Picture This - February 12, 2017
My first 60th birthday present from my husband of (almost) 40 years was a small bag of cashews and a card from the local car wash in Green Valley, AZ. I was touched – I’m not being facetious. If you knew how much my hubs loves his 1997 Cadillac Seville Touring Sedan (STS), you too would be amazed that he managed to think of me while watching “mee-car” (an inside joke) get washed and polished.
A second card and gift awaited me in St. Catharines. (We had to return to Canada in early February as per our extended health benefits requirement.) The card you can see in the pics below is appropriate, as we used to have dogs and cats and rats (and many other companion animals.) But the gift – that takes some ‘splaining.
About 22 years ago, Laurence commissioned a series of sketches from his very talented brother, Tim Steven, who is an artist and graphic designer. He wanted a series of picture that captured our family life, for the cover and various pages of a humour book that I had written – Petcetera: In Fine Feather. Tim had visited our family in Sudbury on a number of occasions - and his kitchen supper scene, pictured below, was and is priceless.
Things to notice:
-Oldest daughter Anna, reading at the table with her big honking boots on the table.
-Tom making faces at Carolyn and upsetting her
-Elaine absent-mindedly spilling her food and drink
-Laurence looking like he has just checked out
-An indeterminant number of cats
-Two goofy dogs poking their heads through the wrecked screen of our back door
-A crack in the ceiling and wallpaper peeling off
-Me in a daze, scooping out bowls of Chapman’s ice cream
When I look at that picture now I wonder how anyone could live like that – but live we did. It was so chaotic for so many years that my parents elected to stay at the motel down the street when they visited us.
Laurie-darling had this picture framed, without me knowing. OK, I kind of knew something was up - for a minute or two. A bill from a framing company showed up on our credit card statement. I asked Laur if he knew anything about this. He said, “Pretend you didn’t see that.” No problem. With my Dory-esque memory, I forgot completely about it within a few minutes.
I brought this treasured picture to Anna and Neal and Emma (granddaughter) Glauser’s home where Tom and Julie were visiting too. Anna and Tom looked at this picture and yelled, “That’s exactly how it was!” Neal and Julie looked in disbelief. I said that I missed those days and Anna responded, “No you don’t. It was crazy.” And she was right.
Somehow, we got on the topic of the mitten basket. We started out the year with a matching set of mittens for everyone plus a few extras. By mid winter, the mitts were crusty and mostly singles. The first person out of the house got the pick of the litter. Tom would steal his dad’s mitts. (I hid mine in my coat pockets.) And Laurence – usually last out - would end up with mismatched kid-sized mittens – the 90s equivalent of Hello Kitty and Finding Dory.
*****
The kids have all left home now and so have we. But the mitten challenge remains. I lose mittens so frequently (and so does Laur because I pilfer his) that I normally just buy one-size-fits-all black gloves at the dollar store – about four pairs. And those see us through an Arizona winter. (A Sudbury winter would require “Hot Paws.” Remember those, kids? Impossible to get on and off while delivering newspapers, as I recall.)
That is, I normally would, but this year I managed to lose one of the remaining pair and Laurence, in his older age, is disremembering the Beaver motto – “Sharing! Sharing! Sharing!” Gah! Off to the Dollar Store to learn that their unisex black mitten stock sold out before Christmas, but they did have some red and yellow ones. Fine! They would go so well with my pink running top and bright blue shoes!
And I had them all of one day – I bought them in St. Catharines the day before we were heading back to Arizona. On the plane the next day, an announcement came over the PA system. “If you have lost a red and yellow mitten, please come to the flight attendant galley.” I didn’t hear the message – I was listening to a podcast, but Laurence tapped my arm and made the “take off your headphones” sign. He asked, “Have you lost one of your mittens already?!” I was grumpy – I don’t travel well – and snarled, “No!” My hubs asked, “Are you sure?” I checked my right jacket pocket and pulled out a mitt, and gave him a smug look. Then I dug into my left pocket and pulled out … nothing. Oops.
I wandered to the back of the plane carrying my lone mitt and – sure enough – they had its mate and were happy to return it to me. Yes, I know a good set of mitten clips would prevent this problem. Would have prevented a few decades of kids and hubs fighting over mittens.
I like the Robert Breault quote – “Sometimes, in a moral struggle, we discover the right thing to do - just as, on some cold day long ago, we discovered mittens pinned to our coat sleeve.” Sadly and obviously, discovery and properness are not my strengths.
A second card and gift awaited me in St. Catharines. (We had to return to Canada in early February as per our extended health benefits requirement.) The card you can see in the pics below is appropriate, as we used to have dogs and cats and rats (and many other companion animals.) But the gift – that takes some ‘splaining.
About 22 years ago, Laurence commissioned a series of sketches from his very talented brother, Tim Steven, who is an artist and graphic designer. He wanted a series of picture that captured our family life, for the cover and various pages of a humour book that I had written – Petcetera: In Fine Feather. Tim had visited our family in Sudbury on a number of occasions - and his kitchen supper scene, pictured below, was and is priceless.
Things to notice:
-Oldest daughter Anna, reading at the table with her big honking boots on the table.
-Tom making faces at Carolyn and upsetting her
-Elaine absent-mindedly spilling her food and drink
-Laurence looking like he has just checked out
-An indeterminant number of cats
-Two goofy dogs poking their heads through the wrecked screen of our back door
-A crack in the ceiling and wallpaper peeling off
-Me in a daze, scooping out bowls of Chapman’s ice cream
When I look at that picture now I wonder how anyone could live like that – but live we did. It was so chaotic for so many years that my parents elected to stay at the motel down the street when they visited us.
Laurie-darling had this picture framed, without me knowing. OK, I kind of knew something was up - for a minute or two. A bill from a framing company showed up on our credit card statement. I asked Laur if he knew anything about this. He said, “Pretend you didn’t see that.” No problem. With my Dory-esque memory, I forgot completely about it within a few minutes.
I brought this treasured picture to Anna and Neal and Emma (granddaughter) Glauser’s home where Tom and Julie were visiting too. Anna and Tom looked at this picture and yelled, “That’s exactly how it was!” Neal and Julie looked in disbelief. I said that I missed those days and Anna responded, “No you don’t. It was crazy.” And she was right.
Somehow, we got on the topic of the mitten basket. We started out the year with a matching set of mittens for everyone plus a few extras. By mid winter, the mitts were crusty and mostly singles. The first person out of the house got the pick of the litter. Tom would steal his dad’s mitts. (I hid mine in my coat pockets.) And Laurence – usually last out - would end up with mismatched kid-sized mittens – the 90s equivalent of Hello Kitty and Finding Dory.
*****
The kids have all left home now and so have we. But the mitten challenge remains. I lose mittens so frequently (and so does Laur because I pilfer his) that I normally just buy one-size-fits-all black gloves at the dollar store – about four pairs. And those see us through an Arizona winter. (A Sudbury winter would require “Hot Paws.” Remember those, kids? Impossible to get on and off while delivering newspapers, as I recall.)
That is, I normally would, but this year I managed to lose one of the remaining pair and Laurence, in his older age, is disremembering the Beaver motto – “Sharing! Sharing! Sharing!” Gah! Off to the Dollar Store to learn that their unisex black mitten stock sold out before Christmas, but they did have some red and yellow ones. Fine! They would go so well with my pink running top and bright blue shoes!
And I had them all of one day – I bought them in St. Catharines the day before we were heading back to Arizona. On the plane the next day, an announcement came over the PA system. “If you have lost a red and yellow mitten, please come to the flight attendant galley.” I didn’t hear the message – I was listening to a podcast, but Laurence tapped my arm and made the “take off your headphones” sign. He asked, “Have you lost one of your mittens already?!” I was grumpy – I don’t travel well – and snarled, “No!” My hubs asked, “Are you sure?” I checked my right jacket pocket and pulled out a mitt, and gave him a smug look. Then I dug into my left pocket and pulled out … nothing. Oops.
I wandered to the back of the plane carrying my lone mitt and – sure enough – they had its mate and were happy to return it to me. Yes, I know a good set of mitten clips would prevent this problem. Would have prevented a few decades of kids and hubs fighting over mittens.
I like the Robert Breault quote – “Sometimes, in a moral struggle, we discover the right thing to do - just as, on some cold day long ago, we discovered mittens pinned to our coat sleeve.” Sadly and obviously, discovery and properness are not my strengths.