WWW: What can happen in a second.

Everything can happen in a second. Life. Death. Love and hate. You can win a race in a second. Or, by a second. You can win a race by a tenth, or even a one-hundredth of a second. 

Everything can happen in a Blink of an Eye. And since you can probably blink a few times in a second, lots can happen in a Blink.

Take your eyes off the road for one second, maybe because you hate the song that's playing, or maybe because your kids are screaming at each other and you turn your head for just one instant, you Blink your eyes only once, to yell "Shut up!", and when you turn your head back around, you don't have your second left.

You can't react in a second. Your second is already used up. No more blinks. Just eyes wide open in fear, and that sickening feeling of sliding into nothing.



Okay, somebody's in a dark mood.

Next week's topic: The worst Thanksgiving dish you ever had.

101 Things to Do for your Children: #15: Let Them Grow Stuff

Number 15 of the 101 Things to do with kids is

If possible allow your child a plot of land or at least a flower pot in which to experience growing things.

K2 bought a seed potato a while back. I cut it into four pieces and he planted them. A few days later he dug a couple up to see if they were growing.

Now they're doing quite well. Three of them are, anyway. I'm not too sure what happened to potato piece number four. It's quite possibly rotting in the raspberry bushes somewhere.

I bought a couple strawberry plants, and as soon as the berries are ripe enough (any bit of red at all), they're picked. I think that they're even eaten. And I can't wait for the raspberries to be ready. I'm also hoping that the raspberries aren't too angry about the severe pruning job that they got this spring (which K2 got to help with as well--awesome!).

I think that this is a great Thing. It makes so much sense on so many levels. Your kids get to learn about where food comes from. They get to dig in the dirt. They get to learn how plants grow. They get to dig in the dirt and you can't get mad at them for it! They get to learn the responsibility of taking care of things so that they grow and flourish. And watering is fun, fun, fun!

I mean, after they get to dig in the dirt for a reason, and get really dirty which is the bestest fun ever, they get to water everything. Not just the plant, but the lawn around it. And the deck. And the sandbox. And maybe they can fill the kiddie pool a bit more while they're at it. And maybe now we can put the sprinkler on, Mom.

And while the sprinkler's on, you just go on thinking that we're occupied. Hey, is it okay that we moved these flowers over here? I know we already did it, so it must be okay, right? I think the sandbox needs more water, so I'll just move the sprinkler over there. Heck. Let's just put it right in the pool while we're at it. That'll help balance out the sand-to-water ratio that's in the pool.

Once everything's watered and tended-to, it's just a matter of letting the sun do it's thing, and we've had lots of sun so far this summer!

Now we just have to wait until the potatoes are ready for some more justified digging-that-happens-not-in-the-sandbox!

Chester the Molester

Sometime in my early twenties, which was also sometime in the nineties, I got a job as a First Aid Attendant in what’s known as The Oil Patch. I mostly worked on drilling rigs, but I occasionally did some pipeline and plant work, and once some seismic.

Drilling rigs were nice because they were 24/7 jobs, so I usually had my own shack, or at least half of one, whereas the other jobs were day jobs (AKA Truck Jobs), and I usually had to sit in my truck for twelve plus hours. Because I could never master the art of wearing sunglasses while “reading” an opened newspaper (a friend of mine could do this; said one guy, “I can never tell if you’re sleeping or not.” She usually was, but she could wake up before they got too close), it wasn’t that much fun.

Sure I got to read lots, and sometimes the road-radio chatter was amusing, but truck jobs didn’t usually come equipped with toilet facilities of any kind, unless you counted the trees. Have you ever seen the forest in the muskeg? A wheat field in the spring would provide better cover. Anyway, I digress, and this topic could be a whole other story, so I’ll leave it for now.

Back to the drilling rigs.

My second job ever was on a Bach-Camp job. In other words, the guys could stay in a nearby hotel (which was in the middle of nowhere on the Alaska Highway, north of Fort St John), but I had to stay on site in a shack 24/7. It was me, the Consultant for the Oil Company, the Tool Push (Rig Manager) for the Drilling Company, and a Geologist. I was the only woman.

I had my own shack, which was nice. I had to cook my own food, which was really nice because at that time I was a vegan, and camp food sucked—all salads came with ham or bacon.

I had a TV, but I didn’t have my own satellite receiver; I was tied in to the Consultant’s receiver, so I had to watch whatever he watched. His name was Chester, and I secretly called him Chester the Molester. Before you panic, let me clarify that he never molested me. I just called him that because he was always winking at me, which, when you’re the only girl around for miles on a rig staffed by men that are called Rig Pigs for a reason, makes you a little nervous. I was extra wary at all times.

Conversations with him would go something like, wink “Hi Spinny” wink. “I saw you out walking” wink today.” Wink “Where did” wink “you go?” wink. Chester’s winks didn’t occur fast enough to be mistaken as facial tics, but he winked a lot.

Anyway, I had to watch what Lester did, or more accurately, whatever he left on while he wasn’t watching. There were four options: movies (the rarest of them all); The Golf Network; a news network from somewhere that had NOTHING whatsoever to do with our region (or country, for that matter) and that looped the exact same half-hour newscast ALL DAY; and porn. Porn was the most frequent option, so I didn’t watch a lot of TV.

One day I had the TV on for background noise because it was golf or news, but it definitely wasn’t porn for once. I was carrying on with my day, and I happened to look outside at just the right moment to see Chester the Molester walking from the rig to his shack. He went in, closed his blinds, and within one minute, porn was on my TV.

How is a shy, nervous, never-makes-waves, young girl to handle such a situation? Well, it was the end of the month, so I waited a few minutes, and then, playing ignorant, I took an invoice over for him to sign. ;)

I let him keep the pen.

Sleep Ever Ellusive

It was a hot night, and Sheila decided to wait until it cooled down a little before she went to bed. Usually she didn't have to wait; usually her children kept her up until then. But not tonight.

Miracle of miracles, the older girl, Melissa, decided that all she needed was another story, and since it was the short Goodnight Moon, it didn't take long. And, the title was wonderfully appropriate. After that, she promptly fell to sleep. It probably helped that she spent a good portion of the day playing outside with the dog. In fact, it was a miracle that Melissa didn't fall face first into her soup at supper, she'd looked that tired.

I'm not looking that gift horse in the mouth, Sheila thought.

The baby was a bit trickier. She was destined to follow the usual pattern of nurse-to-fall-asleep-and-then-wake-up-within-one-minute-of-being-put-in-the-crib, Sheila could feel it. Terri looked a lot like her older sister, though, with a lot of head-resting on the high chair's tray at dinner. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing for Melissa to interrupt Terri's naps today after all.

Sheila did sit on the couch to nurse her to sleep though. It took over an hour, but Shane sat beside her and they watched a couple shows, so at least she wasn't alone like usual. And, Sheila would take any "couple-time" that she could get.

She finally put Terri in the crib and was oh so hopeful that she'd get more than the usual three hours of sleep before being woken up. She and Shane even got to spend some quality time together.

It was cooler now, and Sheila tried to sleep. Miracle of miracles, no little girls woke up until four! Right when she was actually falling asleep.

Of course.