No more New Zealand New Year's

 Last year we made a New Year’s resolution to stay up until midnight next New Year’s Eve. The time has come.  

It’s my daughter’s one and only wish. Now that she’s 13, and likely won’t be with us much longer on nights such as these, we gave in. 

Not that it’s happened yet. There are a lot of factors involved, like keeping our eyes open. 

It’s going to take some preparation. A monumental shift in circadian rhythm will need to occur beginning, well... yesterday. Darn it, we’re already behind! We’re like government when it comes to changing bed times – it takes a crisis to get any action. 

Our problems with staying up late could be age related, but I’d say it’s more kid related. Once you have kids, some of us forget how to sleep. In her first two years of life, she tormented us with volatile sleep patterns, and for years afterward she rarely slept in past six. 

It ruined us. To this day, if we sleep past seven, we wonder if we’re suffering from some kind of illness. 

 Now our daughter has done a full teenaged 180. You can’t get her out of bed in the morning unless you yank her out by her arms. And just like our cat, her energy levels begin to peak at nine pm. This is terrible for two parents who were never night owls. As we’ve observed, our time schedule eerily resembles that of a nursing home. 

We like to “prepare ourselves” for bed at 8:30. That’s the last call for any “late night” adventures. By nine o’clock we’ll ease ourselves under the covers with a book or two. By ten, there’s little to no chance we’re conscious. 

The middle of the night poses other issues. A two o'clock wake-up might require some more reading. Far worse is the five o’clock wake-up, when the cold sweats begin. It’s a critical moment where one might never fall asleep again... until nine pm the next night. 

I look at my daughter with envy, as she sleeps through people talking, dogs barking and earthquakes (yes, we experienced a minor one a few years back). She doesn’t stir. 

As far as her late-night energy, we suspect the sleeping genes skipped a few generations. My 97-year-old grandmother, who is still a night owl, used to sew late into the night. The light in her sewing room would remain on while their bedroom, where my grandpa lay sound asleep, would be dark. 

I must get it from him. At the boarding school I attended, in addition to being known as the “coolest kid in school” (I suspect), I was also known as the “one who went to bed earliest.” I went to bed at 11 pm – that was considered early. I can’t even imagine going to bed every night at 11 pm. It would ruin me. 

Going to sleep after midnight might take some time to recover, but we’ll try it. No more New Zealand New Year’s. This year, we’re doing it right. 

Come midnight, mountain standard time (or whatever time we’re on now), 2021 will be cheerily welcomed.  

 For more reasons than we can count.

2020 wasn't all bad

 Not to understate things, but this year has been... interesting. I had a boss who would use that word to describe all things good and bad, even the most horrible events. 

Not that this year has been completely horrible. It’s just been... interesting. 

When I came across some pictures of us in Mexico the other day, I had trouble believing this was actually in 2020. Only 10 months ago, we were in another country with no masks on and no social distancing – we probably didn’t even bring along hand sanitizer. 

Only three weeks later I was phoning the 811 health line to see if I needed to get tested for something called the coronavirus. Despite the fact that I had some covid symptoms, they told me to not worry about it (things were a bit different back then).  

A few days before that, we were at our daughter’s music festival – our last real night out in public. It was the evening when Justin Trudeau’s wife tested positive, the NBA announced it was shutting down, and countries started to close their borders. 

That marked the beginning of some interesting times. 

For our family, it was an opportunity to slow life down. For my daughter it wasn’t bad at all. No more piano exam. No more science fair. No more dance competitions. Instead, we started watching Star Trek (watch long and prosper). 

The next few months consisted of many walks, a little more screen time, and lots more yard work.  

That spring I also became what one might call a birder. During our daily walks I got into the habit of stopping to video all kinds of new species (to me, anyway). It got so bad that my daughter laughed each time I’d pull out my phone to take another low-resolution picture of a tiny bird in a tree. 

We were also able to travel far more within the province than we normally would. Cypress Hills had always been a place we wanted to visit, but hadn’t made the time for it. Now it’s top of our list. There’s nothing like waking up to the sound of deer chewing by your tent or having a rabbit run up to your feet while eating breakfast. It was all so Disney. 

We also made an inaugural trip to Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan, another place we’d been meaning to go. If there’s one reason to go, do it for the Richardson’s ground squirrel. Now I’m used to seeing gophers – and, as a Prairie boy, I did enjoy packing them with pellets – but these are quite different. Especially when you see hundreds of them chirping within the space of a few acres. They reminded me a little of those meerkats in Africa. We even witnessed a coyote try to take on one of them down as the sun set across the gently rolling hills – which would’ve been kind of beautiful if not for the epic battle for survival. (We’ll say the little guy got away.)

A beautiful butte called Castle

Then there was the fishing. What would summer be without dragging my family onto one lake after another, trying our luck over and over again? I even dragged them to a fishing camp six hours north where we caught a whole four measly fish. It was still beautiful, never mind the heat, the biting flies, and the hordes of mosquitoes. I might do it again.

We discovered plenty of trails closer to home, and some unique places to explore. Like Castle Butte, a unique land form jutting out of the earth in southern Saskatchewan. You can climb it for a fantastic view of the Big Muddy Badlands. Sounds intriguing, right?
Who knew there was so much to see, so close to home? 

The year had its dreary moments, there’s no doubt. We couldn’t hide from the barrage of bad news, the isolation and, at times, fear. 

But there were also times when I thought, Hey, this isn’t so horrible. 

At the very least, it will make for good story telling when future generations ask what it was like to live back in 2020, the year of the Great Pandemic. They might just find our stories.... interesting. 

Merry Christmas!

Trying to remain credit worthy in December

It’s a funny thing when your credit card stops working. 

Funny in the sense that you might let out a hysterical laugh, like someone who just hit rock bottom. And yes, I came close. 

The other day I had to rent a van to pick up some new furniture. I was five minutes from my return time, just about to fill it up with gas, when I got the first message: Transaction declined. Say what?? I immediately suspected the gas pump to be defective and went on to the next station. 

Lo and behold, another problematic pump. What is it with this area of town? 

Yes, I can be thickheaded at times. Only on the third try did I realize there might be a higher power at play. Someone or something trying to reach out to me.  

It was my credit card company. They were sending me a not-so-subtle message that went something like this: “Whoa, fella! We know you like to spend, and that’s good! But maybe try to break it up a bit? Like not all of it in in the space of four days? Come January, once you pay off your ginormous bill, you can spend all you want! Up to a limit, of course. Love, Capital One.” [This is not an advertisement.] 

Yet I remained ignorant. Even after the fuel incident, I went back to the same card later that day. 

“CARD DECLINED,” the machine at the furniture store impolitely informed me. The woman behind the counter looked at me with suspicion (I could only see her eyes). 

“Huh,” I shrugged, acting as if this was the first time this had happened to me. “Must be something wrong with my card.” I took it out and looked at it, as if the card itself was defective – perhaps the microchip was failing. It was an old card, after all. 

Finally, after conceding my loss, I fumbled through my wallet for a much-less-used piece of plastic. “I guess I’ll have to pay with... debit?”  

The woman behind the counter paused for a moment, a sense of doubt forming in her piercing brown eyes. “Debit?” she repeated, as if it was the first time she had heard the word. 

“Yeah... um, debit?” I said, with even less authority. Was I crazy, or was something more sinister at work? What if my bank account was frozen, too? Were the financial institutions in cahoots without one another, spreading the word that I was no longer credit worthy? 

It was irrational, but a lot of things about the financial industry don't make sense. Like when a credit agency told me I should consider taking on a larger mortgage to boost my credit score. Borrow more so you can, um, borrow more?

As it turns out, it wasn’t about my credit score at all. This was about me and my wife and our little day out on the town. Maybe it was all the isolation... so much time to think and ponder... about how to refurnish our home. 

We just wanted a new sofa, but you know how that goes. Soon you’re revamping your whole living room. Let’s just say that along with the normal Christmas shopping, our available credit shrunk quickly. Don’t worry, we’re still solvent. The fact is, we didn’t spend as much earlier this year, allowing us to splurge now.

To rationalize this further, one might say we were juicing up the economy with our pandemic savings. We were doing our civic duty by helping out local businesses. One might even say we were heroes for spending like we did. (Too far?) 

And as my credit card company assures me, January will offer a fresh, clean slate of credit to help out even more. Once we pay off our ginormous bill, we’ll be fine. Credit score and all.

Bible may give your children nightmares

I have a confession to make: I read the Bible to my daughter.

A few years ago, at the tender age of nine, she said she no longer wanted to hear the watered-down version presented in her children’s Bible. She wanted the real thing. So she got it. 

Now if you haven’t dug into the books of the Old Testament, you might be surprised at what you read. Particularly when you read them aloud to your children. 

There are some things you may be tempted to omit. Not that I did. Why censor this holy book when she clearly wanted it all? This includes the seeming contradictions, the horrific deaths, and the repetition (my goodness, the repetition – what is it about Hebrew anyway?) 

At times, the Bible presents a horror show of human callousness and cruelty. The so-called heroes of the Bible are shown to be exactly who they are: weak, proud, and at times hypocritical. 

Remember Noah? The guy who saved the world from mass extinction? We don’t typically hear about the aftereffects of being at sea for forty days and nights. He turns to alcohol (in fact, he grows his own vineyard), passes out naked, then condemns one of his sons to slavery for not covering him up. 

And how about Lot? His wife gets all the blame for looking back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, only to be turned into a pillar of salt for her disobedience. Yet he goes on to fool around with his daughters while drunk, claiming later he wasn’t aware of what happened... uh-huh, I’m sure. To think they were the ones worth saving! 

If you’re worried about your kids turning into selfish jerks, you’re in good company. Even the most revered holy men had trouble keeping their children on the straight and narrow. Samuel became the last judge of Israel only because his predecessor’s sons abused their priestly status (an all too common occurrence). And Samuel didn’t do much better – his sons were quickly removed from leadership after accepting bribes and “perverting justice.” 

Abraham, the father of Israel, had a child with his wife’s slave. Moses, who talked directly with God on numerous occasions, never got to enter the Promised Land because of his refusal to trust God at a key moment. And King David, the most revered monarch of Israel, committed an egregious crime (worthy of impeachment!) by sending the husband of a woman he desired to die in battle. 

 And then came the 33 evil kings after him... All worthy of being removed from office! 

There are of course glimmers of hope in the run-up to Jesus, and they’re found in some ordinary people and prophets. The widow and son who shared their last meal with Elijah come to mind. Elijah was an extraordinary prophet, but he also lived a horrid life. He constantly received death threats, was expelled to the wilderness where he received food from ravens, and at one point begged God to let him die. As we’ve seen in the U.S., speaking truth to power is no cakewalk. 

The Old Testament is often viewed as secondary to the New Testament because it doesn’t offer God’s fullest revelation in Jesus. There are fewer mass killings in the New Testament. In fact, the whole image of a vengeful God is turned on its head. “Love your enemies” was a radical message for the Jews to heed during Roman rule. It still is for Christians today. 

But there’s still much to learn in the grisly elements of the Old Testament. Even when it gets thorny, my daughter rarely flinches. “Uh-huh,” she’ll respond when I ask if she’s still listening. 

It’s the stories she finds appealing. All that drama and grit. 

Unlike a children’s story book, or our modern interpretations for that matter, it’s not so black and white.

Our affinity for caged animals is growing

As the pandemic lengthens, so increases the number of animals in our home.  

Much like us, they live in confined spaces. 

After acquiring our fourth (and hopefully final) pet, my daughter started to question whether her pets actually like to be behind bars.  

“Are you sure he doesn’t want to come out more?” she asked as her hamster clung to the cage walls, its nose sniffing endlessly for a breath of freedom. 

“No, no,” I reassure her, “he had his five minutes today.” That’s five glorious minutes of rolling around in a fully enclosed plastic ball. It’s the safest way to allow a hamster to roam without having to call out the search and rescue. 

As for our newest animal, a budgie – donated by a dear friend whose adult budgies appear to be endlessly copulating – he gets a little more “yard time,” as they call it in prison. But with yard time comes fights, particularly when different species are involved. There haven’t been any injuries yet, but a few close calls. 

Not for the budgie, mind you, but for our cat. Unlike our canary, who is tormented merely by our cat’s gaze, our budgie appears to lack an understanding of the predator-prey relationship. He appears to think of our timid feline as an ideal perch. When given the opportunity to fly, he makes a beeline for her head. 

 Our cat now bristles in fear each time the budgie bounces on the floor towards her. That doesn't stop her from remaining curious, however. Similar to when I bring out the vacuum, she is drawn to the terror, albeit at a safe distance. 

Unlike most other animals, including ourselves, our cat actually prefers to be cooped up in the house. While always interested on what goes on outside – she spends hours on end peering out our front window – she has yet to muster the courage to venture past our front steps. She’s been in permanent lockdown since we adopted her three years ago. So long as I chase her around the house every now and then, her life is fulfilled. 

It offers perspective, I guess. If anything, the pets in our home provide us with much-needed distractions during this time of limited social interaction. Our daughter, who just finished her 14-day isolation period after a classmate tested positive, was getting used to Zoom classes with a budgie perched on her shoulder. 

“I hate school,” she said half-jokingly about the thought of going back. This is the same person who said “I would die!” if school were cancelled this year. 

But I can’t blame her, seeing as there are only two weeks until Christmas break. And then only a few more days after that until our Covid Christmas, as I like to call it. That’s when we’ll exchange gifts with our extended family outdoors, on a (hopefully) balmy Saskatchewan winter day. It will be a brief, but safe, visit. 

It’s our five minutes outside the cage. We’ll try to make the best of it.

The predator and prey?