the other end of the spectrum, musically speaking

my favourite piece of music in all the world

Winnipeg

So I have spent the past week in Winnipeg, taking an interesting course for work.

Things I found out about Winnipeg:

• The course participants from the smaller centres outside Winnipeg told me that they never go downtown. When I mentioned my plan to walk downtown Friday afternoon and go to the museum and possibly the symphony, universal horror was expressed.
  
• Downtown Winnipeg is not as dire as predicted. There were drunks in the library, true, but the museum was amazing and nobody tried to mug me/sell me drugs/solicit me on my walk back and forth.
  
• The fog is like a second skin.
  
• Everyone talks about the traffic. The main topic of conversation (other than asking me questions about the north) was how long it took to drive certain places, and what the traffic was like. And there is a lot of traffic, and it tries to run you over. There was a hit and run Friday night.
  
• The Winnipeg Symphony performs regularly – except for this weekend – and I can't even remember why I thought it did. Calendrical dyslexia of some kind.
  
• The Red Lobster on Portage doesn't serve vegetables. And when they ask you if you want them to Lobster-size your margarita, they don't mention they're going to serve it in a fishbowl. Two or three fish could have had pretty decent lives in there. I mean, if it wasn't full of tequila. I should add that I wasn't drinking alone, four others from the course invited me there to celebrate, when the course was over and we all passed.
  
• When I inquired about the possibility of seeing interesting sights, nobody had any suggestions. I'm not sure why that was. Also I could not get an answer about Winnipeg's population.
  

I think that when I was twelve years old we passed through Winnipeg on our way to Quebec. I seem to remember seeing the Legislature before. It looks pretty much like Edmonton's. From where I was standing today.

Nowhere that I walked was like the Lower East Side in Vancouver, and I was kind of expecting it based on the horrified comments previous. Everyone on the streets was retaining consciousness, I didn't see any homeless citizens lying on benches in sleeping bags or pushing shopping carts full of cherished belongings. I was not once asked for change or a light or a smoke. I don't know if I maybe didn't go into the bad places or if I was there and it just wasn't that scary. Ok, no, I lie – I was asked for change – by a teenager who got off a school bus, right outside Headquarters.

I stayed in barracks at HQ and that was a bit strange. Especially sleeping in an office building where people are working – there are bedrooms but no motel-ish amenities like a coffee maker and I do count on a coffee maker for late night hot drinks - I ended up using a paper cup and heating tea water in it in the microwave in the coffee room on the second floor. At 10pm, in my Evil Bunny pyjamas. Had to drink it fast, though, because the heat melted some of the glue from the cup's seams and the tea started to drip out the bottom pretty quickly. Breakfast and lunch were provided, and they were cafeteria style. The soup was not bad, except for the cream of mushroom on Wednesday which I think was wallpaper paste with some mushrooms. Breakfast, of course, was eggs every day – but there was yogurt and cereal. So I did ok for food. Some of the other ladies who ate the 'pork on a bun' and such for lunches were a bit disparaging. I had soup and carrot sticks every day so as not to fall asleep in class.

We were invited upstairs to the central Manitoba dispatch for an hour on Wednesday afternoon, and one of the dispatchers let me plug in a head set and listen to calls – fascinating.

The sun came out for a while late Friday afternoon, but other than that there was a pervasive, sticky fog for the whole week. It was a bit like being misted by one of those bottles used for tropical houseplants. Can't really call it wet, but you know there's water in the air. The snow that's left here is lying around in dirty piles and melting into gritty puddles. But it was lovely to walk around outside without a hat and gloves – I'd forgotten about them until I saw them in the bottom of my empty suitcase when I started packing to go back to Edmonton. I walked back and forth to Chapters at Polo Park a couple of times, the first time I went I bought three books but then read them by Thursday night so I went back again after Red Lobster. I also took myself to the movies. There was a little internal arguing over the film choice – When in Rome or The Crazies - but I settled that with a big bag of mini eggs to make up for picking the silly movie. I had some trouble relating to the movie – the heroine (whose name escapes me) looked about twelve, and I thought to myself, "Yeah, right, honey, you're not old enough to be in love".

When I woke up Saturday morning, to get ready to go to the airport, I was lying in bed thinking about how lucky I am. I have the best job in the world, for an organization that, despite what you see on the news, has a corporate culture of valuing hard work and listening to new ideas, and my family is getting more and more self-sufficient, freeing me to participate in all the aspects of my work.

On Monday the 22^nd I'm leaving again. Going to Edmonton to prepare for my trip to Nepal.

Being dust

It's Lent, and I suppose I should give something up - but I'm thinking of my trip to Nepal as something of a pilgrimage, so I just plan to continue my preparations. I try to keep to the Glycemic Index diet as much as possible (lots of oatmeal and rice and vegetables, not much sugar or fat) and I'm still working out a fair bit.

I thought it was going to be my turn to do church next week, but it turns out we have a real minister coming to visit so I'm off the hook. It's a lot of work to plan a service and write a sermon that is even vaguely meaningful. I think the church-leading aspect of things is one of the most surprising, in my stay here. I think I went to church maybe twice in the seven years I lived in Nanaimo, although I did do a lot of reading. I did the Ash Wednesday service this week - Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Unfortunately the heat wasn't working, so it was a very quick and chilly service. My breath made clouds in the air and made it hard to read the words.

There's something about this place that makes it seem reasonable to pray. Something about being so much in the quiet of my own mind, and with friends and family, without the constant pressure of cities and roads and malls. I find I'm beginning to accept mortality, because I'm accepting my place in the universe. I am tiny, frail, easily chilled, easily stilled, I will die and it will be as it always has been. It's comforting, in a strange sense. I don't know if I'm explaining it properly. It's more a waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night feeling than anything else. I have accepted a lot more things about myself, living here, than I ever did living anywhere else. I can't change who I am.

The dog is sitting on the couch, next to me, he keeps being alarmed by snowmobiles outside. Rachel is in her room, Miguel's gone curling, Ian's at work, and we put Kirsten and Jordan on the plane today, off to the next phase of their lives. It's going to be very quiet without them. They will both be back in the summer, but then Ian and Rachel are likely going to cadet camp. I have just had the last week of family togetherness, with it being reading week, and it was lovely, but it'll be a while until it happens again.

Except for last weekend when we had the church AGM on Sunday, I have worked pretty much every single day since New Years, on various projects for other sections, finished the last one yesterday. Hence the silence here. In a month I'll be leaving for Nepal. So there will likely be more silence then. I've contemplated taking this down, but I still like to think it's here, so I'll leave it.

sun

I'm anxious for the sun to come back...

Someone today said it's four more days. My plants are tired of being shuffled under the grow lamp, they want the real thing. I'm tired of being sleepy all afternoon and evening because it's dark, and then finding myself wide awake at 3am for no apparent reason.

Rock Band

So we welcomed in the New Year, Kirsten and Rachel and I, by doing the vocals for the Endless Setlist on Rock Band - all 84 songs, all in a row. I have to do all the songs that came out before about 1995, which includes some Journey, the Go-Go's, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Idol, Alanis Morrisette (my favourite - You Oughta Know) and some other random stuff, but Kirsten really did the majority of them. Rachel does a wicked "Psycho Killer" and Miguel came and did Aqualung because I hate that song. Ian did a couple where singing wasn't necessary, just rhythmic talking, and he made up zombie words for them.

I'm not actually trying to claim this as any sort of an accomplishment. The guys at work just raised their eyebrows at me when I said we'd spent all New Year's Day playing Rock Band. I was happy the girls asked me to help, and it was fun to do together. I like to dance while I'm singing, but they don't seem to mind.

When the kids first got their Rock Band, I was sitting in the living room and I was singing along while they tried to do "You Can Go Your Own Way" and were failing (the little indicator turns red) and they gave me the microphone. And then at regular intervals after that I'd walk in and they'd say, "Oh, good, you're here, do you know this one?" And I'd sing for them while they played their pretend instruments. Really, I never thought knowing all the words to "White Wedding" would get me any points with my kids.

It has been a good holiday, other than some difficulties with medications - they're still trying to find the balance for me, and I'm finding that tiring. On Thursday they put me back on one that I don't like because it makes me dizzy and spacey. (Dizzier and spacier than usual, I should say).

Peace Train

In the course of this last week or so, I got medevaced. Long story short, I had a dizzy spell at work on the Thursday before last, and the medications I was given for high blood pressure caused my heartrate to slow down. The nurses were alarmed, as my blood pressure was also still high. Personally I felt perfectly normal, but it seems I'm no judge of that.

So last Saturday when I went to get my blood pressure checked, within minutes I was lying in the back room at the health centre here, hooked up to IV and monitors, and the nurse came in and stuck a defibrillator on me, she said "Just in case". And then she went off down the hall and I lay there and thought, well, what if this is it? And I found that I wasn't so concerned about the dying part but more about the possibility of pain. Was it going to hurt when they defibrillated me?

I know that this earthly life is short. I had hoped it wouldn't be quite so short.

I said a little prayer for myself, and it went something like this: "I don't usually ask for things for me, God, but I'm kinda needing your help here. Could you just keep my heart beating until the nurses can figure this out? Thanks."

I asked one of the nurses to call Miguel, and Miguel came to sit with me, and he didn't seem too concerned.

There was a song stuck in my head that day, too. Cat Stevens' "Peace Train," because Jann Arden did a cover of it on her album that I bought last week.

Now I've been smiling lately,

thinking about the good things to come

And I believe it could be,

something good has begun

And something in the back of my mind was very calm. All the while that the doctors and nurses were poking needles in me and sticking nitroglycerine patches on me and trying to figure out how to make my heart beat normally, I was just kind of watching. The ambulance came for me, they loaded me onto a stretcher with a sleeping bag, the kids had brought me the necessities – clean underwear, my purse, Frederick the frog I sleep with – in a pink backpack. Rachel was very concerned. I told her it would all be fine. Then they took me to the Lear Jet and off we went. It was a smooth ride and within minutes of landing in Yellowknife I was being unpacked in the Emergency room. They hooked me back up to the monitors and started making all the same noises the nurses at home had been making. They got out more nitroglycerine patches and handfuls of medication. I swallowed everything they gave me.

And I lay for a long time in the Emergency room, alone because you can't take a friend on the medevac, and a long time in a bed on the ward overnight, and then for another long time the next day waiting to be discharged. I sat cross-legged on the bed in the ward and looked out the window, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I spent a couple of hours just gazing at the trees with the snow on them and the sky with its clouds swirling around and thinking, "I'm so happy to be here to look at this beautiful day."

I know that I usually take my health and continued living for granted. I think it's kind of funny that I didn't feel anything wrong, other than a little bit of dizziness, I was assuming that all was well and I was continuing to work and carry on as normal. I have three beautiful children, and I take that for granted, too. Sometimes I feel as if I've always had them. We hadn't even been married for long, there was no questioning, like my brothers got, about why we weren't having kids. People had just gotten over exclaiming that we got married so young, and then we were having Kirsten.

I don't want to give the impression that I am overly humble. The reason I don't usually pray for myself is that I don't usually need anything. I'm healthy, happy, not in need – my prayers are for those I love and care for and meet in passing, those whose lives are in emergency, often criminal matters are overwhelming them, be it theirs or family members – someone on the phone this week said to me, "Welcome back. We were praying for you." And I found that strange.

My family's not real big on praying. My mother went through a spiritual emergency when her sister died, and decided that there could be no God. If she feels that she needs someone praying for, she tends to phone me and say, "Can you just pray for such-and-such, I know you're into that kind of thing." Sort of like two parents who are fighting, my mother and God tend to to do that "tell her," 'tell him' thing. I always gravely agree to pray.

.

what I did today

had a shower with the lavender shower gel Crabtree and Evelyn Niagara sent me, yay
went to see how the new carpet was in the church
went to the store to buy gum because I've been eating Dave's at work and I owe him gum
did some work while I was there because some requests for work came late and need to be finished up
worked out - this is going well and I can do a 10 minute mile which I know is pathetic but it's the best I've done since... oh, 1985.
ate my pea soup that I made from the thanksgiving ham bone. mmmm.
went back to the church with all the teenagers and moved the furniture that was displaced by the new carpet being laid
cleaned my house - including wiping the handprints off the staircase walls. if you visit my house, keep your hands to yourself on the stairs...
we had to listen to Rachel's Ipod while we were cleaning because my computer is pretending to be dead, so it was Lady GaGa and Panic at the Disco! for the chore soundtrack
made naan bread and chicken tikka masala and tandoori scallops for dinner
ate same and it was very good

now I've got a blues programme on CBC and everyone's off doing other things. might make some tea. all in all a very satisfying day, in a domestic kind of way.

flashback

Social Services called on Wednesday and asked if we'd take a five-year-old girl for the weekend. Miguel is in Edmonton, so I said, sure.

I'd forgotten about five-year-olds. I mean, it's nine years since Rachel was that age. I'd forgotten about Play-doh and little fingers going through everything and hot chocolate with straws and what do you want for dinner? - Pancakes. What do you want for lunch? - Pancakes. We went to the airport to drop off Allen and Betty Ann, Allen's going out on medical, and she spent 40 minutes pushing a luggage cart around the airport. I let her, because every other time I've been at the airport there has been a kid doing exactly the same thing. I only stopped her when she wanted to push the cart up onto the luggage belt, and when she tried to go out the door onto the runway. (It's a small airport). (Rachel, who is standing behind me, says that's a bit of an understatement.)

I'd forgotten about bedtime meaning stories - I read "Hamilton the Duck's Springtime Story" that came up north with us, and the whole of the Disney 101 Dalmatians book. I'd forgotten about baths that feature plastic toys, and french fries being the only vegetable worth eating.

I braided her hair this morning, before church, but she didn't like it and we had to go back to the two little pony tails she likes. She liked the singing in church, but not the talking. The tv was on Treehouse most of the weekend. The teenagers sat with her dutifully while she watched. I don't mind Spongebob but I've always hated Franklin... his parents are just too good to be true. And really, who's friends with a snail?

Rachel's game

This is the first line of the first twenty-five songs that my Ipod shuffles for me. It almost makes a poem...

I’ve been thinking about the time you walked out on me
Well, let me tell you, darling, I’ve been high most of my life
Half past twelve, and I’m watching the late show
Well, you can tell by the way I walk
I know you’ve got to go and I
Should have seen by the look in my eyes
What’s wrong with you? I wish I knew
Highway run, into the midnight sun
It’s high now. So low, it’s high.
Moves like a fist through traffic, anger and no-one can hear it
I awoke, only to find my longevity
Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?
Take a look at my girlfriend, she’s the only one I’ve got
It’s hard to leave your bed
I must have dreamed a thousand dreams
In the colours of the night
Here we stand
Oh, life, is bigger, it’s bigger than you, and you are not me
Everybody’s talking at me, I don’t hear a word they’re saying
I’m gonna clear my head, I’m gonna drink that sun
I’ve watched the stars fall silent, from your eyes
One of these nights, one of these crazy old nights
Hey girl, is he everything you wanted in a man?
I left your house this morning at a quarter after nine
Did the hours grow shorter as the days go by?

and

yesterday I got a new front tooth at the dentist's and a letter from the mammogram clinic saying I'm normal.

and

on Wednesday the health centre phoned me to tell me they were booking my travel for my mammogram appointment in Yellowknife! I said, oh, no, sorry, I've already had it done.

Charlie, my boss, said, you should have just said, yeah, sure, and taken the trip...

res blues

So I went to Edmonton and did the mammoth shopping task that moving Kirsten into Residence entailed. She was really good about it, made lists and stuck to them, didn't ask for a plasma tv or anything like that. Some of the folk who were moving in had way more stuff than she did. Including flat screen tvs.

So on Saturday afternoon, she was supposed to be going to a floor meeting. I dropped her off at res with her new little fridge and the hair dryer and alarm clock we'd realized she still needed (can't use my hairdryer any more, and we won't be there to wake her up in the morning either). She was a bit nervous about her floor meeting, and said goodbye and see you tomorrow, the plan was that we would get together for brunch or something.

I got back out to the car and turned on the CD player, we'd purchased an ABBA anthology, and the song was Knowing me, Knowing you.

Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes
Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

In these old familiar rooms children would play
Now there's only emptiness, nothing to say

I know the house isn't empty, Rachel and Ian are still there, and I know it's a song about breaking up, but it hit me suddenly that all Kirsten's stuff was in that room where I left her, she doesn't officially live with me any more. And that's hard. It will never be the same again. So I was driving through Edmonton crying. In a way it feels like breaking up - after 18 years of worrying and caring about her, I have to step back...

It took me a long time to get home. I got up at 5am on Monday and went to the airport to catch my plane - gave my rental car back, got the flight to Yellowknife, but then when I was waiting for the plane to home, they announced that it had gone mechanical and we were all being switched to Canadian North.

When I went to board the Canadian North flight, they were stamping tickets as landing "subject to weather." I texted Miguel and he said it was raining pretty hard at home and foggy. The plane took off and we flew to and landed in Kugluktuk, but then we sat there waiting for the weather to change. Oh, and I should mention that they gave me a bag of pretzels for lunch - those of us who weren't real Canadian North passengers didn't get fed.

After a couple of hours, the pilot came and told us that we weren't going home, we were going back to Yellowknife. And then I realized that sitting there on the plane with all these strangers, I was going to cry. My seatmate said, "oh, you're upset", and kindly went back to watching her movie on her tiny laptop. I turned my head towards the window and it all just kind of washed over me, I'm going back home without Kirsten - I really had thought I could keep it together until I got home, but the thought of having to go back to Yellowknife and get a hotel room, and supper, and trying to convince someone to put me on another flight... I just didn't want to cope.

It actually all went very smoothly, I went to Pizza Hut for supper, found a hotel room and went to bed early, spent some time at the airport the next day but I was feeling better and was able to explain to my seatmate about my emotional day. She told me that she had taken her daughter to her first year of university in Connecticut, and cried the whole 12 hour drive home...

Mamm-o-gram

So for the last 18 months or so, I've been trying to get myself an appointment for a mammogram. My mother's sister got breast cancer at age 37, and died when I was 15 and she was 47. My grandmother had breast cancer, my mother's other sister had a female internal organ cancer. Mum's doctor told her that she should tell me, because of family history, to get a baseline mammogram at age 40.

So I went to the health centre around the time I turned 40, and asked (nicely) for a referral. My plan was to get it done while I was in Alberta on holiday. At first that was going well, and the nurse I saw said it shouldn't be a problem for me to get one. Then a week later I got a nasty phone call from someone else, saying that I wasn't eligible for 'medical travel' because mammograms were not covered until women are 50. I said, no, I don't want a trip, I'm going anyway, I just need a referral. There was silence for a while, and eventually I visited, and was told I couldn't even get a referral until I was 50. That's the rules.

So this spring when I went for my yearly checkup, I inquired again. Bob, the nurse I saw this time, bless his heart, did some research for me. (I pointed out, yet again, that I didn't want a trip. Just the piece of paper, please) He found that if a person has more than one close relative with breast cancer the recommendation is that she get a mammogram at 40, even here.

I'm going to Edmonton and Calgary next week. I knew this about a month ago, and I called the health centre again to see if I could make some arrangements. This time I called a nurse I knew would listen to what I was saying (Bob's gone, or I'd have called him.) and she called the clinic in Edmonton and found that I needed a doctor's signature.

So I went in the week before last to see the doctor. He had a website that he showed me, and he was calculating my risk. Apparently I have a 37.5% chance of developing breast cancer in my lifetime. But only a 0.5% chance in the next five years, so I figure I better get busy.

He signed the paper. I left it at the front desk, and went home.

Last week I started calling to see who was doing what with my paper. The call I got back, on Thursday, was another nurse, who told me she had made me a appointment in Yellowknife on the 10th of September for a mammogram...

No, no, no.

I explained, and she dubiously promised to try and get me an appointment in Edmonton. When I got off the phone, I said to Miguel, if I get breast cancer while I'm waiting for them to figure this out, I'm gonna sue them. He said he'd help.

In the end, I have a mammogram appointment IN EDMONTON on Friday of next week. You'd think, with the amount of trouble this took, that I was asking for state-funded breast implants or something. Nobody would really think that someone would want a mammogram for fun, would they? Like, frivolously?

my little universe

I was reading the other day that 96% of all weblogs have not been updated in the last four months. Certainly the bloggers in my little universe have become much quieter of late. Even me.

So what happened?

When I first got access to the internet, in the form of bulletin boards, back in 1991, I spent time trading quips with strangers. Then I got the full internet in 1995, the whole experience, and I spent time writing poetry with strangers. I went on to write a Diaryland diary and traded comments back and forth with some other Diarylanders. When I shut down my Diaryland diary and moved to Blogspot, I got some new blog friends (Ed and Delia, also people I had never met) and we commented on each others' blogs. As time went by, more people that I knew in my (I hesitate to call it real) life were reading my weblog.

Then I joined Facebook. I have I think 80 some-odd friends there, mostly people who I either see in the street or have been around in person for some period of time in my life. (Except Delia and two people who added me thinking I'm the Kate who used to live here but is now in Ottawa).

Kirsten told me the other day that one of her teachers has read my weblog from start to finish.

Ed, before he shut down his wonderful blog, talked about the amount of editing and censoring he had to do.

The reason I shut down my Diaryland diary was that I was having marital difficulties while I was writing it, and I became uneasy that so much of my ballistic psyche was on the net. So many of my complaints and sarcasm. And since Miguel never read it, it was pretty one-sided. I was playing it for the story value. Yeah, exaggerating the angst. And re-reading it makes me re-feel all those jagged emotions and self-pity. And I don't like it.

I can't talk about my work in my blog. Even if I were to change everybody's names and tweak the situations, I worry that someone would find out who and where I was, and the powers-that-be would make an example of me.

And so, if I had to say why I think people aren't updating their blogs, I would go for: one in eleven minutes spent on the internet now is on a social networking site. The internet is becoming more about the people you know than the people you don't know. And for the people you know, you have to edit. You can't complain about them. Can't tell the work stories. Can't exaggerate. And if you can't fit it into a status line, chances are your readership will tire and move on to look at cottage pictures and videos of dachshund-that-plays-fetch-with-himself.

anyway.

I'm dieting. Trying to lose the last ten pounds that the exercise isn't budging. I gotta say, I haven't yet developed a taste for whole-wheat pasta, and yogurt with Splenda still makes my stomach hurt. Although if I don't think too hard about it, plain oatmeal with skim milk and strawberries is not too too bad.

Because, to motivate myself, I need to be able to drag my body through the trek to Everest. I've stopped eating sugar altogether and that's been the hardest thing so far.

through the clouds

we went to Starvation Cove on Sunday. I should have been working, because I have a mass of stuff to do and I'm not getting it done fast enough, but it was a sunny day and I decided to skip out and go on the trip. It was a beautiful drive, on the beach and over the anomalous pile of rocks to the Cove where the fish were rumoured to be currently hanging out.

the road to Mount Pelly

So yesterday I walked out to Mount Pelly. About 15kms I think, took me a bit under three hours. It turned out to be a perfect day, about 10 degrees with a light wind at my back to keep away the bugs, I needed a hat but didn't get too warm walking. The whole area is full of muskox, a couple of detours were necessary to avoid them. I've never seen them charge people but I've heard they do. One of the muskox detours was a bit muddy, the deep sticky mud that the tundra is so good at. When I got out to the cabin, I made coffee and sat in the porch for a while listening to the wind.

This picture is about three quarters of the way out. But the road is all like that.

exodus

Jordan left for Ottawa today. He's gone to a sexual health conference with his mom. I know, that sounds strange.

Kirsten started guarding. She seems to be taking it all in her stride.

Ian and Rachel are off to Whitehorse tomorrow, and Miguel's going fishing with my new boss on Saturday, so it should be a quiet weekend here...

everest

Well, over the last month or so I've been making my arrangements. I'm booked on this. I asked my boss if I could have most of April off next year, and he said, sure. Then as I was walking out of his office he said, "Where are you going?" I replied, over my shoulder, "Oh, I'm going to Nepal." He said, "You're going where?"

I'm flying to Hong Kong and then to Kathmandu. It's going to take about four days to get there, from here.

graduating

aren't they pretty?