across the parking lot to Canadian North. I was told to pick it up at the airport the next time I was in town, which fortunately will be July 2nd. But what if I never returned? Then what? I was left wishing my Guatemalan guide and finder of lost articles had been with me. He'd have gotten it back for me.
4. Celebrating Granny's Death: Results in a broken beer bottle to the chin and a stitching job from me. Granny would be proud.
5. I'm Telling Dad on You: Said by same patient when he realized (because I told him) that his brother was taking pictures of the whole process with his smart phone. The stitchee was 37 years old.

6. Man's Best Friend? Rabies up there in the Arctic, who would have thought? Gave out more immunizations due to possible rabies exposure than for regular child hood diseases. Didn't touch one doggie myself. It's in the fox population up there.
7. Underneath All That Ice: Is rock and stones. Lichen and some short little plants, but otherwise it's a kind of hilly moon scape. What plant life there is will bloom sometime in July. Otherwise, no trees, no bushes, George W. or otherwise.
8. Land of The Midnight Sun: So what Einstein didn't use black out blinds in the original design? I re-did the windows, design by Reynolds. Wrap. As in tin foil. Maybe they built the place when the 24 darkness was still hanging about.

Look out, Tiger!

9, Search and Rescue: Golfing term up here. Because you can't see the ball among the rocks and stones. But hey, it's free!
10. The Happy Hooker: Okay, not really. "Are you married?" "Uh, no." " Do you wanna go to the Elks and hook up with someone?" "Uh, no."  The nurse that runs the STI program overheard the conversation and graciously offered to go with me since she knows who has what disease. Uh, no.
11. Non Service With a Smile Part 2: The flight out of Cambridge Bay was delayed by almost 2 hours, and instead of the 737 they sent the aforementioned Dash 8, aka the stupid small plane. So those folks with connections in Edmonton missed them. And had to fork out for their own hotels there. Why? Because they weren't booked with Canadian North the rest of the way. Hellooo! Canadian North doesn't go anywhere else through the provinces. And with a ticket cost that could fly me around the world, you would think they would offer some compensation because their equipment basically sucks. Several times weekly, apparently, which saw me stuck in another community when the incoming nurses were stranded in Yellowknife because of faulty planes.

A great supply for Charlie Brown's Halloween.

12. My Little Cabin in The Woods: Up in the Arctic, they don't go into the bush. They go to the rock. The residents all have little cabins or shacks out of town, to get away from it all. Except they already live in the rocks in the middle of no where. Go figure.
13. Do You Know Where Your Children Are? I bet a lot of folks up there don't When I was returning to the residence at 3 AM in broad daylight, I noticed groups of young teenagers and kids plying the streets. Put some foil on the bedroom windows and put them to bed, I say.
14. $13.99: The price of a small jar of peanut butter.
15. $295: The price of handmade sealskin gloves. I'm still thinking. They have to be kept in the freezer, otherwise they shed.

Condo?

16. $330,000: The asking price for a 3 bedroom condo in Cambridge Bay. We are not talking the Marilyn Monroe buildings we have in Mississauga. Contrary to what one would expect in an isolated part of the world, housing is very expensive.
17. Shopping While Working: As the new kid in town, everday, someone would pass by my office and try to sell me stuff, from zipper pulls fashioned like miniature boots, all beaded and made of seal, to miniature Inukshuks. The Inukshuk won, it now accompanies my Taino moon goddess outside my apartment.
18. On Golden Pond: I asked about where they dump the sewage after it is sucked out of the septic tanks. In a big pit near the dump. Untreated. Ick.
I am back home now, although for me, it's as the song goes, wherever I lay my hat. Except I hate wearing one. I guess it's wherever I park my butt. One week from now, I will hopefully pick up my computer in Yellowknife on the journey to Kugluktuk. I hope the lichens and ground covers are blooming, or whatever lichens and ground covers do. And I am still on the search for a wild musk ox.
Salud!

Adventures With Grandma

Bless her heart, the Bean asked me to babysit the Humvee one evening last week. We all went out for dinner first, then to her neighbours' for dessert, meeting up with two other couples as well. It wasn't THAT long ago that I was in their shoes (was it?). After a Bud Lime and a game of tag with the neighbours' dog, and a recap of where things were, the Bean and her gang took off, and the Humvee and I retired to the house. His little red shoe was undone, so I decided to remove his shoes, it was almost 9 PM so it would be time for a story, a glass of milk and bed. One would have thought I was killing him. My little Humvee started wailing and threw himself on the floor. I told him that I didn't understand crying (liar) and that he needed to tell me what he wanted. "Shoes. Walk." "Can you say please?" "Pease."
Little kids are certainly a test of manual dexterity for us middle aged folks. I pretty much had his laces completely out and the shoes deconstructed before I could squish his feet in. He was highly amused, and giggled away. With hands held, and goofy goldie in tow, we toddled off to the park for a quick go at the swings. Dash doesn't like holding hand too much, but I made him. I told him it wasn't an option. Then, "What did I say?" "Not option." Good. We had a marvelous time, returned to the house just after 9:30, it was pretty dark, but everyone was happy. Until....
I discovered we were locked out of the house. In my old house, and at certain friends' homes, the knob lock is engaged for short outings. At my daughter's house, one has to use the deadbolt, to which I have a key. You would think that after having to have Brianne's neighbour Sean slink through the kitchen window last year when I had locked the wrong lock the first time, I would have known which lock to use. But no. And like all good Grandmas, I swiftly used the "S" word, softly, but not so softly that the Humvee didn't hear. He was happily dancing on the grass, uttering the expletive in a sing songy voice with each step he took.
Aha! The cell phone with the kids' cell number you say. Aha! Locked in the house too. An open window? Nope. Neighbours with keys? They were out with the Bean and Ian. So I uttered a few more expletives in my mind while I put the dog in the back yard. What to do.
Checked in on the neighbours' neighbours. Light and voices emanated from within. Finally an opened door after three trials of knocking.  I politely asked for a phone, child in arms. "No phone." Door shut. No soup for you. Off we shuffled to another set of neighbours about six doors down. The inside door was open. Knocked twice. No answer. To the neighbours on the other side of the Bean. No luck. As I was trudging to a local mall with an increasingly tired little Humvee, my saviour appeared. A gentleman going for a drive. I pounced on him before he got into the car, and begged a phone from him. Obligingly, he returned with a phone and a pen and paper. I think I woke Ian's Dad, and when I asked him for Ian's phone number, he said "Which one?" He has 4 or 5. He eventually texted Ian our little dilemma along with the phone number where I was. The gentleman's wife came out, and offered the couch for me and a blankie for the sleepy Humvee, who happily stretched out on it. But, no call back. So I called the number that Ian's Dad texted. "The person you are calling is not available. Please try your call again later." Another mindful expletive. Eureka! I knew where they were! The gentleman googled "The Ranch", and in no time, I was babbling at the hostess: "...and I locked the wrong door and  how could I have been so stupid a second time and no neighbours were around until I came upon this one, and how could I have been so stupid and can you look for my daughter and how could I have been so stupid and my son in law and how could I have been so extraordinarily dumb?"  It was 11 PM by the time I put the baby to bed. The Humvee, not me. I hope they will still let me take him to Disney World someday. They use passcards in most hotels these days.

Wherever I lay my hat, that's my home. Which may be the front lawn when I'm with Grandma.

Salud!

And Now, Some News From the South

1. Do you know the way to San Jose? Thank goodness for drivers with signs. Didn't have to worry about orange taxis or red taxis, I could never keep them straight. But I had to tip the little Tico guy who thought it would be fruitful if he yelled out the name of the hotel for me to find my ride. He didn't know that I had a set of lungs. He did know that I had a wad of cash. At almost double his size, I was more than perfectly capable of wheeling my own carry on. And crushing him into oblivion. But then I thought, he could end up being a beggar. He was happy, enthusiastic, and was trying to do something to earn his keep. I gave him a tip when he yelled out the hotel name. He seemed genuinely pleased, and knew well that no more cash was coming. But he wheeled the luggage regardless.
2. After a night at the beautiful La Rosa de America, we flew to Puerto Jimenez in the Osa Peninsula. It only took two tries. Lovely little Cessna revved up and started speeding down the runway. Then the pilot hit the brakes, thankfully before the end of the runway and the near by mountains. Apparently not enough power. So feeling like lemmings, we were herded off until another airplane could be inspected and readied, and fortunately, there just happened to be one there. We were off in almost no time.

No funciona.

3.Love is in the air. And the swimming pool. El Remanso does not use chemicals in the pool. The water comes form local surroundings and is tested until perfect. Unfortunately, most conventional and unconventional tests aren't looking for frog semen. Which a few randy couples were enthusiastically providing nightly. Under the guise of playng "Leap Frog." Or more precisely, "Jump Frog."

The result of an eco pool.

This would be your fer de lance.

4. A fer de lance a day keeps Tommy away. So sayeth Florida Tom. We had already seen a couple of these venomous snakes at El Remanso while accompanied by our guide, Gerardo. Taking a camera safari while I was trying not to kill my horse (why do they always give me the little horses?), Florida Tom spotted a fer de lance in his pathway on the return back to the meeting spot. The snake wouldn't budge.Not wanting to test the reflexes of the critter, or be the answer to the question "How poisonous is it?" Fla. Tom returned via the river bank, found the vehicle gone, and started walking back to the resort, figuring that the Land Rover had gone back and would return for us later, and would pick him up along the way. Eventually, a local took pity on him and dropped him off at the resort. The unfortunate thing was, our driver and vehicle had gone in the opposite direction as one of the resort workers was practicing her driving skills. When I finished my ride, they were waiting for me without Tom, so we became quite concerned. After 2 searches on the trails, we were approached by the pony express of the area - Rinaldo on a dirt bike - and told that Florida Tom was back at the resort. It was a double rum that calmed my heart down after that. Okay, I don't really need an excuse for a double rum, with a twist of lime. It was just the right thing to do.
5. Miami Airport. Again. Can I learn to hate you even more? You bet!

Waiting for the lemmings on the other side.

Poas volcano. Cliff of choice.

The Immigration line was okay, the nice man let me be American and even pointed out where the shortest line was, around the corner. I thought Florida Tom was right behind me, which he was at first. It was so hard to tell which line was shortest, so we separated. I ended up in the short line, he was in a line that was initially just a couple of lemmings longer than mine, but due to foreign lemming eye scans and paw prints, he pretty much stayed in one place while I was herded on, even ordered to jump in front of the wheelchair lemming by the Immigration Hawk, once I was deemed an acceptable lemming, and I followed the rest of the lemmings down to the baggage hall. Not to pick up luggage, as I had only carry on, but to hand my blue card to one of two more Immigration Hawks at the front of the very long lemming line ups. Then I had to follow the yellow dots, to where I didn't need to go. A friendly American Airlines rep directed me around the corner and up to level 2. I went to the first checkpoint, but that was reserved for baby lemmings and their handlers. I was sent to the next check point. Wrong section - it is divided into two sections - first class lemmings, and econo lemmings, so off to econo lemmings I skittered. Looking at the line ups for both, I saw no difference. The extra cost for first class apparently means nothing on a busy night. And why the long back up? Because every freaking lemming was being funneled through the total lemming scanner. You have to stand just so, lots of furry bellies jutting out. And if you don't stand just so, Security will make you stand just so. As opposed to just walking through the thing that dings. There is a first class lemming scanner, and an econo lemming scanner. Both are equally inefficient. In the long lines surrounding me, I guess I was a blessed lemming. I got to my boarding gate fifteen minutes before the posted boarding time. A lot of lemmings wanted to find a cliff, having missed their flights. When Security felt sorry for the bleating lemmings, if lemmings bleat, they would open up a walk through scanner for only 3 or 4 of the bleating lemmings. Then, even though there were about 150 lemmings still in each of the first class lemming and econo lemming line ups looking for a cliff, Security would re-funnel them through the total lemming scanners. I never saw Tom after the initial Immigration line up, I found out the next day that he hadn't jumped off the cliff. He only had to drive home from Miami, since, as Florida Tom, he lives in Florida.

Now, Costa Rica is off the Bucket List.



                 Salud!

A Little More From the North.

Red Green Special. What is it?

So here I sit in the sardine tin that is Timmins airport. At least they have beer, seeing as I was in a "dry" community for 6 weeks, at least for us.
I am amazed at the people I have worked with, from the front staff to my nursing buddies. I always manage to wedge myself in so that I feel like one of the team, but in Attawapiskat, they were the shoe horn that helped me fit.
I have discovered a new task I dislike. Toenail clipping. If your problem is that you can't reach them, but your nails are normal, then I am okay. However, if they are an inch past their due date where even an axe would have a hard time getting through that material, then I am not your girl. Had bits of toenail flying through the air with the greatest of ease, and some of it landing in my rat's nest of hair. I had the willies going to bed that night.
Until I saw one of those big black spiders that bite scurry underneath my door, into my room. Then the willies had the company of the heebie jeebies, and for yet another night, sleep eluded me. I had found one of the aforementioned arachnids in the recliner chair with me. He is now sitting in the septic system with the oatmeal that I had been soaking in the fridge.

I am convinced only dogs like oatmeal.

 I really thought this time I was going to learn to love my oatmeal. Ate it twice. Sent some with the spider, and gave the remainder of the dry stuff to one of the nurses who likes to feed the dogs. They eat anything. The dogs, not the nurses. Well, maybe the nurses too, depending on what it is.
One of my greatest displeasures with this job is doing PAP tests. Why? Because most of the women I see have something funky going on down there. It's enough to make me a born again virgin.

And I got news for you ladies out there. If your hubby started out with 10 condoms at the beginning of the week and you only have 4 left, but you only "did it" twice, once with a blue one and once with a yellow one (we're not that boring up here), and you now have an STD, well, you just don't need a phD to figure that one out.

Winter.

Mud.

Why do kids like sticking peas up their noses? Just wondering.
 Returning home to Toronto from Attawapiskat was like going to Florida from Toronto, in the winter. All right, Toronto didn't really have a winter this year, but those of us old enough remember those days know what I am talking about. And here I returned to green, green, green, with crabapple trees resplendent with sweet blossoms, and fields bursting with sunny dandelions. Now dandelions might not make your day, but after leaving mud and snow and grey, they are certainly a welcome sight.

Break up.

For my one week home, I have a myriad things to do. The dentist, whom I saw yesterday. While I have been proclaimed healthy mouthwise, it was not until after my gums were poked and prodded and made to feel like raw liver. Apparently I passed the bleed test. You passed my self control test. Where I wanted to sock you in the eye each time you stabbed that pointy thing in my gums. Fortunately for you, I knew my hand to your eye coordination would be off while you were sitting behind me.

The hair dresser made everything better. At least until I see the GP tomorrow and will likely be told I need to lose weight. Again. Then, a course on Friday and Saturday that I have taken before and have to update.  And the eye doctor on Monday, all the better to see what's lurking in throats, ears and, ick, cervices (cervixes?), with.

Salud!

                                       

A Few Tales From the North

The Graffiti artists should have been in school. Attawapiskat.

The Boys in Blue brought someone to the clinic the other night, just to be checked over. They needed  my name and date of birth for their report. I told them 1982. For some reason, I didn't get away with it.

Winter

We have a lovely machine here in the clinic pharmacy that prints labels for our prescriptions. I was giving a lady some Flagyl, and typed the directions as follows: "Take 2 tablets BID until finished. Do not drink alc." I had used up all the character space, so alcohol would not show up in its entirety on the screen. What printed out was this: "Take 2 tablets twice daily until finished. Do not drink in the left ear." Yeah, I know. I didn't get it either. I thought I saw Godzilla somewhere outside the window, made me wonder where I was for a minute. Cancelled that label.

Mud season. Okay, so it's a pot hole.

There are really just two seasons up here: winter, and, mud and dust. Winter is pretty much over. It still freezes at night. Then the sun comes out and melts all the water in the pot holes and beyond, giving way to some pretty serious glue for your boots. I bought wellies up here, leopard printed ones, but just one good dry day, and all that water will dry up. The roads aren't paved in any of these communities, so what you have now is dust. And there is a Murphy's Law that says, no matter which side of the road you are walking on, or which direction the wind is blowing, the dust kicked up by the ATVs, the SUVs, pick ups and latent snow mobiles, will always be directed at you. The wind is funky like that up here. The dust is the sunflower of the pedestrian world, always following and settling on those who deem to put one foot in front of the other in a town where vehicles rule, even though you can circumnavigate it in 20 minutes or so. Then it rains, and it is mud all over again. Or it freezes, and winter is temporarily back.

Dust in the wind.

When I was in school, we were overjoyed when it was announced we would get a March break. I don't remember getting 2 weeks at Christmas, but then I also thought I was born in 1982. And of course, summer vacation. Up here, things are a little different. In addition to the March break and the two weeks at Christmas, there is Goose Break. Which is now. Folks go hunting in the bush for two weeks. In other communities, there is  also the week long Moose Break, in the fall portion of the mud and dust season. I would imagine this community has that too, although moose aren't in great abundance here. That's because the moose knows what happens to the goose, so he just doesn't show up for the party.
So now I have been a week without the internet. I have bug eyes, my hair is greyer. Much like everyone else in this town. The air is blue with collective F-sharps cried out in abundance daily. Why is it in the poorest countries of the world that I have visited as long as I have electricity, I have the internet? And in developed CANADA, I have gone as much as a month before connections could be fixed?

And of course, there is nothing like a puppy to make it all better.

A Spoonful of What??

This guy had nothing on me. He never got the onions either.

I used to listen to a radio show every Sunday morning while driving to church, and then on to see my Mom. It was a Toronto paediatrician giving advice to all the parents out there at loose ends. He would say you will never win a fight with a child when it comes to food. Or much of anything you try to put in their mouths. Then I think back to my childhood. I would have a nasty hacking, spitting, sputtering chest cold. The kind that as we got older garnered me the nickname of "Honky the Christmas Goose". In the middle of the night, I would practically heave a lung into the mattress, my head covered tightly, in my estimation, by two pillows. And then I would hear the footsteps down the hall, the flick of the kitchen light, the sound of what seemed like a hand saw going through a log. Okay, I was young. The clink of a spoon against that little porcelain fruit nappie. It had a particular clink, different from all the other bowls. And then the footsteps treading ever so softly towards my room. I would hold my breath. See, I'm not coughing anymore, until I would explode into a cacophony of gurgles and rasps and, yuck, mucus. On with the light, and my Ma would magically appear, with her secret weapon, when the Benalyn with codeine (my favourite) had failed. Onion juice. A magical elixir of onions grated finely on that side of the cheese grater. Mixed with a spoonful of honey and a squeeze of lemon juice to make it taste better. As if. And even though the tears would be streaming down my face, I swallowed that stuff without a fight, because my Ma knew best. My brother and I respected her that way. And magically, the cough would disappear, and we would all sleep again. Fast forward to when I had a child of my own. Oh how I swore I would never torture her the way I was tortured, with raw onions. Ick. And they made so many better tasting cough preparations that worked better, didn't they? But one night, after a couple of very long, exasperating nights, that cough continued unabated. So I pulled out that grater, and that onion and the honey and the lemon. And while my daughter absolutely detested the stuff as much as I had, she swallowed it too, because she knew I knew best. And all was well.

Big hat, big brain, 'cause this Mama knows best.

So these days, we have all sorts of lovely antibiotics to give kids, with flavours like banana and raspberry. But the difference is, kids don't respect that their parents know best. I had a youngster in the clinic, and she was allergic to the banana flavoured stuff. So I had to give her the raspberry flavoured stuff, a different antibiotic. And she dutifully spat it out. Gave the syringe to Mom to give to her, and she spat it out some more. Then I was asked to give her the banana stuff, the one she was allergic to, because she doesn't like this one. After a couple of more tries (not the banana one) by Mom, I, the big mean nurse, forced her mouth open, shot the stuff into the back where she couldn't spit it out, held her mouth closed just for a second. Down and done. If looks could kill. Well, if Mama didn't know best, the nurse certainly did.

And that was my week.