Taking pictures in my underwear

You know you live in the boonies when you can go out the front door in your underwear and take a photo. Of the scenery, not your underwear.

The view from my window was particularly pretty this morning so I tried to take a picture from the warm place where I sat then realized my winter-windows are too filthy for that exercise. So I threw a coat on and some boots and wandered bare-legged into the front yard.

The sky was sun-peached and rosy behind the snow-laden trees and the river was as ink black and ice cold as a murderer's soul. A gorgeous morning. The kind of morning you feel so good just to be alive and breathing.

Oh. That reminds me. Somebody online posted a link for a quiz where you can determine how long you're likely to live. I pounced on it, all excited because I quit smoking years ago, I've just lost 58 pounds, I exercise daily – I figured I'd be told I'd live until I was 90.

54.

Apparently I'm going to croak in three years.

I tried not to let this get to me (stupid internet quiz) but I felt the cold finger of death touch my bleating heart. That was two weeks ago and ever since all I can think of is three years.... three years... I wish I could remember whose blog I found this stupid test on so I could share the link and you could try it and be as depressed as me. But I can't remember. Maybe it's a sign of my upcoming demise. I tell you one thing: if I'm going to die in three years you can bet I'll be eating, smoking and drinking every damned thing that isn't nailed down. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Ya think?

On a completely unrelated note, we're babysitting a friend's dog – Charles is his name. He's exactly the same colour and the same size as our own dog, Misty. They're like tiny-dog bookends. Incredibly cute. Diabetes-inducing cute. I tried to take a picture of them but have you ever taken a photo of two jet black dogs in a snowbank? When I got back in the house I blew out the background completely just so you could see their wee faces dusted with snow. They weigh about seven pounds each, soaking wet.

And those flowers? They're mine. A gift from my sweetie on Valentine's Day. Aren't they gorgeous? Aren't I lucky?

All this and it's Saturday morning, the best morning of the week. It's a long weekend here in Ontario. Monday is Family Day so we have three long, lovely days with no "must dos" and no plans. No money, either, but that's beside the point. I have a light, happy heart thinking of the time ahead. I hope your weekend is equally light and equally happy :)

THIS JUST IN: I found the link for that depressing "you're gonna die in three years" quiz.
http://gosset.wharton.upenn.edu/mortality/perl/CalcForm.html
Let me know how long you've got, OK?

Faces in a Crowd

Ghosts are everywhere.

In a flash, in a breath, on one tactile whoosh of heart.

I am adjusting a newspaper photograph taken at a children's Christmas party. The computer screen is lit up with squealing children dressed in their dime store best, sateen dresses with tube socks and scuffed running shoes; daddys' ties hanging crookedly under grinning freckled, dimpled chins; cheap, borrowed Santa suit, velvet rubbed off the elbows and knees, stomach pillow protruding beneath matted fake fur.

A woman in the background catches my eye. Smiling, middle-aged, with loose bleached blonde curls and dark roots, big-bosomed, blue frosty eyeshadow gleaming in the mid-audience gloom.

Aunt Judy.

Big laugh, terrible cook, huge heart.

Scrappy. Punched out my uncle's first wife at the side of a highway one day.

Grew up hard but knew the meaning of love. Survived a first husband that beat her and a fire that destroyed everything in her house but hope.

Forearms ringed with deep, ropey scars.

Had a thing for angels.

Never anything but wonderful to me.

Dead for five years; cancer. I went to see her on her deathbed. She was conscious, eyes sharp-lit with pain. Her children and grandchildren waited outside. I held her hand and remembered the time she made lemon meringue pie from scratch, only she forgot to add sugar and our mouths puckered up like they'd been slapped then turned inside out.

"I can't talk," she had said. So I talked for both of us, stupidly.

***


I am at the fall fair watching the horse pull. Surrounded by old farmers in suspenders and young bucks in John Deere ball caps, air redolent with manure, chewing tobacco and cotton candy. Sun too hot for autumn sweaters, tied carelessly around women's waists. Kids whine, kids puke, kids are kids. A swift breeze riffs through my son's still-10-year-old hair.

I see him in the crowd. Plaid long-sleeved shirt tight over a round Molson muscled belly. Black vinyl eyeglass case in his front pocket. Blue work pants, filthy cuffs. Silver hair, barely thinning.

Dad.

Five years gone.

The blood thins through my heart in a fractured sigh.

Photos, from top: Aunt Judy and Uncle George at Christmas in our rec room in Markham, Ont., circa 1975.
Dad heading off to work at the Canadian Pacific Railway in Midland, Ont., sometime in the early 1960s.
Heading off to work again – this time from our home in Markham, probably in the late 1970s.
Mom and Dad on a trip out west, circa 1988. This was Dad's 'uniform' of his later years. Plaid shirt, suspenders, ball cap.
Dad on a snowmobile trip in the Haliburton area, sometime in the late 1970s. I love this photo of him. So handsome. My son, Angus, now drives this snowmobile, a 340 Olympic Ski-Doo.
I miss my Dad, so much. This photo brings me to tears.

Kiosk Fall 2011 and Bear Poo

Got an e-mail from my friend Alan in Newfoundland who wondered why I've been so quiet lately. I've been fishing, Alan! Dave'll tell you – I haven't been quiet, I've just been noisy in a different, internet-free place.

Kiosk is one of the northernmost camping areas in Algonquin, one of Ontario's most famous and largest provincial parks. The are no roads into its vast interior, just a loose waterway of canoe routes, lonely dark lakes and black forests. The bottom end of the park has a highway and several campgrounds running through it (we go to one of those campgrounds regularly, Lake of Two Rivers), but there are really only two campgrounds in the north part, Brent and Kiosk. Both are at the end of long dirt roads stretching through Crown land. Both are former sawmill and railway villages, now ghost towns with only foundation remnants as clues of once thriving communities. And both are launching points for adventure-seekers looking for true wilderness experiences.

While Dave and I have camped in the interior, our trips to Kiosk are far more comfortable. We bring our trailer and our aluminum motorboat and spend four days every spring and every fall looking to catch and release some big fish, spend some time together and catch our breath. No jobs, no kids, no pressure.

The weather was downright terrible. Grey skies and rain the whole time we were there – except on Sunday, when it was time to pack up and leave. Oh well. We've never let the weather put a crimp in our style. We fished, we rode our bikes, we read our books, we played cards. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary in a place we have both come to love as much as we love each other.

I took this picture to show you the difference between water levels in the spring and in the fall. This past spring we couldn't get under this bridge because the water was so high. Last weekend the water was so low there was barely enough water for our boat – the difference is at least four feet. The bridge, by the way, is part of the abandoned railway line built by lumber baron J.R. Booth in the 1800s. It's the main reason Brent and Kiosk existed, with sawmills cutting up the rich forests of Algonquin and shipping them, via railway, all over the world. Before Algonquin was cut bare of trees, it was mostly giant pines and spruce that grew here. The regrowth has brought maple to the park, making Algonquin a gorgeous place to be in the fall.

Normally you would never be able to perch on a rock in the rushing Amable du Fond, the river that connects Algonquin's northern lakes: Kiosk, Manitou and Tea. We've never seen the river so quiet but took the opportunity to walk up the waterfall and take some photos. Dave brought his line and tried to wangle a brookie onto his line but even the fish thought there wasn't enough water.

This was my fish, a nice 4 pound bass. Dave, of course, did fish holding duties, baiting the hook duties and looking good in his rain suit duties. I did all the real work, wrestling that beauty in, kicking and screaming. We posed him for a pic, than he flicked his tail and disappeared into the water. 

Dave also caught a nice bass - not as nice as mine, though. .. jest saying...

And a trip to Kiosk just isn't complete without a lake trout. Dave was happy to snag this one.

Isn't this ridiculously cute? I know. You should have seen her waddling around in it.

When I was taking this photo I couldn't see Misty in the viewfinder – she completely blended in with the orange leaves and dark water of the Amable du Fond waterfall.

Because my friend Linda requested it, here's the bear poop in our front yard. Yup, we went all the way up north to see wildlife and we come home to see that a bear had ripped down our bird feeder and then crapped in our front yard. Linda, you can see the pitts of the choke cherries the bear had been eating. Judging by the freshness, the bear had been there within the last day. And judging by the size, it was a BIG bear. For ages we were under the false impression that there were no wild animals in our neighbourhood, other than a few foxes, raccoons and skunks – but now we know there are bears so we have to be a little more careful. We did see some wildlife in Kiosk – on our way there we had a rabbit run right towards our vehicle – Dave had to swerve to avoid it. The hare had eyes as big as saucers. A little bit down the road we saw the reason why: a fisher hunting it. "Run, bunny, run!" we shrieked out the window. Dave honked the horn and scared the fisher into the bushes. We hope we gave the bunny enough of a break to survive.

Our busted bird feeder with poo in the background.

The top of the feeder the bear had ripped off.

The wire that had held the feeder until the bear decided to have a closer look.