Canada Day parade

Canadian, Eh?
a gaggle of cute little girls with hardhats, paintbrushes and hammers charmed the crowds. (and there WERE crowds) the sweetie here is my grand daughter

our ReStore float in the Canada Day parade. Shoestring budget. The lady on the left is chair of the board of directors.

How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck?

this is my woodchuck, known locally as a groundhog. they're members of the marmot family. she has 4 babies, now about half as big as her. they live in my ReStore yard. i think i'm going to have a contest to name her and her tribe. i usually spot her in the evenings, after the store is closed, and people aren't wandering all over her yard. most of the heaps of stuff that used to cover the yard are gone now, so she doesn't have as many places to hide as she once did, but she doesn't seem to mind too much. i wonder if she likes carrots....?

they're not all happy endings

Oprah and others of that ilk love to sensationalize reunions between adopted children who search for their birth parents and those parents. not all of these stories are prime time material. here's one i know of:

It happened about this time of year. Maybe even on a day like today, when the world is so bountiful and alive, so fertile, that the very air is heavy with the reproductive cells of plants. Amoeba and behemoth, plant and animal, we all strive to be immortal. To live on through our children.

Did she savor the heat of the sun on her face that day, inhale the scent of her own skin as it browned and glistened with perspiration? It used to be said that women don’t sweat, they glisten. All those years ago, it wasn’t considered laydylike to sweat. And one must behave like a lady. But, no one would call her a lady. Ladies, in the fifth decade of the 20th century, didn’t cohabitate with men they weren’t married to.

After that day, and for many days, many weeks, many months, perhaps even many years, there were few such beautiful days. The shine of summer obscured by clouds - of shame, of accusation and denial. Clouds of anger and of fear. Confusion. Hate and self loathing. Frustration and loneliness. The words she speaks are not believed. Words of one ‘loose’ woman against the words of six men. Six men who arrived on her farm, that day in early June, to ‘persuade’ her that she did not want to live there. There was some disagreement about whether one so young, and so …. female….. should inherit such a place.. The police would not believe one disreputable woman, whose story differed so much from the story of six ‘upright’ men. This is, after all, a democracy.

She didn’t extinguish the spark that began in the darkness of that day. Did she perhaps try, unsuccessfully? The spark became a flame. The flame grew till she felt she was merely a host for this all consuming fire. Did she hate it? Pity it? Wish only to be rid of it? Did she take extra pains to care for her body, knowing another life was dependent on her? Or did she deliberately abuse herself, hoping to put an early end to the humiliation that was more and more evident as time passed. As her frame expanded. Her shame was as big as her belly, which was as big as her shame, which was as big as her belly…. One fed the other. Till the darkest day of all, when she was finally separated from it, in physical and mental anguish such as she’d never before known existed. Now it…. It being a she…. was someone else’s problem. She never saw her child again. Nor did she make any attempt to know who she had become. Why would this unwilling mother choose to be reminded of what was the worst time of her life?

The child of that dark union lives now, wrapped with exquisite care, in layer on protective layer of tenderness. The tiny, fragile infant is enfolded within the sturdy, sun browned body of a woman. Inside, where no eye sees, there are gossamer layers of trial and error, thick layers of caution and of watchfulness. Layers of injuries healed, of hard, lonely lessons learned. Layered upon layers, laid with painstaking care, making her strong. Strong of heart and of body and of mind. Or so she thought, – but nothing could prepare her for the shock of learning her beginnings. In the passing of a few numbers on her digital clock, during the course of one telephone call, she has become someone she doesn’t know. She isn’t who she thought she was. She is no longer sure who she is.

order from chaos, or a ReStore is born

this vision of loveliness is the yard of my new ReStore.... 2nd hand, really.... the store, and the stuff. the site was subcontracted out by the local landfill operator to a private business, for the purpose of diverting materials from the landfill for the purposes of recycling and minimizing all that un-green waste. so what we have is a secondary landfill, now... only all above ground. we had 67 hours of volunteer labor last saturday, working very hard, and filled 2 monstrous rollaway disposal bins... the 20 or 25 foot long ones that take a big semi to load up and carry. and you can hardly tell....

once we get rid of the stuff that's undeniably trash, i'll have a huge truckload sale. all you can cart off for $100. we have hundreds of old windows, even more doors, dozens of lights, from chandeliers to swedish balls (remember the swedish ball?) bathroom fixtures, bricks, boards, yadayadayada. then we'll cull one more time, and start the store in earnest.

my first meeting with the Home Depot folks is tomorrow. they're huge supporters of Habitat for Humanity, and the manager made a strong point of telling me he really dislikes trashing things when they have to come off the floor. that's the policy. we're 6 hours from the next nearest city, half a continent from the manufacturer. the stuff can't be returned if it doesn't sell.

still looking for a cube van.

funny thing happened on Sunday morning. after wading through this stuff for 12 hours on Sat, i cleaned up real pretty Sunday morning, then went to do some admin work at the store before the long trip to the granny shack for violin lessons later that day. as i was standing by the chain link gate, locking up before leaving, a truck with a couple of fellows came cruising slowly by. we get a lot of that. people are antsy to see the place reopen. so the driver of the truck pulls up beside me, looks me up and down in that arrogant 'what have we have here?.... if i had a moustache, i'd twirl the ends' way some men have. and he says, clearly thinking he's making a very clever joke, "so are you running it now?" i smiled demurely, handed him my business card, and said, "sure am. Come back on the 6th of June and you can fill that big shiny truck of yours up for a hundred bucks."

blessed are the feet of them that bring good news

a.k.a. don't shoot the messenger

i did some evangelizing today. what began as a seemingly innocent discussion of the local economy with my daughter's significant other today transmogrified into a session on my soapbox.

we live in a small (50 - 55 thousand souls) northern city that has seen a lot of boom and bust cycles. it's in an area that's rich in oil and gas, surrounded by forest that's among the best in the world for pulp and paper production, as well as lumber, first settled by farmers who discovered it's a pocket of rich agricultural land a zone or 2 warmer than other places this far north. during the depression that followed the 2nd world war, this area was not as hard hit by drought, economic downturn and food shortages as were other parts of North America. partly because the climate is moderated by our location between mountains and prairie, with lots of lakes and rivers, partly because the economy has always been so diversified, and partly because the inhabitants were self sufficient pioneer stock who knew how to keep things solvent with very little in the line of cash.

i'm not convinced there are many here today who could manage as well. it seems to be all about money now. so when the gentleman in question, who is head of a fairly large communications company here, asked me if i thought the local/regional economy was in trouble, he probably expected me to agree with his view that things are going down the toilet, and that would be that. he didn't expect a dissertation on how the wealth of the community was being sucked out by the big oil and lumber companies, and the big box stores. he didn't expect to be told that a community's wealth isn't measured in dollars and cents. he didn't expect (or enjoy) being told that the premise that exponential financial growth is the only marker of a business's success, was dangerously flawed. they live in a big house that they bought new about 5 years ago, in a trendy new neighborhood. they drive new vehicles, and trade up frequently. take lots of holidays to the tropics. he didn't like being asked "why? how much do you need?" when he said he wanted to make more money, have a bigger house.

none of this was particularly heated, it was all very civilized and polite. he's a kind man, who is very good to my daughter, granddaughter, and the rest of the family. he's a good neighbor. he recycles, pays all his bills promptly, and is considered by his employees to be an excellent boss. he's putty in the hands of a child, has pets who are treated like they're his own beloved children. he cooks! he cleans! a really sweet guy. just very materialistic, with no social conscience beyond his own doorstep.

i think there's a crack in the polished veneer, though. he's applied for a senior position in the fire department. says he thinks he might want to do something more 'worthwhile and satisfying'.

but i'm not putting the soap box away.

Tally ho!

one of the really great things about moving to the city is all of the family things i can be part of. this is granddaughter, Brooklyn, at her first riding lesson, with a dainty little quarter horse called Cocoa. Brooklyn is 8, and very much her own person already. she insisted on riding English, though Western is the fashion here in cowboy country. she's a well balanced girl, though, and has a very funky pair of pink suede cowboy boots that she loves to wear to school with her denims.

so grandma was the official photographer for the first riding lesson. then sneezed her brains out all the way home, as she's excruciatingly allergic to horses.

friday, the Alberta Opera Co. is coming to her school. everyone's invited!

the granny shack is finished!!!!

and listed for sale


living room

kitchen









below are:
dining room
front porch
bath