December 2016

Why? Why would I do it? How stupid am I to be standing on the ice in the middle of Wascana Lake? I do have to admit I've always been impressd with that guy who walked on water over in the middle east way back when, but , come on, in the middle of winter walking on water in Saskatchewan is no big deal. Although, when the ice broke, it would have big a big deal if I had stayed on the surface. Here I am, I've broken through and slipped under the ice to a point I've lost the entry. It's not as cold as I thought it would be, I mean, my face is really cold but my body, not so much. My guess is the water hasn't soaked through my clothes yet. I could just set my feet on the bottom and push back up through the ice, that is of course, had they not decided on the 'Big Dig' when they drained the lake and deepened it by 4 meters. However, I was floating easily, must be the Goose Down in my jacket, and, there's a small pocket of air between the water and ice so my breathing is simple. I do start to panic and my life is about to flash before my eyes, but you can only read a novel so many times and I'm tired of that one. My face is really becoming numb. Then...I wake up. "Hawlayyoula!" How did you expect it to sound, my lips are frozen. It turns out, Deanie opened the window last night to 'cool down'. It's just unfortunate that the window is on my side of the bed, late night snow flurries have deposited a bank of snow upon me. The little pocket of air that made it easy for me to breathe is my sleep apnea mask. Deanie is still comfortably counting zzzs on her side. My shivering is shaking the bed pretty good, it registers about a 4 point 2 before she mutters for me to stop moving around. Of course, the shivering is uncontrollable so when she turns to punch me she's surprised to find her little fist in a blanket of snow. She notices the snow drifting in from the window. "Oops" is all she says. At least now she can shovel me out. Not quite yet though. She has to find the camera and get a picture, Mia loves snowmen.

Have a great day

Loved

November 2016

I'm walking across town to the emergency room at the general hospital, when
this older fellow notices that I'm carrying a step ladder. He gets up off his porch
and hobbles to his front gate. I'm thinking, he's either put a nail through the ball
of his foot or he broke his ankle when he was young and it never healed
properly, I decide on the later. I know this guy.
Oh. Sorry, you're probably wondering why I'm on my way to the ER. I
unfortunately put a piece of metal through one of my fingers and was unable to
extract it on my own. I know, you're wondering why I need a step ladder there? I
don't, it's the piece of metal that pierced my finger. Why am I walking? That's
easy, I couldn't fit the step ladder into the car.
 Anyway, back to this old guy, like I said, I know him. Well, I don't know his
name but I know his type. He's one of those "tough as nails" guys, and I think
this one might even be the hammer that hits those nails. His skin is like rhino
hide, he'll see a doctor once in his lifetime, at his birth. There will be one to
pronounce him dead too, but, because he's dead, technically that's still only
once. I can see he's broken his nose a couple of times, because it goes both
ways. Probably stuck his head in a bucket of ice to keep the swelling down, his
nose is still pressed against his right cheek. He's got a number of scars on his
head. It looks like his left ear has been frozen at least once. I'm sure he's
outdone me on accidents. He pulls out a cigarette, sure, why not blacken the
lungs as well. When he opens his mouth I can see he's only got two teeth, no
dentists in his life, probably pulls his own teeth with a pair of fencing pliers.
Even though one of the teeth is in the top and the other in the bottom, they are
not strategically situated, he wrenches his lower jaw to the left so he can hold
the cigarette between the two teeth so his lips can move while he talks to me.
That explains the orange stain running up the left side of his face to a discolored
eyebrow. He mumbles to me that he can free my finger from the ladder. Of
course, his left hand is missing the pinkie, the ring finger has only one knuckle,
the middle finger stops at the second knuckle, the pointer is intact, sans
fingernail. The right hand is practically a mirror image of the left, except, he's
only got a nubbin for a thumb on the right. It doesn't take me long to deduce his
method of freeing my hand from the ladder. He probably has one of those tree
branch cutters in his shed. Oh, sure, no need to walk to the shed, he has a pair
in his back pocket. I tell him my pain threshold is not high enough but he says
whiskey will take care of that. Did you guess? Yes, he has a bottle in his other
back pocket. I still beg off and graciously thank him for the offer. When I turn to
continue my walk to the ER he calls out to me...

Have a great day

Loved

October 2016

I just wanted to fly a kite. It wasn't quite windy enough for an easy lift, I had to run hard trying to create enough wind to get it airborne. I was watching it bounce along the ground as I ran right off the edge of a cliff. Sometimes the prairie hides those features. So there I was suspended in the air like the coyote just before he disappears from the frame, leaving downward motion lines. Lucky for me it wasn't like the Grand Canyon cliffs he usually found, it was the pit for the garbage dump at the beach, which really softened my landing. I shouldn't have to tell you that beach garbage is worse than city garbage, you should know that. My only course of action was an immediate hike straight into the lake. I was lucky again that there was a young man cleaning up his boat house because my clothes weren't coming out of the lake with me, he was kind enough to give me a pair of skater boy shorts. "Clothes make the man", they say. Well, I was feeling pretty young and decided to get a skate board and give it a go, don't get ahead of me now. I was thinking about how accident prone I had gotten since turning 60 when I remembered a scaffold incident in 2003, I was only 52 then. It was a six story fall, I hit so many braces and planks on my way down I was going so slow when I rolled off the bottom plank I was able to land on my feet. The loading dock accident happened in my forties, the driver pulled away just as I was loading the last box of tile, they were foot by foot ceramics before they helped to break my fall and became mosaics. Memory has me in my early thirties when I became wedged beneath a boiler, I was stuck for so long they had to flood the floor to keep me hydrated, they fed me sandwiches on a hockey stick. It was the week of my 21st birthday when I got smashed in the forehead with a slab of granite, I was carrying a slab when it happened and I managed to keep my wits and finish carrying it down the hallway in the legislative building. A few ladies were swooning and a couple of others fainted at the sight of me, I knew I didn't have the looks or presence of a movie star but I also knew I wasn't hideous either, so I was confused until I wiped the sweat from my face and forehead and ended up with a mitt full of blood. Wow, did I really become accident prone at 21. Then I searched for my earliest memory. I was leaning against the south wall of Sacred Heart School when my nose suffered a blow from a home run ball. The sky turned black, well, actually, everything turned black. When the light returned there were a few dozen kids screaming at me and another half dozen crying. I look down and see somebody has painted my white t-shirt red, and some of the paint is dripping from my chin. Next thing I know, what I thought was an angel swooped me up in her arms, turned out it was only a nun. I was 7 at the time, my nose was broken, mom said my head looked like a bowling ball by the time Tony walked me home. I broke my nose two more times in the next six weeks, so I'm going with 7, that's when it all started. Unless of course there are hospital records that would prove otherwise. Anyways, I think I'll leave the skateboarding to the kids.

Have a great day

Loved

Sept 2016

Rome wasn't built in a day. That doesn't stop todays contractors from trying. Haste makes waste and often, accidents. I was preparing a subfloor for tile when it happened, I was using my favorite finishing trowel, one I can say I have troweled 10s of thousands of feet with. It has been worn and honed to a fine edge, an edge a Samurai would be honored to have on his sword. I had the overhead lights off and a flood shining across the floor, it helps to eliminate trowel marks. Some numpty kicked the cord, putting out the flood, causing me to lose my balance, just as I was swiping across the floor. I knew something odd had happened. When the overheads were turned on I saw some lumps on the floor. It took but a few seconds to realise they were my fingers. Shock, sometimes is a good thing, it protects you from panic, the first thing I thought was,"I'm pretty sure I'm going to need those". You have to understand, the cuts were precision, scalpel grade, a world class surgeon would be envious. Not only that, I had taken Betty Jo's advice and had bought myself some flesh colored duct tape, this surgery was going to be a breeze. I was fast too, within minutes they were in place, neatly cleaned and taped. You know those jig saw puzzles? The good ones, the pieces fit great, they're challenging, and every once in a while a piece will fit perfect and even looks like it's right but it actually isn't. Well, I taped my forefinger to my pinkie stub and my pinkie to my forefinger stub. Now listen, there were a lot of things I wanted to be when I was a little boy, the strongest man alive, the fastest man alive, the man with the nicest hair (ok, that dream died early) the greatest golfer, the best swimmer ( I might just be the best dog paddler), Roy Rogers, Davy Crockett, the fastest draw, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, dad. Never, in all my dreaming did I ever dream of being a circus freak. I had to change my fingers back. The resurgery went well and when the doctors examed it at the hospital they stated they couldn't have done better. They wanted to know where I learned the skill, "On the job". I said. "I've done dozens of successful surgeries". I didn't tell them they were all on me. I asked if I could play the guitar, they said "Sure". So I'm out shopping for a Stratocaster. I'm excited, I've never played a guitar.

Have a great day 

Loved

Some time in August

I know, I'm really late. That's what happens when your life passes before your eyes.
I like people, I just don't like them in large numbers. It happened the July 1st weekend, which was my first mistake, visiting Halifax on the July long. I was minding my own business, standing on the end of Purdy's wharf on the Halifax Harbour. I'm not saying I'm not a tourist, I'm jut not a good one. A hoard of them swarmed Purdy's in a mad rush to see all they could see in the shortest amount of time. In their rush they bumped me off the end of the wharf. YES! Into the North Atlantic. First thing I realized when I hit the water, after how cold it was...I lost my hat. When I fought my way back to the surface, it was floating a few meters away. Just then one of those life savers hit the water a few meters on the other side. Priorities. I didn't want my head to burn. By the time I dog paddled to my hat the life saver had drifted into the current and was heading east, the numpty who threw it to me forgot to tie off the other end so it's on it's way to Scotland. Lucy, if you find a lifesaver on the East Sands, it's mine. Now I've pretty much dog paddled my self to exhaustion, thus, my life passing before my eyes incident. You know, it's the usual, breaking my nose ( three times in six weeks in grade one), getting a fish hook in my leg and hoping my sister didn't notice, meeting Deanie, having kids and grandkids, you know, the whole nine yards. I'm just thinking about the next reunion I'll miss when I start to go under. Of course! The last thing I see is my pet peeve, probably bothers me more than the lint in the dryer bothered dad. People's litter floating on the water, damn humankind. Hey! There's a carton floating with a French fry in it, it has gravy and a cheese curd with it...Ha! Poutine, my last supper, just before I head under. I'm going to do it like in the movies, leave one hand up 'til the end. What's this? Just before it joins the rest of me it grabs another piece of litter...a plastic water bottle. Huh? I stop sinking, it's helping me float, I see another one, ha, ha, water wings. There's another and another, they're all over the place, I start slipping them under my shirt and up my pant legs, I'm so buoyant I look like the Michelin man, my clothes will be dry by the time I walk to shore. God bless humanity.

Have a great day

June 7 2016

I've been cleaning out my garage. My half ton was absolutely full of garbage, there wasn't room for anything else, it was time for a run to the dump. I decided I would pick up a slurpee on the way home, being eco-friendly I decided to take my own cup to refill, besides I save 75 cents if I take my own cup. I threw my cup into the cab, then I got the great idea of being even more eco-friendly by taking my own straw as well. How was I to know that when  they say, "The straw that broke to camels back", they are talking about a slurpee straw. I threw it into the cab and the moment it hit the seat the brakes on the truck gave way and it started rolling down the driveway. I grabbed the side mirror and dug my feet in, unfortunately they don't dig into concrete and I was just dragged along. I could do nothing, it gained speed out onto the street and headed for the parked car on the other side. It hit the car, which, happened to be a Saturn, you know, the ones with the springy doors. There was no damage but the spring propelled the truck back across the street and up the driveway again. Of course there was a sudden change in direction and now instead of skiing downhill along side the truck I was being dragged back up the drive way. I saw the snow shovel beside the drive so I figured I could dive for it and throw it under the wheel, I figured right, I threw the shovel under the wheel just as planned. It was like a locomotive running over a nickel on the track, I now had a snow scraper instead of a shovel, and, it didn't even slow the truck down, I could have sworn it picked up speed. Actually I think I did swear when it hit the garage door and shattered it into thousands of little pieces like the way a windshield shatters, which was really weird, because it was a steel door. Then to make things worse it ran into the back of our car and pushed it out through the front wall of the garage just like it was going through one of those rice paper walls you see in all the Kung-Fu movies. The car rolled out through Deanie`s flower garden and out onto the swimming pool, which luckily was frozen. Now I figured if I carefully walked out onto the ice I could drive it off before it broke through. I was a little nervous, I can`t swim that well, I tried taking lessons once but they ended with the instructor stating, ``Some bodies are more buoyant than others``. Now as soon as I stepped on the ice it broke and under I went with the car coming down on me, only one thing I could do...I woke up.

Have a great day
Loved

May 2016

 I woke up in the middle of the night, Deanie's hand was planted right in the middle of my face. I raised it gently and pushed it toward her, it came right back and smacked me on the face. That's ok, I'll just use a little more of a push. I got a little more of a smack in the face this time. HMMM! Quite a bit more force this time and again more force to my face. It takes quite a bit to get me to the point of anger but I'm reaching it. I will need to use Albert's theory to estimate the amount of energy I will need to move the mass on my face the correct distance without throwing my wife right out of bed. I try and fail, the hand is still on my nose. This is going to take some discussion, I turn to face Deanie. What the...she's not there. You see I found this great deal on a pair of pyjamas, a buck fifty at the dollar store. It turns out the left sleeve twisted itself around my shoulder and cut off the circulation to my arm, it's dead from the armpit down. Deanie must be in the little girls room, I'll use the one downstairs. We don't turn lights on so as to stay in that night brain stupor, it makes it easier to go back to sleep. I always stay downstairs after using the little boys room, the bed is quite comfortable. I stumble around in the darkness, the bad news is I stub my little toe, good news...I found the bed. I lay down and snuggle in. I'M LAYING BESIDE A CORPSE! The last time Deanie decided to sleep downstairs was NEVER. Scared the you know what out of me, I have to use the little boys room again.

Have a great day
Loved