Something comes along and suddenly it's all about blogging. Weeks, months sometimes can go by when I just don't have the heart or the urge to pass anything along here. Other times, like this, there is simply so much I want to share with the two or three people who come by here, or with myself down the line.
This is about the money.
I moved into the condo in June, 2011. Now, I can remember getting a casual, boilerplate message from my bank soon afterward offering me a line of credit... five or ten thousand dollars initially; I'm not sure which... which probably goes out automatically from some computer to anyone with my financial particulars. I remember I snorted at; I'd only just paid off a long-standing credit card debt just around the time I decided to buy the condo, and the last thing I wanted was that temptation again. Almost right off the bat, though, Twinkle got sick. When I was hearing that feline transfusions were in the hundreds of dollars, and she'd need at least a few, I knew I was going to need to take them up on that offer. Honestly, I don't know how people in the States manage. It was bad enough with a beloved pet... what if it's your actually flesh-and-blood child, or your spouse? It genuinely amazes me there aren't riots in the streets for a universal health care scheme there... what I wouldn't give for one for pets! But I digress.
Anyway, of course, it didn't work out. I spent around $14,000 trying to give Twinkle her chance to get past five or six, but it was all too hard on her and she died anyway. And I've been carrying that on the line of credit ever since. At first I was paying $250 a pay on it (not counting the monthly interest they automatically withdrew from my chequing account, which by now has almost certainly topped $1000 all-told), thinking I'd pay it off over about two years. But me being me, I found it all too easy to cheat here and there and buy this little thing and that little thing, and it really never got down much below about ten grand. Then Max got sick, and even though there was little we could do for him, the tests and stuff, they added up. I don't remember exactly how much but it was probably about two thousand dollars. Two months later, Bonnie and her first brush with cancer.
I thought it was around the time that happened that I made the adjustments, but in looking at my pay statements, I can see it was actually in September, before anything was at issue with Bonnie, that I tried to get serious about paying the line of credit off. I gritted my teeth and cancelled my retirement savings contributions... which represented about 11% of my income, and were partially matched by the company. But then I could go full bore. Now I was shoveling $500 a pay against the line of credit like a stoker on the Titanic after the iceberg hit, and though I spent perhaps a thousand dollars of it on other incidentals since then, it's been going down. Just before Bonnie's surgery a couple of weeks back, it was just about to cross the ten thousand threshold again. Well, when I pay for her ashes and euthanasia in a week or two, it'll be back up over $13,000 again.
So, as previously stated, this evening at 6 I'll be going back to my bank and signing an application to have my bank assume my mortgage. I'll get creamed by the people who hold it now, but the interest savings over 5 years will cancel that out. Meanwhile, if we've worked the numbers out correctly, the bulk of my line of credit will be paid off, leaving something like $4,000 outstanding. That's a far more comfortable number and I'm going to try very hard to retire that as quickly as I can, because at that point, that $1000 every two pays becomes mine again.
My intention, then, is to put all the retirement deduction numbers I dialed to 0 last September back up where they were, which means roughly half what I'm now throwing to the line of credit. Then I've got something else to work with, and this time, instead of just letting it evaporate, I'd like to do something with it. My plan, right now, is to take about $100 a pay and put it into my own savings account; something readily accessible, but something I'll be just a little reluctant to touch because it'll be so satisfying watching it growing larger. And I want to take about $75 a pay or so and apply that to my mortgage payments above and beyond what I have to. Amounting to almost $2000 a year, that could really help bring down the amount of time I'm paying that off, particularly since, if I understood what the bank's financial adviser said, that excess is applied directly to the principal. That leaves about another $50 or so a pay that I can use for just living expenses. The budget I put myself on last fall was probably not realistic... I routinely exceeded it, and in truth, it was $100 a pay less than I was allowing myself when I was digging myself out of debt ten years ago. Even with another $100 a month or so I might still have to change these numbers... but the $200 a month in savings will mean I can gauge that without incurring interest penalties.
About three and a half years from now, the car should be paid off, and then almost $300 a month will become available for investment and savings... at least while the car holds out.
It's rough to say it, but as I've been slowly coming to terms with the stark reality that Bonnie really wasn't going to see 2014, it's been in the back of my mind that her passing was probably going to represent a financial watershed moment. I don't like thinking of it in that kind of predatory way, but it's true. I'm grateful to Dig and his missus for suggesting the solution I'm going to try this evening that's taken what was going to be another 13-month Volga boatman slog, at least, of living as much like a monk as I could stand while putting nothing aside for the future, and potentially shortening that to something I might get paid off before the second anniversary of Twinkle's death.
I've had a lot of adjusting to do in the past few years, financially speaking... paying off and getting rid of my credit card with the aid of Larry's subletting my spare room; stepping up to a mortgage and condo fees; and then taking on this albatross of a line of credit that's largely built on the bones of my psuedo-children, loved and lost. While it hasn't completely cured me of avarice, I'd like to think it's made me more realistic. I'd like to start being responsible on my own, without the whip of crushing debt and the self-imposed austerity of necessity driving it for a change (but hey; at least I've had that much discipline). And this is what I'm setting out to do by laying it all out here.
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Remembering correctly
Something that occurred to me when I was thinking about the older dream I had about Bonnie was the actual timeline of her first brush with cancer. I'm mostly writing this for my own edification...
I remember now that when I took her in with the swollen nipple, the doctor said he figured it was just a blocked duct. I remember he took a needle and drew off the fluid from it. There was only a tiny bit, and it looked like cafe au lait. He smeared it on microscope slide and sent it off, expecting it was pretty much just pus or something. Then it came back that it showed, if I remember correctly, "irregular" cells with a recommendation that the nipple be surgically removed. It was probably more or less at that point that I had the dream, but it might have been a bit later.
Then, of course, came the biopsy of the actual excised tissue. Carcinoma, I think it was. But small, with no evidence of spread to the margins of the excision, and not found in the lymph nodes. At that point, given all that news, we had every good confidence that we'd caught it in time. It turned out we didn't, and it very likely would have taken her sometime this year anyway, if her thyroid and its complications hadn't run out her time first.
It's hard not to have regrets about all this. What if, what if, what if. I guess there's no getting around it; we're pattern-seekers and it's in our nature to find and plot solutions, even in retrospect. I would have thought I'd be past that with Twinkle and Max by now, but no, not really. I still find myself thinking things like, well, they wanted me to get Bonnie's and Max's teeth cleaned, and I got Bonnie's cleaned because she was older, but what if I had gotten Max's teeth cleaned, and they'd noticed the growth at the back of his mouth? I mean, what if? What if I'd taken a friend's suggestion last fall to do a full mastectomy on Bonnie? What if? But I do realize you can really torment yourself with these things and I'm trying, trying, not to do it. It's hard not to. It's like holding your breath; you can only do it so long and then you have to give in to it.
I remember now that when I took her in with the swollen nipple, the doctor said he figured it was just a blocked duct. I remember he took a needle and drew off the fluid from it. There was only a tiny bit, and it looked like cafe au lait. He smeared it on microscope slide and sent it off, expecting it was pretty much just pus or something. Then it came back that it showed, if I remember correctly, "irregular" cells with a recommendation that the nipple be surgically removed. It was probably more or less at that point that I had the dream, but it might have been a bit later.
Then, of course, came the biopsy of the actual excised tissue. Carcinoma, I think it was. But small, with no evidence of spread to the margins of the excision, and not found in the lymph nodes. At that point, given all that news, we had every good confidence that we'd caught it in time. It turned out we didn't, and it very likely would have taken her sometime this year anyway, if her thyroid and its complications hadn't run out her time first.
It's hard not to have regrets about all this. What if, what if, what if. I guess there's no getting around it; we're pattern-seekers and it's in our nature to find and plot solutions, even in retrospect. I would have thought I'd be past that with Twinkle and Max by now, but no, not really. I still find myself thinking things like, well, they wanted me to get Bonnie's and Max's teeth cleaned, and I got Bonnie's cleaned because she was older, but what if I had gotten Max's teeth cleaned, and they'd noticed the growth at the back of his mouth? I mean, what if? What if I'd taken a friend's suggestion last fall to do a full mastectomy on Bonnie? What if? But I do realize you can really torment yourself with these things and I'm trying, trying, not to do it. It's hard not to. It's like holding your breath; you can only do it so long and then you have to give in to it.
The dream
I just had my first dream, that I can remember, about Bonnie. (Edit: since she died, I mean.)
It was a drowsing dream. I've been sleeping in about two-hour chunks the last few days.
In the dream, I was sitting in my chair in the living room. Seth was sitting in the chair beside me (something he hasn't done yet), looking at me. Suddenly, Bonnie trotted up, jumped into the red cat bed beside him, laid down and gazed at me. She looked like she used to a couple of months ago. I said, "Oh, Bonnie, but you're dead!" But it didn't matter. I leaned over and stroked her and stroked her as she began to purr, and I said, "Oh, Pumpkin... Oh, Pumpkin..."
I woke up. Clock said 2:51. 3rd Rock from the Sun was on TV; episode where Dick gets an ATM card and gets robbed.
The Golden Girls is on now. I'll try to drift off again.
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P.S. 7:15 a.m. I'm reminded of a dream I had around Halloween when I found out Bonnie had cancer and I was afraid I was within a week or two of losing her... bad news for Twinkle and bad news for Max both resulting in remaining life spans of two weeks, you see. In the dream, she was lying on her side by the apartment door, panting and dying. I was kneeling beside her, touching her, crying, begging her not to leave me.
As it turned out, she didn't. Not that time.
So back when there wasn't actually an immediate end to our life together looming (though I feared there was), that dream. And now that it has ended, and I'm the one who actually chose to end her life, I'm visited by this vision of her reasonably well, happy to see me, with even this faint air of gratitude and forgiveness and understanding... unaltered love. A dream I woke up from vaguely pleased with. I mean, I know none of that is real. She's gone, and even when she was alive, she understood nothing of the things we put her through. They were just the mysteries of life among us more powerful and seemingly capricious creatures. But still, I'm surprised when I consider the two dreams in comparison.
It was a drowsing dream. I've been sleeping in about two-hour chunks the last few days.
In the dream, I was sitting in my chair in the living room. Seth was sitting in the chair beside me (something he hasn't done yet), looking at me. Suddenly, Bonnie trotted up, jumped into the red cat bed beside him, laid down and gazed at me. She looked like she used to a couple of months ago. I said, "Oh, Bonnie, but you're dead!" But it didn't matter. I leaned over and stroked her and stroked her as she began to purr, and I said, "Oh, Pumpkin... Oh, Pumpkin..."
I woke up. Clock said 2:51. 3rd Rock from the Sun was on TV; episode where Dick gets an ATM card and gets robbed.
The Golden Girls is on now. I'll try to drift off again.
-------------------------------------------------------
P.S. 7:15 a.m. I'm reminded of a dream I had around Halloween when I found out Bonnie had cancer and I was afraid I was within a week or two of losing her... bad news for Twinkle and bad news for Max both resulting in remaining life spans of two weeks, you see. In the dream, she was lying on her side by the apartment door, panting and dying. I was kneeling beside her, touching her, crying, begging her not to leave me.
As it turned out, she didn't. Not that time.
So back when there wasn't actually an immediate end to our life together looming (though I feared there was), that dream. And now that it has ended, and I'm the one who actually chose to end her life, I'm visited by this vision of her reasonably well, happy to see me, with even this faint air of gratitude and forgiveness and understanding... unaltered love. A dream I woke up from vaguely pleased with. I mean, I know none of that is real. She's gone, and even when she was alive, she understood nothing of the things we put her through. They were just the mysteries of life among us more powerful and seemingly capricious creatures. But still, I'm surprised when I consider the two dreams in comparison.
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Circles
A moment ago it occurred to me that had I taken Bonnie's weight loss more critically when I noticed it, I guess in February sometime, and taken her in while she was still eating well, I probably could have gotten her thyroid diagnosed and treated before it set her liver off... I have a feeling that's what actually put her into the spiral she couldn't come out of. I waited too long. But it honestly just didn't occur to me till it was too late. I think it was because in the back of my mind, she'd had cancer, and I was probably too scared to go in and hear that's why she was losing weight. Damn it, that was irresponsible, but I just was not thinking clearly about it. I'm amazed by it now.
Of course, I tell myself that yes, her cancer was back; it just wasn't the cause of the weight loss. And the reality is, even if they'd caught that at the same time, the odds are it was elsewhere if it managed to come back from the tiny tumor they caught in October. So the reality is, I might have spared her the awful weight loss of the past couple of months, only to have her body spider webbed with tumors by the summer or fall, and God only knows what kind of torture that would have been. She was an elderly cat, though I was always loathe to admit it, looking at that perfect, sweet pelt. Her body was giving out, and it would have been one thing or another.
But I'll spend the rest of my life second-guessing this.
Of course, I tell myself that yes, her cancer was back; it just wasn't the cause of the weight loss. And the reality is, even if they'd caught that at the same time, the odds are it was elsewhere if it managed to come back from the tiny tumor they caught in October. So the reality is, I might have spared her the awful weight loss of the past couple of months, only to have her body spider webbed with tumors by the summer or fall, and God only knows what kind of torture that would have been. She was an elderly cat, though I was always loathe to admit it, looking at that perfect, sweet pelt. Her body was giving out, and it would have been one thing or another.
But I'll spend the rest of my life second-guessing this.
What Bonnie deserved to know: a letter of love to a beloved cat
What can I tell you about Bonnie? What can I say about the things that mattered? What would I have said to her, if only she could have understood?
Dear Pumpkin Girl...
1998 was not a good year for me. My working life was late to the gate, and its engine sputtered for years. It taxied, and stalled, and taxied, but never took off. That whole year saw me living in the basement, sunk in despair, ready to give up on ever having an independent life. But unbeknownst to me, somewhere out there, you were born.
I'll never know what your first couple of years without me were like. I hope they weren't all bad. Judging from your sweet nature, you must have had some good people in your life, however it was you came to be in that cage. My couple of years before we met were years of slow but steady improvement. My friend Jay got me out of the basement and into a solid job. It wasn't enough to live on, but by the time I left it, it was about to be. What took me out of it was a better job. One that got me out of my parents' house and into a place of my own at last. I got the job in March, and moved out on May 6, 2000. Thirteen years to the day before you died.
And then there was you.
For a long time I thought we met in June, but looking at the papers I got with you thirteen years ago, I see now it was July. July 12. The papers don't tell me much about you. I don't know when you were born. They just say you were two years old. They say you were just 7.9 lbs when I got you, which astonishes me... were you really that slight back then? They say you were fostered in March, and then given to the shelter in April. Somewhere in all that, you got pregnant, and, presumably, had a litter: the folks taking care of you did tell me all your kittens had been placed. I remember you still had your little breasts when I got you. I wish you could have talked. I would have liked to have heard what that was like for you.
I already had a cat, Jenny, whom I'd had since she was a kitten. Where we lived before, there was always company. Me, my parents, a rabbit for a while, a dog, and after him another dog. Jenny didn't have another cat around, but she always had someone to interact with. When I moved out, it was just me. P-Doug remarked to me that a cat needed another cat to be a cat. I understand that... what would it be like to be a human alone in a world of just dogs, or just cats? There'd be companionship, but not that connection to all your own nature and faculties. So, with that in mind, I decided to look for another cat.
I found you where I shopped for Jenny's food, at the Petsmart in Markham. Later, I would also find Max there. I don't remember now just how I settled on you... what brought me to your cage, or how we made that connection. I do know I was partial to torties... I guess that gave you a head start. But whatever it was, I'm glad, so glad, so grateful I took you home. It was easily the best $70 I ever spent. I hope you would have agreed. One thing I remember is that I really didn't fancy the name "Bonnie" back then, but I've never believed in actually changing a pet's name, so it stuck. And you went on to make it one of the very sweetest words to pass my lips. Bonnie. Bonnie.
I remember you tested me at first. You used to wait till you knew I was briefly awake in the middle of the night, and then pee on the bed beside me. I remember I used to leap up in a rage and chase you around, terrifying you. I don't know why I did that now. Immaturity? Power? The desire to shock and awe you into not doing it anymore? I am so very sorry for that. Do you remember the last time I did that? How I finally cornered you, and you were crying to me, begging me to stop, not even fighting back to defend yourself, and I hauled you into the bathroom and ran a cascade of cold water on you in the tub? How I left you flopping, soaked, on the porcelain, and then locked you in the dark there, cold and wet, for the rest of the night? I sure do. I used to wonder what parents meant by "this hurts me more than it hurts you". I sure know now. I've hated myself for that ever since. You slayed a monster that night, Bonnie. It burned out any capacity in me to ever do that again.
There were other times, maybe a half a dozen over the years, where you tested me like that again, but you remember that from then on, I simply told you to get off the bed, and insisted you leave the bedroom. I would not let you in again for a couple of nights. I would pretend, for the next day, not to "see" you. I can remember you playing for my attention. Trying to apologize, maybe, or set things right. You always broke me down so quickly. But for all the power-gaming I did at first, I'm proud that I never gave up on you. When, a few months after I got you, I complained about your antics to my manager, he said to give you back. No, I said... it was my idea for you to come and live with me; I had to stick by that. And I did. Thank heavens I listened to the better angels and not my boss. You trained me, Pumpkin, and tamed me, and taught me. You are the reason that Twinkle, who tested me far more than you ever did, got her chance to make of go of life with me, though tragically short it proved to be.
One time we had it out and I ignored you for a couple of days and finally it just broke my heart, and I remember actually apologizing to you... in English, out loud. And I went out with P-Doug and G to a jewelry market on the Golden Mile and found you an ornament... Jenny had worn turquoise set in silver. I got you a glorious amber half-sphere in silver, and you wore that for the next ten years or more. You were wearing it when you died, and it will grace your urn until I do, and our ashes are mingled. You completely owned my heart, Pumpkin Girl.
I'll never know what you were trying to tell me with the peeing on the bed thing. A specific complaint? Simply testing my limits? Trying to get a rise out of me? Just a strange compulsion even you didn't understand? I'll always wonder if that's what lost you whatever home you had before mine. But in the long run, it didn't matter.
I don't think Jenny was every truly happy you were around. She was 11 when you came to live with us, and hadn't ever had to share digs with another cat. But, you both got along well enough. Like you, she developed a thyroid condition, though we managed hers better and longer. I don't remember now exactly the day she died... it was in August of 2002. I came out of my bedroom to see her lying on the floor of the spare room. She didn't respond to my greeting, and I went over, and realized, with a crushed heart, that she was gone. What I'll never forget was the sight of the fur of her hip, licked the wrong way. She couldn't have done that. That could only have been you. You had been with her at the end. You perfect little angel.
Two months later, we got Max, your friend, grooming companion, and wrestling partner for the next 10 years. Eventually, many years later, we added my roommate Larry for a couple of years, and Twinkle for a little while, but essentially the core of our little family for the next decade was formed.
After Jenny passed away, you took over the role of sleeping by my head, and you kept that vigil for the rest of your life. I'll always be grateful to you for that. Oh, I know you'd drift away after a while, probably because my snoring was intolerable, but if I were falling asleep, or drifting back to consciousness, or waking up, you were usually there, or would suddenly appear, for many years leaping on the bed with that mother cat "brrrrt!" greeting. Do you remember how, for a while, you got into the habit of taking the claw of the middle toe of your right front paw and picking, picking, picking gently at my lips when you knew I wasn't actually asleep? I wish I knew what that was about. Wanting attention? Just a fascination with something different? I didn't like it, but I adored it... if you understand what I mean.
You were, really, the one I was coming home to all those years. It was you who was nearly always at my elbow or beside my head when I was home. It was, more than anything, you I was anxious about when I was away too long. You sort of took over that role from Jenny. For a long time, I assumed that, one day, Max would inherit that role, after you, for at least a couple of years. But he never really got his turn. I don't think he minded. His needs were different.
I have an early picture of you on the couch, on your back, with your mouth open in what I think was a silent meow. I also have a picture of you, even earlier, with one eye closed in a blink. I didn't know what those meant then, but I learned, early in our time together, that winks and blinks are something like kisses, and silent meow, which you and only you have ever given me so far as I can recall, is a great and rare token of love. You and I traded thousands of both in our life together, and I'm so glad I learned to "speak" enough of your language that you knew my love for you was boundless and overflowing, and I could hear it back. Yes, that's the sweetest thing of all.
Bonnie, you're gone now, and that day had to come if I lived long enough. It's a deeply bitter thing to have all that sweetness you filled my life with taken out of it. My life will never really be the same without it... just like it would never have been the same if I hadn't had it in the first place, and for so long. Your life with me pretty much encompassed my entire fully-adult existence, up until now. You were the living symbol of my achievement, and its sweetest dividend. Every time I looked at you, every time, you were a tiny infusion of joy.You'll never know what you truly meant to me... but I guess I'll never know what I truly meant to you, either. But I believe I know how you felt about me, and I guess that's enough. It has to be, for any of us, between cats themselves, and even between humans.
I wanted you to know that, Pumpkin.
Dear Pumpkin Girl...
1998 was not a good year for me. My working life was late to the gate, and its engine sputtered for years. It taxied, and stalled, and taxied, but never took off. That whole year saw me living in the basement, sunk in despair, ready to give up on ever having an independent life. But unbeknownst to me, somewhere out there, you were born.
I'll never know what your first couple of years without me were like. I hope they weren't all bad. Judging from your sweet nature, you must have had some good people in your life, however it was you came to be in that cage. My couple of years before we met were years of slow but steady improvement. My friend Jay got me out of the basement and into a solid job. It wasn't enough to live on, but by the time I left it, it was about to be. What took me out of it was a better job. One that got me out of my parents' house and into a place of my own at last. I got the job in March, and moved out on May 6, 2000. Thirteen years to the day before you died.
And then there was you.
For a long time I thought we met in June, but looking at the papers I got with you thirteen years ago, I see now it was July. July 12. The papers don't tell me much about you. I don't know when you were born. They just say you were two years old. They say you were just 7.9 lbs when I got you, which astonishes me... were you really that slight back then? They say you were fostered in March, and then given to the shelter in April. Somewhere in all that, you got pregnant, and, presumably, had a litter: the folks taking care of you did tell me all your kittens had been placed. I remember you still had your little breasts when I got you. I wish you could have talked. I would have liked to have heard what that was like for you.
I already had a cat, Jenny, whom I'd had since she was a kitten. Where we lived before, there was always company. Me, my parents, a rabbit for a while, a dog, and after him another dog. Jenny didn't have another cat around, but she always had someone to interact with. When I moved out, it was just me. P-Doug remarked to me that a cat needed another cat to be a cat. I understand that... what would it be like to be a human alone in a world of just dogs, or just cats? There'd be companionship, but not that connection to all your own nature and faculties. So, with that in mind, I decided to look for another cat.
I found you where I shopped for Jenny's food, at the Petsmart in Markham. Later, I would also find Max there. I don't remember now just how I settled on you... what brought me to your cage, or how we made that connection. I do know I was partial to torties... I guess that gave you a head start. But whatever it was, I'm glad, so glad, so grateful I took you home. It was easily the best $70 I ever spent. I hope you would have agreed. One thing I remember is that I really didn't fancy the name "Bonnie" back then, but I've never believed in actually changing a pet's name, so it stuck. And you went on to make it one of the very sweetest words to pass my lips. Bonnie. Bonnie.
I remember you tested me at first. You used to wait till you knew I was briefly awake in the middle of the night, and then pee on the bed beside me. I remember I used to leap up in a rage and chase you around, terrifying you. I don't know why I did that now. Immaturity? Power? The desire to shock and awe you into not doing it anymore? I am so very sorry for that. Do you remember the last time I did that? How I finally cornered you, and you were crying to me, begging me to stop, not even fighting back to defend yourself, and I hauled you into the bathroom and ran a cascade of cold water on you in the tub? How I left you flopping, soaked, on the porcelain, and then locked you in the dark there, cold and wet, for the rest of the night? I sure do. I used to wonder what parents meant by "this hurts me more than it hurts you". I sure know now. I've hated myself for that ever since. You slayed a monster that night, Bonnie. It burned out any capacity in me to ever do that again.
There were other times, maybe a half a dozen over the years, where you tested me like that again, but you remember that from then on, I simply told you to get off the bed, and insisted you leave the bedroom. I would not let you in again for a couple of nights. I would pretend, for the next day, not to "see" you. I can remember you playing for my attention. Trying to apologize, maybe, or set things right. You always broke me down so quickly. But for all the power-gaming I did at first, I'm proud that I never gave up on you. When, a few months after I got you, I complained about your antics to my manager, he said to give you back. No, I said... it was my idea for you to come and live with me; I had to stick by that. And I did. Thank heavens I listened to the better angels and not my boss. You trained me, Pumpkin, and tamed me, and taught me. You are the reason that Twinkle, who tested me far more than you ever did, got her chance to make of go of life with me, though tragically short it proved to be.
One time we had it out and I ignored you for a couple of days and finally it just broke my heart, and I remember actually apologizing to you... in English, out loud. And I went out with P-Doug and G to a jewelry market on the Golden Mile and found you an ornament... Jenny had worn turquoise set in silver. I got you a glorious amber half-sphere in silver, and you wore that for the next ten years or more. You were wearing it when you died, and it will grace your urn until I do, and our ashes are mingled. You completely owned my heart, Pumpkin Girl.
I'll never know what you were trying to tell me with the peeing on the bed thing. A specific complaint? Simply testing my limits? Trying to get a rise out of me? Just a strange compulsion even you didn't understand? I'll always wonder if that's what lost you whatever home you had before mine. But in the long run, it didn't matter.
I don't think Jenny was every truly happy you were around. She was 11 when you came to live with us, and hadn't ever had to share digs with another cat. But, you both got along well enough. Like you, she developed a thyroid condition, though we managed hers better and longer. I don't remember now exactly the day she died... it was in August of 2002. I came out of my bedroom to see her lying on the floor of the spare room. She didn't respond to my greeting, and I went over, and realized, with a crushed heart, that she was gone. What I'll never forget was the sight of the fur of her hip, licked the wrong way. She couldn't have done that. That could only have been you. You had been with her at the end. You perfect little angel.
Two months later, we got Max, your friend, grooming companion, and wrestling partner for the next 10 years. Eventually, many years later, we added my roommate Larry for a couple of years, and Twinkle for a little while, but essentially the core of our little family for the next decade was formed.
After Jenny passed away, you took over the role of sleeping by my head, and you kept that vigil for the rest of your life. I'll always be grateful to you for that. Oh, I know you'd drift away after a while, probably because my snoring was intolerable, but if I were falling asleep, or drifting back to consciousness, or waking up, you were usually there, or would suddenly appear, for many years leaping on the bed with that mother cat "brrrrt!" greeting. Do you remember how, for a while, you got into the habit of taking the claw of the middle toe of your right front paw and picking, picking, picking gently at my lips when you knew I wasn't actually asleep? I wish I knew what that was about. Wanting attention? Just a fascination with something different? I didn't like it, but I adored it... if you understand what I mean.
You were, really, the one I was coming home to all those years. It was you who was nearly always at my elbow or beside my head when I was home. It was, more than anything, you I was anxious about when I was away too long. You sort of took over that role from Jenny. For a long time, I assumed that, one day, Max would inherit that role, after you, for at least a couple of years. But he never really got his turn. I don't think he minded. His needs were different.
I have an early picture of you on the couch, on your back, with your mouth open in what I think was a silent meow. I also have a picture of you, even earlier, with one eye closed in a blink. I didn't know what those meant then, but I learned, early in our time together, that winks and blinks are something like kisses, and silent meow, which you and only you have ever given me so far as I can recall, is a great and rare token of love. You and I traded thousands of both in our life together, and I'm so glad I learned to "speak" enough of your language that you knew my love for you was boundless and overflowing, and I could hear it back. Yes, that's the sweetest thing of all.
Bonnie, you're gone now, and that day had to come if I lived long enough. It's a deeply bitter thing to have all that sweetness you filled my life with taken out of it. My life will never really be the same without it... just like it would never have been the same if I hadn't had it in the first place, and for so long. Your life with me pretty much encompassed my entire fully-adult existence, up until now. You were the living symbol of my achievement, and its sweetest dividend. Every time I looked at you, every time, you were a tiny infusion of joy.You'll never know what you truly meant to me... but I guess I'll never know what I truly meant to you, either. But I believe I know how you felt about me, and I guess that's enough. It has to be, for any of us, between cats themselves, and even between humans.
I wanted you to know that, Pumpkin.
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Changes
Probably not surprisingly, Bonnie's passing has shaken a lot of my life loose. For one thing, it implies an end, for the time being, I hope, of major expenditures on feline health. Ally is three, I think, and Seth is four or five, so it ought to be a while yet before I'm back in this position for the same reason.
A couple of other things, tangential to Bonnie's death, happened yesterday. Larry was good enough to answer the call when he got off shift at noon, and was over here just after the vet left with her body. He apologized for not being here for her passing, but I knew that wasn't realistic in any case. It was touching that he arrived so quickly.
I didn't want to sit around where Bonnie had just died, so we went out to the Queen Vic. The beer flowed. He listened while I talked about Bonnie and what had just happened. It must have been strange for him; he'd seen her less than 24 hours earlier and had borne witness to her confusion in trying to drink water. And there we were, so soon after, and I was telling him about how she'd passed. Well, it was strange for me too.
Eventually our conversation turned to his job prospects. He's grown very disenchanted with his workplace, where he's been for 13 years, and is actively seeking a new situation. He has hopes of a place that will pay him far better, out in Mississauga at Mississauga Road and the 407, not far at all from where I used to live. He expressed, in no uncertain terms, the clear points of his disaffection with the place he's working now. All the while it was occurring to me that I want to get out of this condo, and I began thinking. Why not both? If he gets the job, he wants to become a homeowner. But as I can attest, you don't get much for one income in the GTA, and the kind of place I have is not what he has in mind... but it's all he's going to get. So I threw it out there: what about going in on a place together... a place that's really two places? A place with one of those basement apartments with a separate entrance? That would give him what he wants... decent space that's his own, a lawn, a non-condo situation... and meets my needs as well. No more elevators, no more condo fees and rules, and something like the same space. The chance to have a dog again, in a situation where it make sense to have one. Naturally, he said he couldn't commit, since he doesn't even have the job yet. He was fair; said he wouldn't say yes and wouldn't say no... but I do remember he seemed impressed by the idea when I ran it past him.
I'm kind of unhappy with things too. When I started working for the company I'm with now three years ago, we were independent. Then we were scooped up by a huge multinational. They do take care of their people, but I went from working with people I could turn around and talk to, to sitting in a giant complex, surrounded by people I don't know and barely speak to, and everyone I work with in a different city. I just spent the last three weeks or so working out on my enclosed balcony, spending time with Bonnie and keeping an eye on her. And after she died, it hit me... what am I living in North York for? For years, it was because I had to be close to the office I had to drive into. But for two years now, that hasn't been the case. I don't really want to work from home... I'd rather work in a group of people I know and see everyday. But if it's all the same, sitting here or sitting in an office, then why stay here? I sent an email off to my former manager, the one I came into the company with, who works from home. She said that given I'm not working in situ with anyone in the office, she couldn't see how my working from home permanently would be a problem. Which pretty much frees me up to move wherever I want...
I would like to move west. To be in the middle of the array of people I care about instead of at one far edge. To be out of this place with little in it but sad, bitter, lonely memories. To be out of an apartment situation and back on the ground. I think I can manage it on my own but if Larry gets the job and he's persuaded by my suggestion, it could be done with style.
Just after Bonnie died, my friend Dig sent an email about my financial situation to his wife, CCing me. She was a financial adviser at the bank with which I do business, and between them they suggested talking to the bank about assuming my mortgage and rolling my line of credit, loaded down with the cost of trying to keep three innocent little cats alive over a year and a half, into the mortgage. When I pay for Bonnie's euthanasia and her ashes and paw print, it will be back over $13,000. Last October I tried getting serious about it. I cancelled my retirement savings plan contributions and started laying on $500 a pay. It was going well... I was about to cross the $10,000 threshold when Bonnie's health issues raised their head again recently. A thousand dollars a month that could be freed up to pay into retirement, to pay down the mortgage quicker... could it be possible?
I begged off this morning, with my managers' kind indulgence, and spoke to a financial adviser at my bank. She made what was a very good offer. A whole point off the mortgage interest rate, locked in for five years, payment of the legal fees. All I had to do was provide her with a ballpark of the maximum units like mine are selling for (considerably more than I paid two years ago, as it turns out) and find out what the penalty for early discharge of the mortgage was. She figured two or three thousand dollars.
So, I sent an email to my real estate agent from a couple of years ago, asking what's the best a place like mine can fetch, and then called the bank way out west that holds my mortgage. The penalty? $7400. Ouch. But oddly enough, that's just slightly less than I'll save in interest rates over five years anyway.
I got back in touch with the financial adviser and so, working with those figures, it looks like I will be able to get about $161K, applied to a balance of $144.4K, and the $13K on the line of credit... that leave something like $4,000 outstanding in the line of credit. That would mean if I keep my shoulder to the wheel for just four more months, that line of credit that's been preying on my mind since Twinkle died will finally be off my back. Yes, I'll have less equity in this place when I go to sell it, but all that money will be freed up soon to start planning for retirement and even pay more than I have to on the mortgage. So I'm going in to make the application on Thursday.
Meanwhile, my real estate agent phoned me up and we talked for fifteen minutes. He said he'd actually been planning to call me anyway, to keep in touch... a good business move. I mentioned that I was keen to get out of here, and why, and that I'd like to look a little west of here. He's going to call me Monday to set up a time we can meet over coffee and just talk about what it all means, the possibilities and realities of it.
A lot's now going on again, suddenly. It doesn't mean for sure I'll be out of here, or that it'll happen soon... but it does mean the wheels are in motion, and when I remember how quickly things came together when I was out to buy this place, I know it's entirely possible that I could be blogging in a different home this time next year.
A couple of other things, tangential to Bonnie's death, happened yesterday. Larry was good enough to answer the call when he got off shift at noon, and was over here just after the vet left with her body. He apologized for not being here for her passing, but I knew that wasn't realistic in any case. It was touching that he arrived so quickly.
I didn't want to sit around where Bonnie had just died, so we went out to the Queen Vic. The beer flowed. He listened while I talked about Bonnie and what had just happened. It must have been strange for him; he'd seen her less than 24 hours earlier and had borne witness to her confusion in trying to drink water. And there we were, so soon after, and I was telling him about how she'd passed. Well, it was strange for me too.
Eventually our conversation turned to his job prospects. He's grown very disenchanted with his workplace, where he's been for 13 years, and is actively seeking a new situation. He has hopes of a place that will pay him far better, out in Mississauga at Mississauga Road and the 407, not far at all from where I used to live. He expressed, in no uncertain terms, the clear points of his disaffection with the place he's working now. All the while it was occurring to me that I want to get out of this condo, and I began thinking. Why not both? If he gets the job, he wants to become a homeowner. But as I can attest, you don't get much for one income in the GTA, and the kind of place I have is not what he has in mind... but it's all he's going to get. So I threw it out there: what about going in on a place together... a place that's really two places? A place with one of those basement apartments with a separate entrance? That would give him what he wants... decent space that's his own, a lawn, a non-condo situation... and meets my needs as well. No more elevators, no more condo fees and rules, and something like the same space. The chance to have a dog again, in a situation where it make sense to have one. Naturally, he said he couldn't commit, since he doesn't even have the job yet. He was fair; said he wouldn't say yes and wouldn't say no... but I do remember he seemed impressed by the idea when I ran it past him.
I'm kind of unhappy with things too. When I started working for the company I'm with now three years ago, we were independent. Then we were scooped up by a huge multinational. They do take care of their people, but I went from working with people I could turn around and talk to, to sitting in a giant complex, surrounded by people I don't know and barely speak to, and everyone I work with in a different city. I just spent the last three weeks or so working out on my enclosed balcony, spending time with Bonnie and keeping an eye on her. And after she died, it hit me... what am I living in North York for? For years, it was because I had to be close to the office I had to drive into. But for two years now, that hasn't been the case. I don't really want to work from home... I'd rather work in a group of people I know and see everyday. But if it's all the same, sitting here or sitting in an office, then why stay here? I sent an email off to my former manager, the one I came into the company with, who works from home. She said that given I'm not working in situ with anyone in the office, she couldn't see how my working from home permanently would be a problem. Which pretty much frees me up to move wherever I want...
I would like to move west. To be in the middle of the array of people I care about instead of at one far edge. To be out of this place with little in it but sad, bitter, lonely memories. To be out of an apartment situation and back on the ground. I think I can manage it on my own but if Larry gets the job and he's persuaded by my suggestion, it could be done with style.
Just after Bonnie died, my friend Dig sent an email about my financial situation to his wife, CCing me. She was a financial adviser at the bank with which I do business, and between them they suggested talking to the bank about assuming my mortgage and rolling my line of credit, loaded down with the cost of trying to keep three innocent little cats alive over a year and a half, into the mortgage. When I pay for Bonnie's euthanasia and her ashes and paw print, it will be back over $13,000. Last October I tried getting serious about it. I cancelled my retirement savings plan contributions and started laying on $500 a pay. It was going well... I was about to cross the $10,000 threshold when Bonnie's health issues raised their head again recently. A thousand dollars a month that could be freed up to pay into retirement, to pay down the mortgage quicker... could it be possible?
I begged off this morning, with my managers' kind indulgence, and spoke to a financial adviser at my bank. She made what was a very good offer. A whole point off the mortgage interest rate, locked in for five years, payment of the legal fees. All I had to do was provide her with a ballpark of the maximum units like mine are selling for (considerably more than I paid two years ago, as it turns out) and find out what the penalty for early discharge of the mortgage was. She figured two or three thousand dollars.
So, I sent an email to my real estate agent from a couple of years ago, asking what's the best a place like mine can fetch, and then called the bank way out west that holds my mortgage. The penalty? $7400. Ouch. But oddly enough, that's just slightly less than I'll save in interest rates over five years anyway.
I got back in touch with the financial adviser and so, working with those figures, it looks like I will be able to get about $161K, applied to a balance of $144.4K, and the $13K on the line of credit... that leave something like $4,000 outstanding in the line of credit. That would mean if I keep my shoulder to the wheel for just four more months, that line of credit that's been preying on my mind since Twinkle died will finally be off my back. Yes, I'll have less equity in this place when I go to sell it, but all that money will be freed up soon to start planning for retirement and even pay more than I have to on the mortgage. So I'm going in to make the application on Thursday.
Meanwhile, my real estate agent phoned me up and we talked for fifteen minutes. He said he'd actually been planning to call me anyway, to keep in touch... a good business move. I mentioned that I was keen to get out of here, and why, and that I'd like to look a little west of here. He's going to call me Monday to set up a time we can meet over coffee and just talk about what it all means, the possibilities and realities of it.
A lot's now going on again, suddenly. It doesn't mean for sure I'll be out of here, or that it'll happen soon... but it does mean the wheels are in motion, and when I remember how quickly things came together when I was out to buy this place, I know it's entirely possible that I could be blogging in a different home this time next year.
Bonnie... 1998-2013
Bonnie's been through a lot since late October. After Twinkle and then Max, I simply didn't have the heart or the bravery to blog about it while it was going on. But now that it's over, I feel like I should speak about it, if only so that years from now, I will be able to remember it. The sorrows and joys, the ups and downs.
Max died last August. After that, it was just me, Bonnie, and Ally for a while. As an aside... I don't think I've mentioned I acquired a third cat again, a large, friendly male named Seth, at the beginning of February. Anyway, once Max was gone, I was intensely aware that my time with Bonnie was probably short, too. A couple more years at most, I figured. One morning in October she hopped up beside me onto the basin in the bathroom. That was a bit unusual. She used to do that a lot when she was young, but it got to more of a Max thing and she kind of gave it up after that. When she did, I happened to notice a strange growth on her anus. Petting her a little later, I also noticed one of her nipples was extremely elongated. That didn't alarm me as much; she was 14, getting older, and I put it down to hormones.
Anyway, I took her in, she stayed overnight to have the growth removed, it was quickly biopsied and deemed benign. Almost in passing I mentioned her nipple. The doctor paused, admitted he'd missed that, and offered to see her again, free of charge. He figured it was just a blocked milk duct, but recommended its removal and biopsy. But the little thing that didn't trouble me turned out to be a sarcoma. But it was very small, and he had cut wide, and had every hope he'd gotten it all. Still, I had the feeling I'd be saying good-bye to her very soon. But as it turned out, no. Not then.
I remember bringing her back in to get the stitches removed... Bonnie lying on her back, her paws trembling with nervousness, but not fighting, not fussing. I adored her at that moment. Somehow, she trusted us.
There was a follow-up in December. I can't quite remember what it was for. But it kind of put the cap on things for a while. My time with Bonnie opened up again. Perhaps she really did still have years. The one sour note: she'd lost weight. She'd long been a cat of 13, 14 pounds. In October, she was 12 and change. By December, she was a bit over 10.
In retrospect I wish we'd paid more attention to it then, but she'd been through so much, and, frankly, my cat care debt was accumulating, and I was looking for a break and a chance to recover my finances some. Also, in the back of my mind, always, was the possibility her cancer would come back.
But time went by, and things were normal. After that brush with losing her, it was very sweet. But by February I could tell she was losing weight. I sighed and told myself, well, she went through a lot in the fall. She's getting older. She's slowing down. This is what happens.
It was in late March, when she finally stopped being interested in the cat treats she's loved since Twinkle died, that I started getting concerned. I remembered Jenny and her thyroid condition. That had to be it, I told myself, and I booked an appointment and took her in. Yes, they confirmed. She has a thyroid condition and her liver numbers are very high (but so were Jenny's when she was diagnosed, so I wasn't too worried). But they also felt another growth in her mammary chain. She was down to 7.2 pounds. They didn't want to operate till they had her numbers under control.
We started her on tapazole, same medication Jenny took. Bonnie was fiendishly hard to pill, so I did some research and found out there's transdermal gel you can simply smooth inside a cat's ear that delivers the medication simply over the next half hour. I was kind of sore at the vet that they hadn't offered that as an option in the first place. I got it, and it made dosing her much easier.
After a couple of weeks I took her in for a follow-up. The thyroid had responded almost too well; the numbers were now on the low side. The liver numbers were worse, though, but they speculated that might have been a slow reaction to the thyroid stabilizing. They x-rayed Bonnie and couldn't see any indication of spread of the tumor, which was welcome news. But now she was just 6 pounds. My heart sank.
I got an appetite stimulant for her, and while I saw some bursts of interest in food in her, it was the same sad story as with Twinkle and Max; a heartbreaking disinterest in food for the most part.
Thursday about three weeks ago she was scheduled for an ultrasound. I kind of gave up on her that day. I was expecting they'd tell me her liver was shot through with cancer. I contacted vets who would come by and euthanize a pet at home... I wish I'd known about that option for Max... and settled on one. I was expecting to have her come by the following Monday.
But the ultrasound actually showed organs in good shape. There was an indication that her kidneys would eventually begin to fail, but it wasn't an issue at the moment. On the basis of that, they decided to go ahead with the cancer surgery. I can hardly express how happy I felt that day. The money didn't matter. The cancer was going to be dealt with, and we had a handle on the thyroid. Getting her eating again, I felt, was now the issue. So, instead of losing Bonnie that Monday, she went in for surgery to prolong her life.
She came home with a drain in her side, and they took that out three days later. They gave me the biopsy results. They'd gotten the cancer, cut wide, and didn't find it at the margins. But they did find micronodules further up the chain, and the suggestion was if it had spread a few inches that way, there was no way to be sure it hadn't spread beyond the incision in other directions. If it recurred, they recommended against further surgery as essentially pointless. I took that to mean that, really, I probably had til the summer or fall at best. She was scheduled to have her stitches taken out, right around now today.
Bonnie started moving around more, and visiting me in bed again, and getting up on things with the help of shorter things to jump on first. I thought this would be the new normal. But she was so small. I could feel every bone in her legs. If she weighed more than 5 pounds, I'd be surprised. But I kept hoping.
She took to spending her time at night in the little nook on the other side of the chairs I've set up for cats beside mine in the living room. But when I was there, or she anticipated I would be, she climbed up into the red cat bed at my elbow. I'll never forget that. Wherever I was, Bonnie was there. Unless, I think, I was snoring. But otherwise, always. Always. Anyway, I made things comfortable for her there. Put down one of the cat beds, put food there, water, moved a litter box into the living room.
I was getting prepared for the trip in this week, to have her stitches out. But this weekend I, and Larry when he dropped by, noticed that Bonnie would go to the water bowl, sniff at it, stare at it, but not drink. It was like she couldn't remember how. Sunday night was was interested in the toilet. I brought water to the bathroom. Same thing. Want to drink; can't seem to figure out how. I'd seen her do something like that with food before. She was restless Sunday night, spent time lying in the bathroom.
I didn't sleep much, and around 2 in the morning, I came to realization that this was it.
Right about now yesterday morning, I called the home vet and made arrangements for noon.
I spent most of the morning being kindly indulged by a couple of longtime friends via texting. The vet arrived just before noon. She met Bonnie, explained the process to me, discussed options for her ashes, paw prints, urns. About quarter after twelve, she gave Bonnie a sedative, and she pretty much drifted off to sleep. About five minutes later, she gave Bonnie the lethal injection. She said Bonnie had almost no muscle left. It was hard to find a place to inject. When Max was euthanized, he died before they finished the injection. But Bonnie's circulation was so poor that her heart, her little lion heart, carried on for another five minutes or so. Finally she told me, "She's gone." I was petting Bonnie all the while.
I knew I couldn't stand to see her picked up like a rag doll, so I stepped into the dining room while she transferred Bonnie to the little basket and covered all but her head with a little paw print blanket. She also took off Bonnie's collar for me... I told her I didn't want to be the one to do that, take it away from her... and gave it to me. We spoke for a bit. At quarter to one, she left with Bonnie. She'll be back in a week or two with the ashes and the paw print. I have the fur shaved from her tail... the tail tip she used to pat and caress my arms with at night. That was the fur I wanted to keep.
I didn't come apart during any of this. I'm honestly trying not to. People will say I should go with it, but no... no, that would make it all too awful. I did the right thing. There was nothing left of Bonnie; we'd really wrung everything out of her life we could short of the causing her to suffer just so I wouldn't have to face a tough call. But I made it, and to the best of my knowledge, she never suffered. And I want to focus on that. I want to be calm now. I've spent so much of the last two years in angst over these tiny, speechless feline people that I love that I really feel like I deserve not to feel awful, and I won't summon it. I gave Bonnie loads and loads of love, and got the same back from her. Going to pieces might be a fine tribute but it can't help her now, and I don't feel like it would help me. I want calm. I want acceptance. I want the gentle ripples of her love as her wake, not torment. I hope I can achieve it.
In a way, I've been mourning Bonnie for a long time. I can remember when I became intensely aware of it... it was one evening when I was watching a DVD of Freaky Friday, and the quirky menu music was playing, and I was petting Bonnie beside me and she was purring up a storm. It was perfect. But my mind said, "she's ten; you probably won't have this in two or three more years". It was a very bittersweet moment, so I videoed it. As it turned out, I had her companionship for another four and a half years; four without much worry. I wish I could have known that then. But really, have a look. Isn't this glorious? Isn't this what it's all about?
I'll probably blog about the things I remember about Bonnie in the next little while, as I did with Twinkle and Max. But for now, it was enough to remember what she and I went through the last little while.
I hate this place. This suite I bought. It was going to be the place I'd live, work, and retire in, but now I abhor it. I hate coming home here because it's been nothing but a charnel house for the cats woven into my heart. Almost from the time I moved in, every 9 or 10 months, one after another. The three cats I moved in with not quite two years ago, all gone. In their place, two relative strangers, Ally and Seth. I want out of here. I've started thinking seriously now about leaving North York and heading a bit further west, closer to my parents. I don't see enough of them, and quite clearly, time waits for no one. And this isn't a home... it has never become my home. It's just the place my stuff is. I want to change that.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
McKinnon Road bridge redux
In anticipation of spring I've been looking back at old spring opening wanders and one that I came across that stood out was the hike along McKinnon Road alongside the Nottawasaga River in May four years ago. The intent of that hike was to see the old abandoned bridge at one of the north bends there, and it turned out to be a stunning silver truss bridge in extremely good condition, despite being over 80 years old.
Some time ago, I was made aware of McMaster University's set of 1954-1955 aerial plates of southern Ontario online. They're a real gold mine of information from 60 years ago. Last week, it finally occurred to me to have a look at the site of the bridge in question to see just what it was on the other side it provided access to.
I still don't know.
Here's the view from circa 1954. You can click on it to enlarge it.
The bridge is the little white line in the middle of the long diagonal black line that, I think, designated a municipal boundary. The squiggly black line is the river. P-Doug and I came up the closed road on the left side of the river in this view.
I still can't see what they built this bridge for. There's nothing on the far side. There's no road that connects to anything north, no buildings to speak of... nothing. All I can think of is that they built it in anticipation of something and nothing happened, and eventually the road and bridge dropped off the road grid.
But the really interesting thing is that on the near side of the bridge, huddled into the elbow of land on its northeast corner, is some kind of impressive set of buildings. I don't know what they were but I can tell you there was nothing to indicate they'd ever been there by the time we were there in 2009. In fact, at this point, that site is nearly completely forested over.
Here's a view of the site from the bridge.
There doesn't seem to have been any reason to build the bridge but to open up the east side to development that, apparently, never came. But now I'm kind of keyed up to go back there and check out that site on the near side of the bridge.
But I don't think I want to go to the far north end down Richardson Road again. I think I'm happy enough to leave that to the mosquitoes and the razor grass. :)
Some time ago, I was made aware of McMaster University's set of 1954-1955 aerial plates of southern Ontario online. They're a real gold mine of information from 60 years ago. Last week, it finally occurred to me to have a look at the site of the bridge in question to see just what it was on the other side it provided access to.
I still don't know.
Here's the view from circa 1954. You can click on it to enlarge it.
The bridge is the little white line in the middle of the long diagonal black line that, I think, designated a municipal boundary. The squiggly black line is the river. P-Doug and I came up the closed road on the left side of the river in this view.
I still can't see what they built this bridge for. There's nothing on the far side. There's no road that connects to anything north, no buildings to speak of... nothing. All I can think of is that they built it in anticipation of something and nothing happened, and eventually the road and bridge dropped off the road grid.
But the really interesting thing is that on the near side of the bridge, huddled into the elbow of land on its northeast corner, is some kind of impressive set of buildings. I don't know what they were but I can tell you there was nothing to indicate they'd ever been there by the time we were there in 2009. In fact, at this point, that site is nearly completely forested over.
Here's a view of the site from the bridge.
There doesn't seem to have been any reason to build the bridge but to open up the east side to development that, apparently, never came. But now I'm kind of keyed up to go back there and check out that site on the near side of the bridge.
But I don't think I want to go to the far north end down Richardson Road again. I think I'm happy enough to leave that to the mosquitoes and the razor grass. :)
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Bird sniper
Today I was out with a friend I haven't seen in a while. She's on the verge of becoming a professional photographer. She's come a long way in the last three years. Recently she acquired a used Canon 7D and was given... GIVEN... a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens. Retail, the pair would set you back $3600 before taxes, with 2/3 of that being the price of the lens. Today she wanted to wander out to the Scarborough Bluffs to try them out.
She also brought with her her Canon T1i, sort of the great-grandchild of the eight-year-old Canon XT I still have, along with a much less expensive 70-300 lens. She graciously allowed me to borrow and use the T1i which she tried to work out the 7D, and when we returned to her place, she downloaded my shots to one of my thumb drives. I took three hundred-some-odd shots over about 15 minutes, and of the bunch, about two dozen or so struck me as keepers.
It's been a long time since I've really done anything with my own DSLR. It's no hell these days; 8 megapixel, three generations back in sensor processor technology, and I don't think any of my lenses is worth more than about $500 new. Nevertheless I got that old thrill out of piloting the T1i today, and even discovered a new technique: keep your left eye open to follow the birds while you're sighting the lens at 300mm with the right. That's where most of the decent shots came in. I have a 300mm lens of my own. I should really make more use of my Rebel XT this spring and summer.
Here are my shots from today. All but one of them are cropped for better effect, but otherwise, they're pretty much all the way they came out of the camera.
She also brought with her her Canon T1i, sort of the great-grandchild of the eight-year-old Canon XT I still have, along with a much less expensive 70-300 lens. She graciously allowed me to borrow and use the T1i which she tried to work out the 7D, and when we returned to her place, she downloaded my shots to one of my thumb drives. I took three hundred-some-odd shots over about 15 minutes, and of the bunch, about two dozen or so struck me as keepers.
It's been a long time since I've really done anything with my own DSLR. It's no hell these days; 8 megapixel, three generations back in sensor processor technology, and I don't think any of my lenses is worth more than about $500 new. Nevertheless I got that old thrill out of piloting the T1i today, and even discovered a new technique: keep your left eye open to follow the birds while you're sighting the lens at 300mm with the right. That's where most of the decent shots came in. I have a 300mm lens of my own. I should really make more use of my Rebel XT this spring and summer.
Here are my shots from today. All but one of them are cropped for better effect, but otherwise, they're pretty much all the way they came out of the camera.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Just watch it
Reputedly, federal Liberal leader shoo-in, Justin Trudeau, received a note on a flight last week asking him if he felt he could beat Prime Minister Harper in an election. His scribbled response was, "Just watch me."
"Just watch me", I think, was cute, clever, and absolutely the wrong thing to say. It's a reference to his father, Pierre, and harkens back to the darkest moment in modern Canadian history, the October Crisis of 1970. British trade representative James Cross and Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte had been kidnapped by cells of the FLQ (Laporte, in fact, would subsequently die at the hands of his captors and suffer the indignity of being discovered in the trunk of a car at a Montreal airport). The army was on the streets of Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City. Prime Minister Trudeau was buttonholed by the press on the steps of Parliament Hill and grilled for most of ten minutes about the suspension of civil liberties and martial law under the War Measures Act. He held his own, and when finally asked how far he would go, he shrugged and issued the most memorable line of the crisis: "Just watch me." It made him a hero in English Canada, and reviled among Quebec nationalists.
It's a charged phrase and I think it was wrong for his son to offer it so flippantly. First of all, it cheapens a moment of real existential drama in our history. Secondly, I think it smacks of vast hyperbole to suggest winning the next federal election can be in any way equated to doing what it takes to quell an armed rebellion in a just society. And finally, I think it's a mistake on a personal level to tie himself too closely to his father's legacy, particularly referencing one of its most divisive aspects. Yes, I agree, those of us who want to see Justin assume the mantle are doing so partly out of hopes the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. But it still needs to be its own tree when it sprouts, and it'll die in the shade. Justin needs to be his own person, and his allusions to his political and genetic heritage need to be more subtle and nuanced, I think. "Just watch me" is about as blatant as it gets without actually changing his name to "Pierre".
"Just watch me", I think, was cute, clever, and absolutely the wrong thing to say. It's a reference to his father, Pierre, and harkens back to the darkest moment in modern Canadian history, the October Crisis of 1970. British trade representative James Cross and Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte had been kidnapped by cells of the FLQ (Laporte, in fact, would subsequently die at the hands of his captors and suffer the indignity of being discovered in the trunk of a car at a Montreal airport). The army was on the streets of Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City. Prime Minister Trudeau was buttonholed by the press on the steps of Parliament Hill and grilled for most of ten minutes about the suspension of civil liberties and martial law under the War Measures Act. He held his own, and when finally asked how far he would go, he shrugged and issued the most memorable line of the crisis: "Just watch me." It made him a hero in English Canada, and reviled among Quebec nationalists.
It's a charged phrase and I think it was wrong for his son to offer it so flippantly. First of all, it cheapens a moment of real existential drama in our history. Secondly, I think it smacks of vast hyperbole to suggest winning the next federal election can be in any way equated to doing what it takes to quell an armed rebellion in a just society. And finally, I think it's a mistake on a personal level to tie himself too closely to his father's legacy, particularly referencing one of its most divisive aspects. Yes, I agree, those of us who want to see Justin assume the mantle are doing so partly out of hopes the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. But it still needs to be its own tree when it sprouts, and it'll die in the shade. Justin needs to be his own person, and his allusions to his political and genetic heritage need to be more subtle and nuanced, I think. "Just watch me" is about as blatant as it gets without actually changing his name to "Pierre".
Union hangover
It's hard to deny it anymore. The European Union, at least as such, is, if not a failed experiment, then badly botched attempt. One after another, third-rate economies tarted up to be second-rate and bolted onto first-rate economies are having to be bailed out by those said first-raters. The taxpayers of the robust economies are getting understandably tired of doing this, especially when the taxpayers of the faltering economies have no interest in economizing or changing the ways that put them in dire straits in the first place. How can such a union persist, particularly when it's not actually even fixed together as a single political entity? I no longer really think it can.
Years ago the suggestion of a "two-speed Europe" was uttered sotto voco. I didn't care for the idea. Everyone should follow the same rules! Everyone should have the same standards! They all arrive together! I think that was the general feeling in the EU as well. It seems to me now that was unrealistic, and maybe those suggestions should have been said a bit louder and discussed more adamantly. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about an a la carte union, which the British want and I find unutterably self-serving. It has all the charm, maturity, and respect for your roomies as claiming the right to come over on Friday night, find a bed mate, raid the fridge, and half-heartedly dump some pocket change in the coffee jar before you bugger off again past the sinkful of dirty dishes. No, not the Anglo-Saxon conception of the EU. There would be two sets of rules, depending on the speed of your economy; a core set, and a starter set. The problem is membership in the EU has always been toss 'em into the deep end if they can pump their arms and legs; don't worry, they'll swim. Sure.
It struck me sometime in the 2000s that the experiment was running a little hot. The EU was admitting new members with all the alacrity and discretion of a beer hall manager. The more the merrier, hurry hurry hurry before all the kegs are empty! The criteria for joining were shoddy and economies that had emerged from communism a decade earlier were being ushered in if they had something like a pulse. Well, it wasn't hard to have a blazing economy if you were being stuffed to the gills by corporations eager to take advantage of the fact your workers were still dazzled by the prospect of making twenty bucks a day. But that didn't make it a robust economy, as we're seeing. Even back then, I was having misgivings. It seemed to me then, and even more so now, that admission to the European Union, particularly the eurozone, should have been golden carrot dangled before prospective members for at least a generation. Something to work for. Tighten their economies up, show that they can be fiscally responsible, demonstrate their staying power, and train the citizenry for the responsibilities admission entails and the obligations to the other members.
I'm tempted to think that the only way to save the EU is for it to nova. Explode, and the core shed the dead weight members. Let them continue to trade and keep free movement of labour, but divorce the sick economies. Force them to rebuild and work toward the stable currency the euro really represents when it's not forced to back economies like Greece, where tax evasion is a gold medal Olympic sport. And if they can't be bothered to shape up and reapply, that works too. But I'd make them pay the freight for forex if they wanted to trade with the core EU. Come to that, I'd make the UK do that for sticking to the pound. If Germany can fold the mark, the Brits can certainly fold the pound, and if they won't, I don't see why the core EU should have to enrich bankers for the dubious privilege of paying for British goods in pounds.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I've reached the point where I no longer expect to see the EU—or more specifically, the eurozone—emerge with its current membership. In fact, I'm at the point now where I'm not sure it would be a good thing if it did. Maybe some of these economies need a timeout. Some of their taxpayers certainly do need to sit in the corner with the dunce cap on, that's for damn sure.
Years ago the suggestion of a "two-speed Europe" was uttered sotto voco. I didn't care for the idea. Everyone should follow the same rules! Everyone should have the same standards! They all arrive together! I think that was the general feeling in the EU as well. It seems to me now that was unrealistic, and maybe those suggestions should have been said a bit louder and discussed more adamantly. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about an a la carte union, which the British want and I find unutterably self-serving. It has all the charm, maturity, and respect for your roomies as claiming the right to come over on Friday night, find a bed mate, raid the fridge, and half-heartedly dump some pocket change in the coffee jar before you bugger off again past the sinkful of dirty dishes. No, not the Anglo-Saxon conception of the EU. There would be two sets of rules, depending on the speed of your economy; a core set, and a starter set. The problem is membership in the EU has always been toss 'em into the deep end if they can pump their arms and legs; don't worry, they'll swim. Sure.
It struck me sometime in the 2000s that the experiment was running a little hot. The EU was admitting new members with all the alacrity and discretion of a beer hall manager. The more the merrier, hurry hurry hurry before all the kegs are empty! The criteria for joining were shoddy and economies that had emerged from communism a decade earlier were being ushered in if they had something like a pulse. Well, it wasn't hard to have a blazing economy if you were being stuffed to the gills by corporations eager to take advantage of the fact your workers were still dazzled by the prospect of making twenty bucks a day. But that didn't make it a robust economy, as we're seeing. Even back then, I was having misgivings. It seemed to me then, and even more so now, that admission to the European Union, particularly the eurozone, should have been golden carrot dangled before prospective members for at least a generation. Something to work for. Tighten their economies up, show that they can be fiscally responsible, demonstrate their staying power, and train the citizenry for the responsibilities admission entails and the obligations to the other members.
I'm tempted to think that the only way to save the EU is for it to nova. Explode, and the core shed the dead weight members. Let them continue to trade and keep free movement of labour, but divorce the sick economies. Force them to rebuild and work toward the stable currency the euro really represents when it's not forced to back economies like Greece, where tax evasion is a gold medal Olympic sport. And if they can't be bothered to shape up and reapply, that works too. But I'd make them pay the freight for forex if they wanted to trade with the core EU. Come to that, I'd make the UK do that for sticking to the pound. If Germany can fold the mark, the Brits can certainly fold the pound, and if they won't, I don't see why the core EU should have to enrich bankers for the dubious privilege of paying for British goods in pounds.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I've reached the point where I no longer expect to see the EU—or more specifically, the eurozone—emerge with its current membership. In fact, I'm at the point now where I'm not sure it would be a good thing if it did. Maybe some of these economies need a timeout. Some of their taxpayers certainly do need to sit in the corner with the dunce cap on, that's for damn sure.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
World stunned as elderly white man ascends to papacy
Yes, it's official; "the world" has a new pope. Cardinal Jorge Bergolio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, has taken the name Francis, the first pope to do so. Yet another opportunity lost for "Pope John Paul George Ringo". When will they wake up?
There are a couple of moderate historic firsts here. One is that this is the first pope elected from among the Jesuits. Discovering that surprised me. The Jesuits have been around for, what, four or five hundred years? And this is the first one of them to make the grade? It's not like the College of Cardinals is a conservative lot or anything, is it? Secondly, Francis is the first American pope. It's nice that, after over five hundred since Europe began the annexation of America—essentially begun by Catholic countries in the first place—and its effective conversion into a cultural and political extension of Europe, the Vatican has finally noticed that gee, there are quite a lot of Catholics here, not to mention quite a few cardinals over the past 500 years. But I shouldn't complain, I suppose. The Vatican has known about Asia and Africa for much longer, and yet, Francis is apparently the first pope from outside Europe in over a thousand years.
At least they didn't opt for another Italian. Since, to this day, the largest block of votes in the College of Cardinals by far comes from Italy (49—as many as all the countries in the Americas combined despite their having 15 times Italy's population), there was some talk of them falling back into the old track of Italian popes. Until John Paul II, Italians had had an uninterrupted lock on the papacy for over 400 years, so even in Europe, non-Italian popes have been underrepresented. For example, there has been one, exactly one, pope from England: Adrian IV (oddly enough, the last non-Italian pope till John Paul II). I'm dubious as to whether the world will ever see another native English-speaker as pope, given that the Anglosphere is largely Protestant and increasingly secular.
But here we go again. The guy's 76—an age at which most people have been retired for a decade—and despite the novelty of his being from the New World, it's much of a muchness... white, unmarried, deeply conservative and reputedly chosen to hold the line. I'm seeing "clean house" connected with his name. Basically that means put on an apron and hose the muck off the ramparts. But the ordination of women, the end of the non-scriptural celibacy of the clergy, the acceptance of homosexuality, or a responsible attitude toward contraception (not abortion; just contraception)? Don't count on any of these. These and other reasons are why, if I were to become genuinely religious, I would probably opt for Anglicanism, rather than return to Catholicism; and why I've come to consider myself a "cultural Protestant" in recent years.
I'd like to say here that I like that Benedict abdicated. I'd like to say "retired". There should be more of this. Popes should serve a while, and then step out of the job, not be carried out. Same thing for the Royal Family. I know the Queen took an oath to serve us her whole life, but after six decades, I don't think anybody would say she hasn't done her bit. Let Charles be king for a little while while he can still enjoy it, and then after a decade or so, he can step aside for William, etc. They already do this kind of thing in other European monarchies. It seems to me vastly more human than an institution where you spend your life waiting for someone you love to die just so you can have your turn. Likewise the papacy.
But anyway, like I was saying, this guy is 76. Odds are, within 10-15 years, they'll be blowing smoking again. Maybe by then, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, the Catholic Church will be ready to join the 20th.
There are a couple of moderate historic firsts here. One is that this is the first pope elected from among the Jesuits. Discovering that surprised me. The Jesuits have been around for, what, four or five hundred years? And this is the first one of them to make the grade? It's not like the College of Cardinals is a conservative lot or anything, is it? Secondly, Francis is the first American pope. It's nice that, after over five hundred since Europe began the annexation of America—essentially begun by Catholic countries in the first place—and its effective conversion into a cultural and political extension of Europe, the Vatican has finally noticed that gee, there are quite a lot of Catholics here, not to mention quite a few cardinals over the past 500 years. But I shouldn't complain, I suppose. The Vatican has known about Asia and Africa for much longer, and yet, Francis is apparently the first pope from outside Europe in over a thousand years.
At least they didn't opt for another Italian. Since, to this day, the largest block of votes in the College of Cardinals by far comes from Italy (49—as many as all the countries in the Americas combined despite their having 15 times Italy's population), there was some talk of them falling back into the old track of Italian popes. Until John Paul II, Italians had had an uninterrupted lock on the papacy for over 400 years, so even in Europe, non-Italian popes have been underrepresented. For example, there has been one, exactly one, pope from England: Adrian IV (oddly enough, the last non-Italian pope till John Paul II). I'm dubious as to whether the world will ever see another native English-speaker as pope, given that the Anglosphere is largely Protestant and increasingly secular.
But here we go again. The guy's 76—an age at which most people have been retired for a decade—and despite the novelty of his being from the New World, it's much of a muchness... white, unmarried, deeply conservative and reputedly chosen to hold the line. I'm seeing "clean house" connected with his name. Basically that means put on an apron and hose the muck off the ramparts. But the ordination of women, the end of the non-scriptural celibacy of the clergy, the acceptance of homosexuality, or a responsible attitude toward contraception (not abortion; just contraception)? Don't count on any of these. These and other reasons are why, if I were to become genuinely religious, I would probably opt for Anglicanism, rather than return to Catholicism; and why I've come to consider myself a "cultural Protestant" in recent years.
I'd like to say here that I like that Benedict abdicated. I'd like to say "retired". There should be more of this. Popes should serve a while, and then step out of the job, not be carried out. Same thing for the Royal Family. I know the Queen took an oath to serve us her whole life, but after six decades, I don't think anybody would say she hasn't done her bit. Let Charles be king for a little while while he can still enjoy it, and then after a decade or so, he can step aside for William, etc. They already do this kind of thing in other European monarchies. It seems to me vastly more human than an institution where you spend your life waiting for someone you love to die just so you can have your turn. Likewise the papacy.
But anyway, like I was saying, this guy is 76. Odds are, within 10-15 years, they'll be blowing smoking again. Maybe by then, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, the Catholic Church will be ready to join the 20th.
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Me & George
I had a great time with President George W. Bush last night. It was in a dream, of course.
I've hardly had a kind or admiring word for the man in waking hours, so I was rather surprised at the positive impression my subconscious mind seems to have of him. He was patient, avuncular, attentive, and told great stories. Just like the right has always said of him: a guy you'd want to have a beer with.
The setting was a cottage on a big lake somewhere on a grey day with a dishwater sky. At first the place was buzzing with with folks in autumn weather cottage garb... caps, lumber jackets, creek waders. A casual excuse for some kind of political get-together. Somehow I ended up talking with Dubya, and I get the impression that in the dream, he was the current president. At the start of things, he was the life of the party (no pun intended), getting people laughing, breaking the ice. Somehow, eventually, he and I gravitated together and it was like he was new to me, but he had known me for a while. That doesn't make sense but that's how it felt. The crowd never really vanished but it kind of stopped being relevant.
I was particularly intrigued with an elaborate fishing rod he brandished. It allowed him to expertly cast three lines at once, a long, long way. As well, he could cast from inside the cottage, looking through the closed sliding glass doors overlooking the lake. (I never figured out how. Such is the "logic" of dreams.) He was baiting the hooks with bits of some kind of shredded poultry dipped in a gourmet sauce. I don't remember if he caught anything but I got the impression that the activity of fishing itself was sufficient.
At some point we were sitting down near a Franklin stove and I was trying to work up a polite way to ask if there were some way he could change the US Constitution so that Canadians would also be considered US citizens. Boy, that comes from a long way back. I guess you never really lose some yearnings. Damn you, Schoolhouse Rock. :)
That was the extent of it, pretty much. Not the strangest dream I've ever had, or the most memorable or the most profound. But surprising, pleasant, and maybe a note-to-self that I need to look a little deeper at some of the big-note folks I've written off. I dunno.
I've hardly had a kind or admiring word for the man in waking hours, so I was rather surprised at the positive impression my subconscious mind seems to have of him. He was patient, avuncular, attentive, and told great stories. Just like the right has always said of him: a guy you'd want to have a beer with.
The setting was a cottage on a big lake somewhere on a grey day with a dishwater sky. At first the place was buzzing with with folks in autumn weather cottage garb... caps, lumber jackets, creek waders. A casual excuse for some kind of political get-together. Somehow I ended up talking with Dubya, and I get the impression that in the dream, he was the current president. At the start of things, he was the life of the party (no pun intended), getting people laughing, breaking the ice. Somehow, eventually, he and I gravitated together and it was like he was new to me, but he had known me for a while. That doesn't make sense but that's how it felt. The crowd never really vanished but it kind of stopped being relevant.
I was particularly intrigued with an elaborate fishing rod he brandished. It allowed him to expertly cast three lines at once, a long, long way. As well, he could cast from inside the cottage, looking through the closed sliding glass doors overlooking the lake. (I never figured out how. Such is the "logic" of dreams.) He was baiting the hooks with bits of some kind of shredded poultry dipped in a gourmet sauce. I don't remember if he caught anything but I got the impression that the activity of fishing itself was sufficient.
At some point we were sitting down near a Franklin stove and I was trying to work up a polite way to ask if there were some way he could change the US Constitution so that Canadians would also be considered US citizens. Boy, that comes from a long way back. I guess you never really lose some yearnings. Damn you, Schoolhouse Rock. :)
That was the extent of it, pretty much. Not the strangest dream I've ever had, or the most memorable or the most profound. But surprising, pleasant, and maybe a note-to-self that I need to look a little deeper at some of the big-note folks I've written off. I dunno.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Startling news... from 60 years ago
If you have a Toronto Public Library card, one of the secret little joys is that it gives you free access to the online archives of both The Globe and Mail and The Star. A shame the pages of the long-defunct Toronto Telegram aren't similarly available... though you won't find me shedding many tears over the similar lack of access to its "successor", The Toronto Sun, the Vandal king "successor" of Roman emperors of local newspapers.
The Star's pages date back to 1894, and The Globe (and Mail)'s go back to 1844—which means you can read about Confederation in its pages online as it was casually reported in the paper in 1867, and reports coming in about the progress of the US Civil War just prior to that, and the astonishing news of Lincoln's assassination.
I find the pages of these papers at the most interesting, though, in the years after about 1950, when the expansion of Toronto was really kicking into gear. The creation of Metro in 1953, the building of the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway, the 400-series highways being hatched with quaint names like "the Toronto By-Pass" for the 401 and "the Barrie Highway" for the 400. This morning over my first coffee I decided to have a look at what I could glean about the DVP in the pages of The Star after January 1, 1955. It's quietly astonishing to see headlines about Metro Council voting a $1.7 million start to the project (Feb. 12, 1957, p. 42) with the number apparently so impressive at the time that it was actually spelled out, commas and all: "$1,700,000". These days that would probably pay for a about mile of construction. Maybe.
I really get a charge out of reading phrases like "The Don Valley parkway, the only solution to the current traffic problems in sight..." (Feb. 21, 1957, p. 16) and "An immediate start on the Don Valley parkway to relieve traffic congestion" (Nov. 21, 1956, p.31). People who read those phrases with a hopeful sigh would easily live long enough to see them converted to knee-slappers.
There are fun little notes like the idea that in 1957 Metro was considering expanding the zoo, which was downtown at the edge of the Don River at the time, "a mile alongside Don". Around 1970 the zoo moved to much bigger digs in northeast Scarborough at what is still the edge of town. An article about North York trying to dump Leslie Street on Metro's tab and Metro grumbling it made no sense because it was a road "from nowhere to nowhere"; North York suggesting it be extended down from Lawrence Avenue to the new section of Eglinton Avenue joining its two discontinuous parts. And, in fact, it was. But it still goes from nowhere to nowhere; Leslie still doesn't cross the Don south of Eglinton and dies for no reason at all just north of Steeles.
A couple of things really impress me. One is how desperate the politicians of the day seem to be to raise the money to do these things from the tax base, rather than just whipping out the I've-got-a-AAA-rating international credit card. Repeatedly I see articles in which councilors are begging the residents of Metro to accept taxes that will fund them. Fred Gardiner, the first Metro Chairman, gets a lot of guff for being a kind of 'raze it and build it' sort of guy, but I think he was onto something when he was quoted on Feb. 12, 1957: "If we are not going to raise the money then we have got to stop talking about things we want." People needed to be reminded of it then, but they could see it was true. I look around the world these days and all I see are nations panting on the floor with demons of their citizenry parked on their chests demanding services for which they refuse to pay.
The other is the range of casual ads interspersed with the news. Page 16 of The Star on Feb. 21, 1957, heralds a portable TV from RCA (remember RCA?). The thing still looks like you'd want a dolly if you were going to move it much, but I'm intrigued by the little quirks. For instance, they make a big deal of it bringing in UHF signals and specifically mention a station in Buffalo, so this had to be an ad tailored to south-central Ontario. Secondly, they go out of their way to institute the "second set" family home, explicitly advocating the segregation of family entertainment along generational lines, which I had always assumed was a phenomenon of the 1970s. I guess it was a long time coming.
But if you live in Toronto and you already have a library card, use it to log into the online research section of their site and have a ball. If you live elsewhere, see what your local library's site has on offer. You never know!
The Star's pages date back to 1894, and The Globe (and Mail)'s go back to 1844—which means you can read about Confederation in its pages online as it was casually reported in the paper in 1867, and reports coming in about the progress of the US Civil War just prior to that, and the astonishing news of Lincoln's assassination.
I find the pages of these papers at the most interesting, though, in the years after about 1950, when the expansion of Toronto was really kicking into gear. The creation of Metro in 1953, the building of the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway, the 400-series highways being hatched with quaint names like "the Toronto By-Pass" for the 401 and "the Barrie Highway" for the 400. This morning over my first coffee I decided to have a look at what I could glean about the DVP in the pages of The Star after January 1, 1955. It's quietly astonishing to see headlines about Metro Council voting a $1.7 million start to the project (Feb. 12, 1957, p. 42) with the number apparently so impressive at the time that it was actually spelled out, commas and all: "$1,700,000". These days that would probably pay for a about mile of construction. Maybe.
I really get a charge out of reading phrases like "The Don Valley parkway, the only solution to the current traffic problems in sight..." (Feb. 21, 1957, p. 16) and "An immediate start on the Don Valley parkway to relieve traffic congestion" (Nov. 21, 1956, p.31). People who read those phrases with a hopeful sigh would easily live long enough to see them converted to knee-slappers.
There are fun little notes like the idea that in 1957 Metro was considering expanding the zoo, which was downtown at the edge of the Don River at the time, "a mile alongside Don". Around 1970 the zoo moved to much bigger digs in northeast Scarborough at what is still the edge of town. An article about North York trying to dump Leslie Street on Metro's tab and Metro grumbling it made no sense because it was a road "from nowhere to nowhere"; North York suggesting it be extended down from Lawrence Avenue to the new section of Eglinton Avenue joining its two discontinuous parts. And, in fact, it was. But it still goes from nowhere to nowhere; Leslie still doesn't cross the Don south of Eglinton and dies for no reason at all just north of Steeles.
A couple of things really impress me. One is how desperate the politicians of the day seem to be to raise the money to do these things from the tax base, rather than just whipping out the I've-got-a-AAA-rating international credit card. Repeatedly I see articles in which councilors are begging the residents of Metro to accept taxes that will fund them. Fred Gardiner, the first Metro Chairman, gets a lot of guff for being a kind of 'raze it and build it' sort of guy, but I think he was onto something when he was quoted on Feb. 12, 1957: "If we are not going to raise the money then we have got to stop talking about things we want." People needed to be reminded of it then, but they could see it was true. I look around the world these days and all I see are nations panting on the floor with demons of their citizenry parked on their chests demanding services for which they refuse to pay.
The other is the range of casual ads interspersed with the news. Page 16 of The Star on Feb. 21, 1957, heralds a portable TV from RCA (remember RCA?). The thing still looks like you'd want a dolly if you were going to move it much, but I'm intrigued by the little quirks. For instance, they make a big deal of it bringing in UHF signals and specifically mention a station in Buffalo, so this had to be an ad tailored to south-central Ontario. Secondly, they go out of their way to institute the "second set" family home, explicitly advocating the segregation of family entertainment along generational lines, which I had always assumed was a phenomenon of the 1970s. I guess it was a long time coming.
But if you live in Toronto and you already have a library card, use it to log into the online research section of their site and have a ball. If you live elsewhere, see what your local library's site has on offer. You never know!
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
The Heavens
The Heavens are a band from Leeds in the UK. That's about all I know about them. According to their bio on their MySpace page,...
A bit puzzling because in some shots of the band, there appear to be five members; one a young woman, whose name we're left to guess at from everything I've seen, which isn't much.
Now if it sounds like I'm complaining, it's because I am. I stumbled across a song by the band in a YouTube video utterly unrelated to them... their song was being used as theme music for a guy demonstrating a graphics program. Tried the program; didn't think much of it. But the song stayed with me...
The song above is called If You're Lost For Somewhere Else To Be, and it's one of four songs I've been able to find by The Heavens. I was at a site of theirs, which I'm not able to find, or which might have changed, where they were all available as a download.
The songs are varied, textured, and so professionally done that I can't understand why they haven't been signed and sent on tour. These are guys who've done their homework and gained the skills to apply what they've learned. I say, fully and forcefully as a compliment, that these fellahs have got the chops to fit into just about any band I've ever heard and liked. A long time ago on this blog I praised a rum for its subtle hints of other flavours. This band is like that rum. The works are completely unique and their own, but they're so good and have such studied touches of the history of their medium that you could easily have convinced me that these are songs I've overlooked by Oasis, The Clash, Smash Mouth, The Smiths... even touches of Schoolhouse Rock, though that's probably more a matter of my musical history than theirs.
But seriously, these guys are great, and I'm really disappointed that's all there is. There should be more. At least an album, if not two or three! When I think of all the shitty albums I've been obliged to buy over the years just to squeeze out the one or two good songs a band has, it really seems unfair that this group, with four extremely listenable songs all of which I like, haven't got more. Go have a listen; see what you think. I find Echo Serena to be particularly impressive. In Second Day Blues, enjoy the opening homage to O Lucky Man! with Malcolm McDowell.
Echo Serena:
Second Day Blues:
Best described as a blend of British & American Psychedelia, Rock & Roll and 90's Brit-Rock, The Heavens are Richard Green (vocals and guitar), Davey Fairbrother (drums and vocals), James Heggie (bass guitar) and Mark Drury (organ and guitar).
A bit puzzling because in some shots of the band, there appear to be five members; one a young woman, whose name we're left to guess at from everything I've seen, which isn't much.
Now if it sounds like I'm complaining, it's because I am. I stumbled across a song by the band in a YouTube video utterly unrelated to them... their song was being used as theme music for a guy demonstrating a graphics program. Tried the program; didn't think much of it. But the song stayed with me...
The song above is called If You're Lost For Somewhere Else To Be, and it's one of four songs I've been able to find by The Heavens. I was at a site of theirs, which I'm not able to find, or which might have changed, where they were all available as a download.
The songs are varied, textured, and so professionally done that I can't understand why they haven't been signed and sent on tour. These are guys who've done their homework and gained the skills to apply what they've learned. I say, fully and forcefully as a compliment, that these fellahs have got the chops to fit into just about any band I've ever heard and liked. A long time ago on this blog I praised a rum for its subtle hints of other flavours. This band is like that rum. The works are completely unique and their own, but they're so good and have such studied touches of the history of their medium that you could easily have convinced me that these are songs I've overlooked by Oasis, The Clash, Smash Mouth, The Smiths... even touches of Schoolhouse Rock, though that's probably more a matter of my musical history than theirs.
But seriously, these guys are great, and I'm really disappointed that's all there is. There should be more. At least an album, if not two or three! When I think of all the shitty albums I've been obliged to buy over the years just to squeeze out the one or two good songs a band has, it really seems unfair that this group, with four extremely listenable songs all of which I like, haven't got more. Go have a listen; see what you think. I find Echo Serena to be particularly impressive. In Second Day Blues, enjoy the opening homage to O Lucky Man! with Malcolm McDowell.
Echo Serena:
Second Day Blues:
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Time passages
Funny. Just out of nowhere I happened to click on the link to this old post here from about six years ago. It's about a casual trip down to Bloor and my first time at The Bishop and the Belcher pub and the Anglican Bookstore a minute or so up the street from it.
Well, I was back down there again this Sunday, this time meeting up with Kaid. We were supposed to meet at the B&B at 11. When I got there at quarter to, it was closed. Doesn't open till 3 on Sunday. That rings a bell; that's happened to me before, but I keep forgetting. I don't think it was always like that, though, which is what keeps tripping me up.
So, knowing I'd just be a moment and I'd be able to spot Kaid anyway, I took a quick wander up the street to see when the Anglican Bookstore opened. It was a fool's errand, it being Sunday and all, but it was something to do. When I got there, a little printed note taped up in the window said they'd closed for good, January 18, 2013... about a month ago. Thanks for your patronage; see us at our Kitchener location. Kitchener's over an hour west of here. One more little occasional joy that's bled away.
Kaid arrived just after 11 and we made other plans. Just around the corner on Bloor, past the big Anglican church (which, it occurs to me, must be associated with the offices and former bookstore behind it) is Finn McCool's. We were chased there before by the failure to be able to meet up at the B&B for being closed, sometime last summer. We started off on the patio that time but light rain chased us indoors. This being winter, we were indoors from the start this time.
We had a nice time. I'd brought a book for reading while I waited about Eastern Europe, written in the period after the Berlin Wall fell but before the Soviet Union broke up. It sparked a long, interesting discussion. As for the fare, I didn't have anything to drink, though I'm no longer tee-totaling. They have a very nice chicken flatbread there... sauteed onions, red peppers, some strong hard cheese melted over cubed chicken breast. No fries, just the thin slab. It was indeed pleasant. Kaid had a few pints of beer and the Canadian breakfast. I'm not sure what made it specifically Canadian, but so it was called. The lighting is low but not dark. The music was audible but didn't interfere with conversation and seemed geared to guys who reached adulthood circa 1990 but who hadn't signed off against anything new (I picked up a new tune while I was there, matter of fact; You're a Tourist by Death Cab for Cutie). I really like the place, and I remember liking it last time. We decided to make it the new default for meeting midtown. I think I'm going to move my own allegiance from the B&B to Finn McCool's, at least for the time being.
Well, I was back down there again this Sunday, this time meeting up with Kaid. We were supposed to meet at the B&B at 11. When I got there at quarter to, it was closed. Doesn't open till 3 on Sunday. That rings a bell; that's happened to me before, but I keep forgetting. I don't think it was always like that, though, which is what keeps tripping me up.
So, knowing I'd just be a moment and I'd be able to spot Kaid anyway, I took a quick wander up the street to see when the Anglican Bookstore opened. It was a fool's errand, it being Sunday and all, but it was something to do. When I got there, a little printed note taped up in the window said they'd closed for good, January 18, 2013... about a month ago. Thanks for your patronage; see us at our Kitchener location. Kitchener's over an hour west of here. One more little occasional joy that's bled away.
Kaid arrived just after 11 and we made other plans. Just around the corner on Bloor, past the big Anglican church (which, it occurs to me, must be associated with the offices and former bookstore behind it) is Finn McCool's. We were chased there before by the failure to be able to meet up at the B&B for being closed, sometime last summer. We started off on the patio that time but light rain chased us indoors. This being winter, we were indoors from the start this time.
We had a nice time. I'd brought a book for reading while I waited about Eastern Europe, written in the period after the Berlin Wall fell but before the Soviet Union broke up. It sparked a long, interesting discussion. As for the fare, I didn't have anything to drink, though I'm no longer tee-totaling. They have a very nice chicken flatbread there... sauteed onions, red peppers, some strong hard cheese melted over cubed chicken breast. No fries, just the thin slab. It was indeed pleasant. Kaid had a few pints of beer and the Canadian breakfast. I'm not sure what made it specifically Canadian, but so it was called. The lighting is low but not dark. The music was audible but didn't interfere with conversation and seemed geared to guys who reached adulthood circa 1990 but who hadn't signed off against anything new (I picked up a new tune while I was there, matter of fact; You're a Tourist by Death Cab for Cutie). I really like the place, and I remember liking it last time. We decided to make it the new default for meeting midtown. I think I'm going to move my own allegiance from the B&B to Finn McCool's, at least for the time being.
We called her Georgette
I’ve been putting off writing this for a while for a number of reasons. But it’s reaching the point where it’s inexcusable to hold off.
Three weeks ago, a friend of mine of nearly 20 years passed away. Her name was Mary, but she was known to most of us by her middle name, Georgette. She was P-Doug’s wife for 30 years, and because it’s clear he occasionally pops in here at City in the Trees, I wanted to wait a bit because reading this, no matter how kindly it might be, will probably rake that fresh wound. But better that, I think, than it should seem I didn’t care.
Another reason I held off was because I wasn’t sure what to say. I kept waiting and hoping that The Big Important Words or the Major Life Lesson would occur to me. They haven’t. Georgette was simply one of those gems that is a fixture in a person’s life that drops away and sinks into the waves where it can't be retrieved. We can only remember. So my tribute, I’m afraid, will of necessity be a bit of ramble. Sort of like my friendship with her was.
To start off, I’ve been principally P-Doug’s friend. It’s hard for me to imagine that I would have encountered Georgette, much less had her as part of my life for 20 years, without having met her through him. But that’s okay; friends come into our lives by all sorts of means. And whatever he represents to me, I realized long ago that, had early misadventure befallen him, it probably would have been my place to step up and be around for her more. I couldn’t have ever replaced him, of course, but I knew she wouldn’t be alone. That I was not going to let that happen. And so I knew I was her friend alongside him, but also independently of him.
The first time I met her, she was in her mid-30s. She already seemed considerably older. She took it with good grace that I actually mistook her for his mother. She was prematurely grey, and her health was never ideal, not even then. I was working downtown at the time, as was she. Work was piecemeal for me then and I was often let go in the middle of the day and told to call back early next week to see what was up. So there were any number of times I was able to drop in on her, working the cash at Shopper’s Drug Mart, on my way home. She often took her break with me and we’d sit in the food court and I’d hear the stories of her youth. Even then, that was special to me. Those really became special times because they didn’t last all that long. By the end of the 90s, she had arterial blockages. She wound up with a quad bypass and that was pretty much it for her working days. She was on disability after that.
Still, it didn’t affect her negatively too much. She could still get around, and a lot of weekends, especially in good weather, involved them inviting me along for their treks to the rural fringe of southern Ontario; some bachelor-younger-brother by adoption. By and large those trips have all merged into a single big jaunt for me... I can’t really distinguish one small town and its quaint little restaurant with home cooking from another... but I’m glad they took me. There’s a whole lot of the province I’m faintly familiar with now that I wouldn’t be if they hadn't. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that, at least initially, inviting me along was her idea. Just seems more her kind of thing than his.
She was there, along with him, when I was confirmed in the Catholic Church about ten years ago. They were both lapsed Catholics but they appreciated the cultural milestone, and if they considered my spiritual quest naïve, they never let on. Georgette even gave me a rosary of green beads on a silver chain, held in a black leather case. I carried it around daily for a couple of years before it started feeling too much like an affectation. But I’ve always cherished it and I always will.
Probably the most wonderful thing Georgette ever gave me was permission to understand and love my cats, especially Bonnie. Bonnie jumps up on things and makes fussy noises at me, which I interpreted as just plays for attention. But Georgette saw it and tilting her head and smiling, she said warmly, “She loves you...” In saying it, she let me believe it too. In that moment she gave me as sort of permission to let my relationship with these little beings become deeper. It was like I’d known all along but wasn’t allowed to really believe without someone else saying it. She did. Her words ring in my ears just as she said them, every day.
Georgette didn’t suffer fools or foolishness happily. She wasn’t at all unfriendly; far from it: she could strike up simpatico conversations with strangers effortlessly... but she was easily frustrated and often made no bones about being plain about it, especially with people she knew. When I was younger it was off-putting. But as I grew older, it became oddly endearing. I can’t really explain why but it’s true. She just wouldn’t have been Georgette if she were a doormat. Georgette knew her rights, and consequently, so did everyone else. And to be honest, I find myself rather more vocal when I think I’m being taken advantage of. Maybe I learned to show those claws by watching her.
Her health declined slowly over the years, and each time she went to the hospital for a week or two, she came back slightly diminished. It was never a big thing, never anything I noticed... it was just cumulative. At first, pretty much whenever I saw P-Doug, I saw Georgette. Midway through the 2000s, it seemed like I was still seeing a fair bit of her on the road trips and a few nights out, but it was easier for P-Doug to just get away and have a buddies day on the weekend at a pub or doing some hiking. Often we’d meet up with her at the end of the day. But really in the past three or four years it got to the point where it was getting difficult to budge her for anything social. She found it hard to sleep at night, and basically slept out of exhaustion during the day. If I saw her every couple of months towards the end there, I’d say that was the extent of it, and I was finding myself wishing it were more. But never mind, I thought, it’ll come.
There was a day last summer when I was bringing something down to P-Doug, and he was out at a concert or something, and so I sat with Georgette in the living room, just talking. It was kind of like those old days, just her and me in the food court. I was looking forward to more moments like that. But just dropping in during the day was, more often than not, to meet with an unanswered door, because she was usually sleeping. So it really didn’t happen. And there was always more time, you know.
She didn’t look well at all when we all met up for Christmas at our traditional meeting place, the Swiss Chalet in Don Mills. She was distracted and pale. It took her a couple of minutes just to leave the restaurant and get to the car. I suppose a part of me sank that day. Part of me knew, I suppose, that we probably really didn’t have long. As it turned out, Georgette had both a stroke and a heart attack more or less simultaneously on New Year’s Eve. She was admitted to Toronto East General Hospital and never left it.
At first, she was unconscious, and P-Doug wasn’t even sure she’d wake up, and if she did, who she’d be, and what she’d be able to do. But then it seemed almost like a miracle. She did wake, and over the course of a week or so, her personality largely reintegrated and reemerged. She still had control of her body, though she was weaker. Larry and I arranged to come and see her on Wednesdays, and she looked remarkable the first couple of times I saw her. She was pink again, and she looked a decade younger. My heart soared for her. There was talk that she would need to move to a nursing home, since P-Doug would not have been able to attend to her during working hours, but to look at her, deep down, I had every hope she’d make her way home sometime this spring.
But of course, I was only seeing her occasionally. P-Doug was seeing her daily, and was getting the bigger picture. She was stable, but not improving. In fact, her kidneys, never strong, were on the verge of failing. She feared dialysis and had watched her foster father die of kidney failure shortly after President Kennedy was shot. Her body had been through a lot over the past 15 years. There was little more they could do. He signed papers to put her into palliative care at the hospital, and began the grieving process while she was still alive.
We all expected a few more months with her. When I saw her that Sunday, her arms were covered with burgundy splotches that looked like Indian burns. They were a drug reaction. She made a joke about the hideous colour. She was slow and tired but still bright. And I prepared myself for more weekends like this.
Larry dropped by to see her on his way someplace the following Tuesday. He did not know they’d moved her to the palliative care ward, and him not being family, they couldn't tell him anything. He left, frustrated, with the gift of a word search puzzle book he’d brought her; a gesture of compassion and personal recognition he never got to make. Less than twelve hours later, she died quietly in her sleep.
They called P-Doug.
Later, he emailed us.
Georgette didn’t want a funeral, so she had none. P-Doug saw no point in a showing since hardly anyone in Toronto knew her; their families were up north, and Georgette’s coworkers from the 1990s had largely drifted on. And so the last time I saw her, alive, was the last time I would ever see her. She was cremated the Monday following her death.
For me, it’s not quite real. In recent years long stretches of not seeing her were the norm, but she remained a presence in my mind. I don’t fault their plans and decisions (even if I did, my opinion hardly matters). It’s just... hard to make real. I know she’s gone, but that feeling that, yeah, she’s still in that house and if I want to I can see her, that’s still kind of there. I’m not sure what will dislodge that. It might be months or years before that stops feeling a part of my fundamental reality.
Being 12 years or so her junior, I anticipated going to her funeral, someday. I always imagined myself placing the rosary she’d given me back with her where it belonged. That’s not going to happen. I find that even the thought of taking it out and looking at it is painful. Not just because she’s gone, or even mainly that... because it means I’m older; that things that were mine to avail myself of have moved past me, beyond my reach. Those sweet days are gone. Something warm, familiar, and even familial has disappeared from my life and won’t be back. And that is a deeply somber feeling. I’m left with the memories of her, and the slightly different person I am for having known her all those years.
But there’s that. The big lights in your life exert a form of gravity on your character. The path it would otherwise have taken is changed under their influence, and as a result you become a slightly different person than you would have been otherwise. And in some ways, I’m not the person I would have been had she not been such an influence on my life for 20 years. I think I’m slightly more dependable for having known her. I think I’m more likely to be a bit brittle and stand up for myself because I’ve known her. And I can see love for what it is, even in beings with no way to say it in words. All that is what she gave me and how she shaped who I am today, and it’s a part of her immortality; the only kind we know for sure we ever get. It resonates in me and everyone she knew, and it will ripple through the world through us in the interactions we, the people subtly changed by her, have with others. She herself is gone, but persists in who we all are.
And I think there I’ve found my answer; that thing I didn’t have when I started writing this.
It hurts, but it will be okay.
Three weeks ago, a friend of mine of nearly 20 years passed away. Her name was Mary, but she was known to most of us by her middle name, Georgette. She was P-Doug’s wife for 30 years, and because it’s clear he occasionally pops in here at City in the Trees, I wanted to wait a bit because reading this, no matter how kindly it might be, will probably rake that fresh wound. But better that, I think, than it should seem I didn’t care.
Another reason I held off was because I wasn’t sure what to say. I kept waiting and hoping that The Big Important Words or the Major Life Lesson would occur to me. They haven’t. Georgette was simply one of those gems that is a fixture in a person’s life that drops away and sinks into the waves where it can't be retrieved. We can only remember. So my tribute, I’m afraid, will of necessity be a bit of ramble. Sort of like my friendship with her was.
To start off, I’ve been principally P-Doug’s friend. It’s hard for me to imagine that I would have encountered Georgette, much less had her as part of my life for 20 years, without having met her through him. But that’s okay; friends come into our lives by all sorts of means. And whatever he represents to me, I realized long ago that, had early misadventure befallen him, it probably would have been my place to step up and be around for her more. I couldn’t have ever replaced him, of course, but I knew she wouldn’t be alone. That I was not going to let that happen. And so I knew I was her friend alongside him, but also independently of him.
The first time I met her, she was in her mid-30s. She already seemed considerably older. She took it with good grace that I actually mistook her for his mother. She was prematurely grey, and her health was never ideal, not even then. I was working downtown at the time, as was she. Work was piecemeal for me then and I was often let go in the middle of the day and told to call back early next week to see what was up. So there were any number of times I was able to drop in on her, working the cash at Shopper’s Drug Mart, on my way home. She often took her break with me and we’d sit in the food court and I’d hear the stories of her youth. Even then, that was special to me. Those really became special times because they didn’t last all that long. By the end of the 90s, she had arterial blockages. She wound up with a quad bypass and that was pretty much it for her working days. She was on disability after that.
Still, it didn’t affect her negatively too much. She could still get around, and a lot of weekends, especially in good weather, involved them inviting me along for their treks to the rural fringe of southern Ontario; some bachelor-younger-brother by adoption. By and large those trips have all merged into a single big jaunt for me... I can’t really distinguish one small town and its quaint little restaurant with home cooking from another... but I’m glad they took me. There’s a whole lot of the province I’m faintly familiar with now that I wouldn’t be if they hadn't. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that, at least initially, inviting me along was her idea. Just seems more her kind of thing than his.
She was there, along with him, when I was confirmed in the Catholic Church about ten years ago. They were both lapsed Catholics but they appreciated the cultural milestone, and if they considered my spiritual quest naïve, they never let on. Georgette even gave me a rosary of green beads on a silver chain, held in a black leather case. I carried it around daily for a couple of years before it started feeling too much like an affectation. But I’ve always cherished it and I always will.
Probably the most wonderful thing Georgette ever gave me was permission to understand and love my cats, especially Bonnie. Bonnie jumps up on things and makes fussy noises at me, which I interpreted as just plays for attention. But Georgette saw it and tilting her head and smiling, she said warmly, “She loves you...” In saying it, she let me believe it too. In that moment she gave me as sort of permission to let my relationship with these little beings become deeper. It was like I’d known all along but wasn’t allowed to really believe without someone else saying it. She did. Her words ring in my ears just as she said them, every day.
Georgette didn’t suffer fools or foolishness happily. She wasn’t at all unfriendly; far from it: she could strike up simpatico conversations with strangers effortlessly... but she was easily frustrated and often made no bones about being plain about it, especially with people she knew. When I was younger it was off-putting. But as I grew older, it became oddly endearing. I can’t really explain why but it’s true. She just wouldn’t have been Georgette if she were a doormat. Georgette knew her rights, and consequently, so did everyone else. And to be honest, I find myself rather more vocal when I think I’m being taken advantage of. Maybe I learned to show those claws by watching her.
Her health declined slowly over the years, and each time she went to the hospital for a week or two, she came back slightly diminished. It was never a big thing, never anything I noticed... it was just cumulative. At first, pretty much whenever I saw P-Doug, I saw Georgette. Midway through the 2000s, it seemed like I was still seeing a fair bit of her on the road trips and a few nights out, but it was easier for P-Doug to just get away and have a buddies day on the weekend at a pub or doing some hiking. Often we’d meet up with her at the end of the day. But really in the past three or four years it got to the point where it was getting difficult to budge her for anything social. She found it hard to sleep at night, and basically slept out of exhaustion during the day. If I saw her every couple of months towards the end there, I’d say that was the extent of it, and I was finding myself wishing it were more. But never mind, I thought, it’ll come.
There was a day last summer when I was bringing something down to P-Doug, and he was out at a concert or something, and so I sat with Georgette in the living room, just talking. It was kind of like those old days, just her and me in the food court. I was looking forward to more moments like that. But just dropping in during the day was, more often than not, to meet with an unanswered door, because she was usually sleeping. So it really didn’t happen. And there was always more time, you know.
She didn’t look well at all when we all met up for Christmas at our traditional meeting place, the Swiss Chalet in Don Mills. She was distracted and pale. It took her a couple of minutes just to leave the restaurant and get to the car. I suppose a part of me sank that day. Part of me knew, I suppose, that we probably really didn’t have long. As it turned out, Georgette had both a stroke and a heart attack more or less simultaneously on New Year’s Eve. She was admitted to Toronto East General Hospital and never left it.
At first, she was unconscious, and P-Doug wasn’t even sure she’d wake up, and if she did, who she’d be, and what she’d be able to do. But then it seemed almost like a miracle. She did wake, and over the course of a week or so, her personality largely reintegrated and reemerged. She still had control of her body, though she was weaker. Larry and I arranged to come and see her on Wednesdays, and she looked remarkable the first couple of times I saw her. She was pink again, and she looked a decade younger. My heart soared for her. There was talk that she would need to move to a nursing home, since P-Doug would not have been able to attend to her during working hours, but to look at her, deep down, I had every hope she’d make her way home sometime this spring.
But of course, I was only seeing her occasionally. P-Doug was seeing her daily, and was getting the bigger picture. She was stable, but not improving. In fact, her kidneys, never strong, were on the verge of failing. She feared dialysis and had watched her foster father die of kidney failure shortly after President Kennedy was shot. Her body had been through a lot over the past 15 years. There was little more they could do. He signed papers to put her into palliative care at the hospital, and began the grieving process while she was still alive.
We all expected a few more months with her. When I saw her that Sunday, her arms were covered with burgundy splotches that looked like Indian burns. They were a drug reaction. She made a joke about the hideous colour. She was slow and tired but still bright. And I prepared myself for more weekends like this.
Larry dropped by to see her on his way someplace the following Tuesday. He did not know they’d moved her to the palliative care ward, and him not being family, they couldn't tell him anything. He left, frustrated, with the gift of a word search puzzle book he’d brought her; a gesture of compassion and personal recognition he never got to make. Less than twelve hours later, she died quietly in her sleep.
They called P-Doug.
Later, he emailed us.
Georgette didn’t want a funeral, so she had none. P-Doug saw no point in a showing since hardly anyone in Toronto knew her; their families were up north, and Georgette’s coworkers from the 1990s had largely drifted on. And so the last time I saw her, alive, was the last time I would ever see her. She was cremated the Monday following her death.
For me, it’s not quite real. In recent years long stretches of not seeing her were the norm, but she remained a presence in my mind. I don’t fault their plans and decisions (even if I did, my opinion hardly matters). It’s just... hard to make real. I know she’s gone, but that feeling that, yeah, she’s still in that house and if I want to I can see her, that’s still kind of there. I’m not sure what will dislodge that. It might be months or years before that stops feeling a part of my fundamental reality.
Being 12 years or so her junior, I anticipated going to her funeral, someday. I always imagined myself placing the rosary she’d given me back with her where it belonged. That’s not going to happen. I find that even the thought of taking it out and looking at it is painful. Not just because she’s gone, or even mainly that... because it means I’m older; that things that were mine to avail myself of have moved past me, beyond my reach. Those sweet days are gone. Something warm, familiar, and even familial has disappeared from my life and won’t be back. And that is a deeply somber feeling. I’m left with the memories of her, and the slightly different person I am for having known her all those years.
But there’s that. The big lights in your life exert a form of gravity on your character. The path it would otherwise have taken is changed under their influence, and as a result you become a slightly different person than you would have been otherwise. And in some ways, I’m not the person I would have been had she not been such an influence on my life for 20 years. I think I’m slightly more dependable for having known her. I think I’m more likely to be a bit brittle and stand up for myself because I’ve known her. And I can see love for what it is, even in beings with no way to say it in words. All that is what she gave me and how she shaped who I am today, and it’s a part of her immortality; the only kind we know for sure we ever get. It resonates in me and everyone she knew, and it will ripple through the world through us in the interactions we, the people subtly changed by her, have with others. She herself is gone, but persists in who we all are.
And I think there I’ve found my answer; that thing I didn’t have when I started writing this.
It hurts, but it will be okay.
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