Random Thoughts about a Pizza Party

I am going to try to capture some memorable moments at the pizza party on Saturday, at least the ones where I had my camera out.  I forget when I am having a lot of fun, to stop and take a picture.  I can't stop the flow of the automatic fun until it is over...and then it is too late for pictures of the event that just happened.

Wyona is helping to put toppings on the pizza.  I should add here that one of the highlights of the evening was the 8 of us trying to figure out what was happening with Shauna and David Pilling's chickens.  I have been saving my paper egg cartons in case she needs them.  Glen said that he didn't think they were in need of those, that the chickens only lay 2 eggs every 4 days.  "Is that eight eggs a day," Wyona said, her math being the solution to another problem.  Then Bonnie asked a question as to whether he was computing for just the chickens were the rooster and the intersex animal in the computations.  When Glen explained with is simplest solution, "They chickens are laying 1/2 an egg a day", I thought I had hit my funniest moment of the day.

And for dessert?  Apple cobbler, or what you see here is the last of the apple cobbler.  What other dessert would we have when people have been trying to pick all of the apples off of the trees so that they don't spoil or get taken by the bears.

Moiya took on the job of cutting the pizza's.  Her qualications?  She was nearest to the cutting board and of all of us, she can still jump up easily.

Pepperoni? 
Need I say more.

The pizza before us was always hot.  And the crust was perfect, if you like your pizza so that when you pick it up, it stays firm and doesn't slowly wilt down the size of your hand.  So yes.  Hot and a firm crust.  Delicious.

This appears to have spinach, olives and roasted red peppers. 
Looking at it I wish I had eaten just one more piece.

On a side table, there was one of the pottery bowls Janet fired this summer.
Beautiful.
Wyona was commenting that with a side nose and another couple of eyes, the style would have been definitely Pablo Picassi, a beatiful dish and I held it in my hands and turned it over quite a few times.

Ingredients chopped and ready to be put on the pizza.
I couldn't have chosen the right colour of board on which on which to display the ingredients,
if I had search all day for it in various kitchen shops.
Go, Pillings, go!

I asked about the two twigs sitting on the counter. 
Glen had been in an area of BC where they have a tree that has five needles in a clump on its twigs. 
He brought an example of it home.  
I asked him about it. 
He wrote, "Limber pine (pinus flexilis).  
Golden B.C. is the furtherest north it it ranges.
It has a symbiotic relationship with Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana.)
For more see https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Clarks_Nutcracker/overview"
As well, Glen reminded me I will have to be up high. The only nut pines around here are the limber pine around Golden and the white bark pine in the sub-alpine. He says I may hear this bird if I were on the top of Bastion, but definitely not in the hills behind us -- the Larch Hills.

... and now, an example of a pizza ready to go into the oven -- a hot oven for 8 to 10 minutes ...

... Janet, hosting the party, making sure eveyone has a beverage ...

... Moiya holds back laughter, which it is about to erupt ...

 

Moiya is using the Chinese meat cleaver here to cut the pizza -- the best tool, even better than one of the pizza cutters that uses a roller, we concluded.  The board she is cutting it on is the circle that is sawed out of a counter when a sink is is being put in a kitchen.  Many of us kept that larger oval or square over the years.  I wondered when they stored arborite piece. 
"Between the fridge and the counter, in that small space where something tall can be stored upright."

 Janet was reminded of buying that large cleaver over 25 years ago when families started cooking "Chinese".  We all bought a wok and a good heavy cleaver in those days.  Both are tools that have paid for themselves in use over the years. Doesn't everyone have them?

A 6 pm Call

Moiya Wood

Last Friday at 5:55 pm to be exact, I got a call from Moiya asking us to come over for supper.

Having just opened the fridge and pulled out some vegetables to stir fry, I was happy to accept her offer and forget about continuing on with my task.

Fifteen minutes, she said, and it would be ready. 

As we knocked on the door and heard the call to enter, we saw Greg, but no Wyona. 

 “She isn’t feeling that well,” Moiya said.

Bonnie countered, “Well, I am going to look in every closet in case she jumps out at us for a joke.” 

I continued to make my first-scan-of-the-room.

Watch your closets for a surprise!

Doesn’t everyone do that? I heard Bonnie shriek – the kind I know is a signal that something out of her ordinary has happened.

I had to look around for a while until I saw an opaque figure of Wyona hiding again behind the pantry glass, waiting to scare me as well.

After that the meal was uneventful as for scares.

But I was wondering what about the apple pie I saw on Moiya’s counter.

O.K.

Maybe it was dessert first.

I was about to say that when I saw Wyona cut the crust (after the blessing on the food) and begin to lift the first piece out of the pie plate. Meat pie. Who gets an invitation to a home where home-made turkey pot pie is served?

I know how much work that was, which made the first bite taste even better.

Wyona continues to create and wear beautiful jewellery.

We lingered longer at the table, six life-long friends.

Drinks.

The Entrée.

Dessert.

The occasional rumble of the CPR train passing by.

A perfect evening. 

Arta

Moral of the Story: 

Always pick up the phone if it rings at 6 pm.

Shopping at Wyona’s

 

Wyona Bates opened her jewellery shop on ETSY this week.

Apparently, all you have to do is go to ETSY, and type in NecklaceArtistryZoey

Moiya showed me how to go there when she was over for a visit.

Now I have to figure out if I can make it work on my own. 

I can do it.  I know I can!  And I will figure out a way to bring a few pics down for my readers.

Lapis Lazuli & Silver
chunky statement
 with kyanite, sapphire, and sodalite beads
of fascinating blues and silver.
$210

Vibrant Necklace of Natural Red Coral,
Natural white Onyx Chunky Nugget shapes,
white lava and red bamboo coral (imitation).
$120

Arta

A Wee TIA Event.

Report from Wyona 

... before leaving for the lake ...
... modelling my reptile pin ...

I am at Shuswap with Greg, Zoe, Lurene and family, and Marcia and family.

Covid 19 has brought us all out to the lake.

I have been weeding with Zoe and we all have been keeping busy.

On May 14th, all were sleeping all snug in their beds but I am up in the loft sewing while sitting on a chair and watching TV at 1:00 a.m.

All of a sudden I find myself bent over from the waiste down. I can remember nothing. I raised my torso but it took a number of times before I could sit up. Then I was disoriented, dizzy and my head was going around and around. My vision was blurred. It took me a few seconds to get it together so I sat there ‘till I quit spinning. Then I felt the side of my face and it was numb. I turned off the TV and lights and walked downstairs leaning against the wall and using the rail. I sat on the bed, my face was numb and things were not right.

I remembered Arta having had a stroke but I felt OK except the left side of my face was numb. Wondered if I should just go to bed but I was afraid I might not wake up again so I poked Greg, woke him up and told him something was not right and would he phone the Health Line for me. The person on the health line told me to phone 911 and get to the hospital. I asked her if my husband could drive me. She asked me how far away I was and I told her 20 minutes. She just said, ‘…get to the hospital’.

... Annis Siding ...
... the trees haven't leafed out yet ...

Grabbed my phone and purse and beat Greg out to the car.

I did send Greg downstairs to tell Lurene where we were going but Lurene was asleep so Greg told Marcia where we were going.

When we arrived at Emergency in Salmon Arm I was the only one there.

We had to ring a bell to get inside. The receptionist took my blood pressure, 170 over ninety. She asked me if I was dizzy, did I lose my sight etc. She told me since by blood pressure was not over 200 there was no need to rush. I moved to a different spot where someone came and took me into the emergency room with other beds. I was hooked up to a monitor and someone came down to take blood and do an EKG. The Dr. came in after that and told me I was going to stay until morning when they could do a CT scan.

At that point in time Greg had my purse in the waiting room and my phone was dead. The nurse brought me a phone to call Greg and I told him to go home but I wanted my purse with his phone in it. It took a while for my purse to come and I guess Greg left.

I was laying on a skinny bed with the sides up and just one flat pillow. At home I sleep with seven assorted pillows. I asked for a round pillow and the nurse looked at me like I was crazy. So I just asked for another blanket/sheet and I rolled it up for under my head and used my skinny pillow folded over for my left arm. It wasn’t long before the nurse brought me two cups with pills in them. The first two pills I had to chew and the nurse told me they tasted terrible. I thought they tasted like ‘tutti fruiti”. Then I had to swallow two pills before laying down. The blood pressure monitor was fixed to my arm and went off often. It was tight and hurt. No sleep in the emergency room.

The Dr. called my episode a TIA or Transient Ischemic attach/mini stroke.

... Teague after a morning fishing trip with Gabe ...

So, you don’t sleep very well at night. There is a blood pressure thing on your arm. In the morning, an intravenous for a CT scan. They just wheel you in, the nurse tells you, they inject fluid into the tube. Then in 15 seconds you will taste garlic, then it is hot, you think you will pee, but you won’t. I asked her for a depends just in case. The machine tells one to breathe in and breathe out. It feels creepy. Right down your body, and hot.

After the CT Scan results came back the Dr. came in and asked do you smoke, do you drink. It shows you have emphysema. This is more than once that I have been told that. I was told it before I got my C-Pap machine. In Ottawa I couldn’t breathe and I had a puffer during the day and a different one for the night then used it less and less. When I went to the hospital once for an operation, I told the Dr. I had a puffer but didn’t have it with me. Then the Dr. got very mad when I didn’t have it with me and got me one. So I didn’t tell anyone after that since I don’t want any Dr. mad at me.

... a butterfly stops for a moment at the lake ...

About a year ago, I was getting bad cramps in my legs, so I stopped Crestor and started Omega 3. Dr. said I have to go back on a different ‘statin (Crestor).

It must have been a shift change that woke me up because things were very noisy in my space.

I looked at the breakfast in the hospital. It was white porridge, milk, a cup of coffee, you open up the hot plate and it was 2 pieces of toast, 1 white egg poached in water. I ate the egg, I ate a couple of bites of the strawberry soggy toast.

When we got out of the hospital, I needed to get water, I was so thirsty, so we went to Walmart to get water and medicine for me prescribed by the Dr., and embroidery floss for Lurene. She wants to do some cross stitch. Covid is on and everyone is cross-stitching. Lurene found a pattern, and it is all the buildings in Bulgaria. Everyone has to have a cross stitch that suits them. Marcia’s was all of the holidays in the year.

... looking north from Richard and Miranda's lot ...

I still wanted to ask the Dr. about my aorta. I wanted to have one better than Glen’s for he says his is perfect, but no one would talk about that with me.

When I had Zoe in Brussels, the Dr. saw my legs and said ‘why doesn’t she have pressure socks on for I had varicose veins’. So I had a pair of those socks brought to me to put on that instant.I wore them for a long time. That Dr. wouldn’t do anything without me having those socks on.

Greg came to get me in the morning.

The hospital had called before I got home.

I have to go back to the hospital on June 3 for EKG and Holter Monitor testing and some time when I get back to Calgary I should think of a pulmonary test she said.

A neurologist from Kamloops has already been in touch with me. Things move fast.

As a side story, when I was little, I would turn blue and Doral and Wyora would take me to the hospital. Then Apostle Lyman came to Calgary and gave me a blessing, and turning blue never happened again. Later Apostle Lyman was excommunicated. So now, maybe the blessing has stopped.

... the spring view from Doral and Anita's porch ...

Sometimes emphysema doesn’t exhibit itself until your 40’s or 50s the nurse said.

So now I have 3 weeks of blood thinners and then more tests.

Once you have a TIA, it is serious.

I feel fine now except now I can use a mini stroke as a reason for different behavior patterns of mine.

Wyona

Bug Fashionista

Tonia posts these pictures on her facebook page and says:

My mother has played with bugs since she was a girl.

We grew up with dead framed bugs on our walls after we left Malaysia.

A friend posted a blanket with a large spider on it and my mother said she loved it.

Today she showed me her new jewelry, bugs and lizards.

Some people's passions never change.

__________________

I want to add to Tonia's words.

She has captured the essence of her mother in 4 photos.

I would have tried to write a whole essay and not caught for us what you have presented.

Smashing!

Few will ever know this amazing woman's talents -- extra-ordinaire school teacher of the disabled.

She is a water-color painter, and jewellery designer.

She is a seamstress, an alteration expert and a dress designer.  I own a beautiful designer Chinese black silk jacket, a gift from her.

She is a quilter, and a cheese-cake cook. She just doesn't make one at a time.  She makes three.

She is the grandmother of all grandmothers, rounding up all of her grandchildren online to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Love Never Dies", and paying for their snacks, $20 each.

And oh, what about the 5 star zucchini cakes, bridge player who should be going after masters points, and now on-line bridge player through pandemic times with her family. 

Wyona is a dancer, a woman who is longing for the dance floor on cruise ships to open up again.

Oh, the snacks she brings on a road trip.  The cooler is always full of ice and soda.  Ritz crackers, cheese, red licorice, bridge mix, apples, grapes, Hot Rods, min-chocolate bars are pass from the back seat to the front and back again.

She also loves bugs.

Arta

Eighty Memories for Eighty Years: #60 Water

Water colour fom the Daisy Series by Wyona Bates

I have always loved water.

Glen Pilling gave me words for why: water, the gift of life.

The gift of life is what I see in the forest when there has been rain, what I see in the lawn after a downpour, what I see in the Spring as the crocuses pop up in the small foothills that lead to the prairies.

I love the water on the garden vegetables, water for the sweet peas, a sprinkler for the children to run through in the summer time, a small stream that comes out of the woods and runs down the gravel into the Shuswap.

I will always remember a raft trip down the Bow River, a once in a life-time event from me, riding on moving water.

In my early twenties I took a ride on a barge up to Anstey Arm on the Shuswap, long leisurely hours, the barge docking and unloading provisions for small cabins on the lake.

Just last year, I have stepped into a boat with my siblings and driven by Art Treleaven

Water colour fom the Daisy Series by Wyona Bates

He was giving all of us a drive by the shore of the lake, looking toward the highway, a reverse view of the water that I get in a car on a drive to Salmon Arm.  Yes to the view from the water.

I watch the Bow River as I travel west through the Rockies, seeing its size diminish until it is merely a brook. I think to myself, sometime I will trace this stream up to its headwaters.

I love to wash dishes, the warmth of the water, at the same time, the joy of easy removal of food.

I am never in a bathtub or a shower when I am not overwhelmed with happiness– the power to rinse my own body and the wonderful warmth of the water.

Right now during Covid, when I rinse the soap from my wrists and the backs of my hand, I am grateful for water.

I use water for cooking. I use it to make bread, to boil pasta, to steam carrots, to test if candy is at a soft or a hard ball stage. I use droplets of water to test if a frying pan is hot enough to put a steak on.

I love to stop by a fountain in a library or a mall or a grocery store, turn that spigot and have a stream of water arc up so that I can catch some on my lips.

I am just putting it out there that I have a lifetime of rich memories around and about water.

Arta

Fashion in Times of Covid

Question for the reader?
When someone takes  your picture and
you have your mask on, do you still smile?

I shook my head when I saw her and then I asked Wyona, how is it that she could have a blouse and a face mask matched.

She then pulled out a pillow she made from an expensive dishtowel that she bought in Iceland.

It may have been $52 for that towel.  She had the Icelandic money and had to spend it.  The print on the pillow case was so beautiful she knew she could make it into a pillow.  So here, the back of the pillow also matches the cover she made for her appliance on her left hand.

I do not know where she does all of this.  Just to say, yes, a mask to match her top, a cover to match her pillow and she can still play on-line bridge until past midnight.

Go, Wyona, go.   And thank you for the face mask you made for me.  I will try to match it up to a scarf I already own.

Arta

The End of a Reno

I have had a reno going on at my house.

Greg: centre and left    Wyona: centre
Winners against the skyline in the distance

Not the best time for a renovation to happen. 

The case in point, I have been holding off for a couple of years too long.

It’s urgency has gone from nice-to be-done to absolutely necessary, even before the pandemic moved to North America.

Now the upstairs bathroom reno is finished, the new shower is installed, and I am waiting for the first shower to taken.

That will be the contractor’s proof that nothing will leak anymore.

Or maybe the home owners proof.

The new water softener downstairs will need salt, and so on my grocery list was three 40 pound bags of water softening salt – more than I can push or carry. I had to shop. Greg came along as my legs and arms today. We went to Costco. I don’t know why we like to go to the early morning opening on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The line is no shorter when we come out than when we go in, though the clerks have told Wyona that in those early hours, the old people who get in an hour before the regular Costco hours, move really slowly through the store. That clerk probably already knows that the speed she is seeing is absolutely the fastest we can go.

... the line at Costco snakes along newly constructed
outside-of-the-building isles in the early morning hours ...

The first week we went at the ungodly (for some of us) hour of being in the line at 8 am, we stood for an hour in the line up. The wind up there on the prairie is pretty cold.

 Greg said he could see a headline “200 Seniors Freeze to Death”.

 We who live on the upper plateau of the river valley aren’t used to the sweeping wind that comes in across the tops of the foothills where Costco is situated.

Going to Costco used to be a social journey for Wyona and me.

Now we can’t get close enough together in the line-up to talk and we don’t see each other in the store, only as we spot one another – me at the cheese isle and Wyona near the produce area. In fact, social distancing means we just don’t get together – only when Moiya makes a three-way call to us and we are all on the telephone together. That time is actually quite satisfying.

Photo Credit for all pics: Lurene Bates        LtoR: Lurene, Arta, Wyona, Greg
... the moment when we wait for two pizza's from a deserted take-out ...

I have to give Costco a high five for marketing that includes social distancing.

There are lots of sign inside and outside of the store doors.

Costco has found a way to make the line snake up and down the side of the building, which belies the amount of time it will take to get in – there have to be at least 3 long lines to the snake.

Maybe four.

As well, I go in one side of the cooler that holds the vegetables, around a circle and back out the same door but on the opposite fascia of the door. I would say that over ½ of the customers were wearing home made masks (which I see as a gift to those they might cough even-in-the-vicinity-of other customers).

When I am home and my groceries are put away, I look at the bill: clementines, fresh figs, 2 dozen eggs, a kale salad, a baja salad, doulble smoked gouda cheese. I acknowledge, a feast.

As well, I bought water-softener salt.

Arta

Dresses and Shirts for Stampede Week

Picture scanned and circulated by Marcia Bates

Ancient Photo
(I am guessing that the year is 1959 or 1960)

Front Row: Lorraine Tucker, Moiya Wood, Richard Pilling

Back Row: Glen Pilling, Darla Robertson, Leatrice Tucker, Bonnie McLoone, Wyona Bates, Wyora Pilling

Text from Arta

Wyora bought yards of material and made vintage Western wear for us one Stampede Week.  There were yards of ruffles sewn on these dresses.  And what made these dresses outstanding was yards of ribbon and rick rack sewn on the ruffles.

I think Lorraine is wearing cowboy boots.  Yes, real cowboy boots.

Moiya remarked that Wyora has on a cute set of high heels.  And she thinks her mom was young and beautiful, which she was.

I do have a picture where I am wearing a similar dress at a ward party that was held out at the Leinweber farm, so add one more to the total count of people whom Wyora sewed for that summer.

Text from Wyona: 

Aunt Leatrice and her family came up one July. Mother and her sewers made all the dresses.

I remember a bolt or two of the same fabric that Mother bought. Then she bought some rick rack and trim to go on the dresses.

It must be Sharon who is not from our family. And yes, Mother's heels are gorgeous.

This same year we all went to the Raymond stampede and wore our dresses. Oh yes, I remember sewing these dresses!

I used to cut my mother's hair and I always did her hair in rollers from the time I was a teenager. I remember her sitting on a chair while I did her hair. And Doral would sometimes complain about her wearing rollers to bed. We all wore rollers to bed.

This was probably the same year that all the families headed back to Cardston and Moiya was left in Raymond. We did not know she was missing until all cars got back to Cardston. Moiya, you will have to finish the story.

Wyona

More on the Double Feature (the fun of Knives Out)

Arta and Wyona getting seated for
Dear Evan Hansen

not a double feature, but two acts
which sort of counts as something double 

I learned to love double features back in the 1940’s and 50’s when just about every movie house had a double feature.

That is how we saw movies. There would be the feature and then a B movie that accompanied it.

As well, it didn’t seem to matter what time the show started for me.

I just walked in, and then did the full cycle until the movie came back to where I had walked in.

When Wyona said we would be doing a double feature last Thursday, I wondered how that was going to go.

She said it just doesn’t make sense to drive over to the theatre twice, so she bought tickets for Knives Out and for Cyrano de Bergerac and we were going to see them both.

I asked her why she choose Knives Out. “Lots of famous people in the show, well known actors,” she said.

I did look up the plot and a few reviews.

I didn’t get the spoilers, and I had read a review in the far distant past on Knives Out – probably when it first came out. A mystery. I never choose to go see who-dun-its.
which

I would probably choose anything else.

Wyona believes in the full theatre experience: popcorn, drinks, snacks and settling in to using more than one seat if the theatre is not crowded, as ours wasn’t. Our coats on one seat, our bags sitting on another. There couldn’t have been 20 people in the whole room. That probably would translate into15 seats each at the very least, so it wasn’t like we were taking someone else’s spot.

I thought we might not be able to make it through both shows without one or the other of us napping. That just didn’t happen. Snacks. Drinks. Popcorn. Lots of room and two movies back to back. How can retirement be better than this. As well, Tonia joined us for Cyrano. What was fun in that second show, an added benefit was to hear her giggling, sometimes even guffawing. I wonder why hearing a companion thoroughly enjoying the show enhances the whole experience for me. Yes. I like to go alone to movies. But having her there was delicious. A good time was had by the three of us.

Arta

Three Hours of Writing a Day

Two Humming Birds
Painted by Wyona Bates

Rebecca told me she is trying to do 3 hours of writing a day and that she will report back to me at the end of the week.

I am curious about where one finds three hours to write.

In my day book, I can pencil in writing, and book off from 8 to 11 am.

By the time I get up, dressed, eat and do 6 simple exercises for my new hip,

I look at the clock and the whole morning is essentially gone.

Now that is not to say I am unhappy having a skill level where I can do all of these things on my own. It is just that the work of daily living gets in the way of this task I have given myself of writing for 3 hours a day.

Does cleaning off email messages count as writing? Ones like, “you are receiving this message because you are signed up to ACADEMIA and have read the following articles so we think you might also be interested in this one?” And then the new article does seem interesting and I do want to read it.

Or how about the alert “Your Capital One bill must be paid". Nope. I can’t really count taking care of my bills as writing though it does keep me out of interest collecting on those debts if I don’t pay them.

I want to respond to notes from old friends. As the months go by, either they or I loose our power to write as I would like to. But I guess when I say I want to spend 3 hours writing it is three hours above and beyond what I do when I get into my email.

I must go after those 3 hours and find them in the day. Right now, they are doing a disappearing act for me.

And what about the odd pieces of paper on which I have put random notes for me to remember for when I do sit at the computer. A collection of those erratic thoughts are be stapled together, in some haphazard condition and then taken to the computer and there goes another couple of hours goes by as I putter with them. Satisfying to complete that task. But it doesn’t fit into that category that I am now seeing is pretty finite: write on a certain topic and don’t let any interruptions happen – as one writer said, “focus on your task, even if there is a dead body in the sink”.

I know I have been working very hard. “Very” is a word I try hard not to use. But I am asking myself, am I really doing anything productive during the time I spend at the compter, and will I wish some day that I had kept my eye on my own agenda. Anyway, I do have the excuse that I have barely gained clarity of mind from the operation. Those high level drugs are good for healing, but not that good when it comes to writing and being full of them.

And I also know my job it to let the tiny muscles heal, but to move enough that I don't get a blood clot. Still... I wonder if I could write 3 hours a day. It is possible. The children next door can't come over for they are too rambunctious for me yet. So I am truly alone.

I ought to be able to find 3 hours a day for writing.

Arta

Two Hands on the Walker

Winter Scene of the Shuswap
Painted by Wyona Bates

I had my two week hip replacement appt.

I passed.

I have a precaution for the next 5 weeks: keep two hands on my walker.

Fiona, the physiotherapist, looked me straight in the eye and told me that – twice.

Two hands on the walker.

She must know that I have an impulse to push it to the side and try to walk on my own. I also want to find ways to carry objects all over my house, objects that have been in one place for years and years. Suddenly they need moving.

Mary has been here with me. A godsend. She leaves tonight to take care of her own little family in Lethbridge. She leaves me with chili in the freezer and two different Indian meals, which she says she has cooked enough of that I will get sick of the trays she has put away for me. Hard to believe that could happen. My wash will be done up when she leaves. She has sorted through cupboards with me. She has re-arranged furniture which is going to add to my comfort. Everyone should have a hip replacement with such help.

Arta

Crying Under the Stairs

Marcia popped by today.

Cabin where Marcia spent her childhood summers
Print from Original painted by Wyona Bates

She had dropped Zach off at William Aberhart High School and wondered if there was anything she could do for me while she waited an hour before she going to her hair appointment.

I told her I did have some things in mind that are really difficult for me to do, but slightly ridiculous. So superficial that I even hate to ask someone to do them.

The problem for me is that I can’t carry stuff easily from one place to another while still keeping both of my hands on my walker.

Marcia picked up a broom and started to sweep and told me to make a list of what to do when she was finished. It wasn’t hard to had items to my list of wants when I saw the whirlwind job she can do on a kitchen floor with a broom. I kept adding things to my list: sweep my stairs, put away dishes that I don’t need to use, fill my water bottle and take it to my computer, sort my music books so I can get at ones I want for the little children, put away my laundry, sweep the bathroom, move the Winston’s Dictionary to a high shelf for I don’t need to get at it right now – she did it all. And she added jobs I wouldn’t have thought of.

“Can I scramble some eggs for you– enough that there will be leftovers for tomorrow,” she asked, “and with or without pepper?”

As she was moving the step ladder around to do some of these jobs, she reminded me that she had just swept the steps that she cried under when she first went to university. That was a lot of years ago. She was away from home for the first time, leaving before her mother had even had time to teach her how to do her own laundry. As a first timer in Calgary, she was losing her way home from the university, she was at the university trying to find her way to her first-year engineering class rooms, and she was living with cousins and an aunt and an uncle and eating out of a fridge that was absolutely new to her. She had a lot to cry about in that first week and she choose to do that weeping under the basement stairs she was now back sweeping.

The basement stairs have a long history. Doral used to sleep there – he tells his kids his parents used to make him sleep under the basement stairs, just like Harry Potter. Connor’s bed was there while he went to university. Now that space under the stairs houses two filing cabinets and extra laundry detergent.

Back to Marcia.

If she had called me and asked if there were something she could do for me, I would have told her I didn’t need any help. That I am good. But popping by and grabbing a broom? How welcome was that.

I have a free-standing mirror in my bedroom which belonged to her. Whenever Marcia gives away furniture, Wyona and I find places to tuck it in our homes. That mirror is one of those things. Calling it “our mirror”, Marcia wiped it down and gave it a good shine – something I have been planning to do for months.

If Marcia ever drops by and asks if she can give you help for 45 minutes, give her full range of all of her powers. She is pretty amazing.

Arta

The Book Signing

..Silk fold-out book being opened ...

Occasionally I see fold -out books – mostly when I am with Carolyn Qualle, a book artist, who spent time teaching all of us in the writer’s group how to make these books.

I think product is a lovely fusion between fine art and fine writing.

The book is designed accordion style and when I read one side, then I can turn the book over and flip the pages of the other side.

Wyona has such a book. The back and front covers are made of silk.

This is her book for Chinese New Year.

 I was at her house, and I got to sign on the page marked 2020.

... fold-out book gets a long stretch ...

When I flipped back through the book, many of the pages were signed by her school classes for whom the Chinese New Year was a Unit of Learning.

There are enough pages in the book to go for 20 more years.

That will mean when Wyona is 96, she will still be able to have people sign her book.

I signed for this year.

I used bold, black cursive letters when signing my name, though people may not be able to read cursive in twenty years.

The children were all invited to sign the book at the party.

Michael signed Michael J.

... now it is fully opened and ready to sign ...

Wyona wondered aloud and directly to him, if someone will know exactly who this is in future years.

He looked at her questioningly and then told her of course, they will know.

It is Michael J.

Betty is only four.

She can print her name now, but someone has taught her to sign with her initials, so printed on the pages is “BBJ” (for Betty Blanche Johnson).

Lately she has been calling herself Foxy, and/or Brave HeartI.

I am surprised she didn’t use either of those names as she signed.

Arta

Decorations for Funerals

Wyona had plenty of red decorations.

“That is because there are extravagant red decorations around funerals in China as well,” she said.

... Alice studying Chinese brush work done by Wyona ...

When I was there for five years, it didn’t matter to me – the New Year or funerals, if I thought they were beautiful, I bought them all.”

Wyona sat the children down and pulled out long scrolls on which there were pictures of bamboo done in water colour.

I did these when I lived in Malaysia,” Wyona told the kids.

“You did not,” said Michael. “You got that off of the internet.”
The more Wyona affirmed that she had done the scroll work herself, the more he declared back to her that this is the kind of thing people can easily get off of the Internet.

I don’t think she ever convince him that he was speaking with the artist. She will be long dead and gone before he changes his mind on that one.

Arta

The Two Grandmothers

Moiya and Wyona spent some time during the holidays together.

.... just when I think I have one of everything that Wyona has,
I walk around her house and find that no, 
I don't have one of everything ...

First of all, the Woods stayed with the Bates during the December 16 – 19th LaRue vs Robertson Court Case (pluse days on either side for preparation.

Then Moiya and David came back after Christmas for May Way’s Wedding and they stayed with Wyona again..

On one of those days Moiya and Wyona made a three-way call to Betty Johnson, the first time she has ever spoken to two people on the other end of the line.

They sang for her in a post-modern way, one of them singing just one semi-tone and one half of a beat behind the other – which takes a lot of work on their part since singing that way is not their default.

During the rests in the music, the long rests, they told her they were having a party and could she come over.

She said yes and when.

... decorations for the Chinese New Year ...

They said to each other, “Whoops, how are we going to back up on this, especially when Betty told her mother that there was a party and she was invited over."

They told her that the party would be later and then they laughed, knowing they had to make good.

Moiya left town.

Wyona is leaving for Ottawa and then on to Kelowna for a couple of weeks.

So Wyona announced she was going to have her party – A Chinese New Year Party.

... whose house already has Chinese words
painted on the front room walls? ...

Answer:  Wyona

She made a second call to Betty January 5th, telling Betty that the party was the next day, at lunch, wear red, bring your mom and grandmother, and your siblings are invited, but only at your pleasure.

Betty always wants her brother and sister with her.

Wyona invited Kalina and Theresa to attend as well.

As well, all of the Pilling second-cousins were invited, but the timing was bad for them.

And that was the guest list fot the party initiated by "the two grandmothers", according to Betty.

Arta

Grievances: Real or Imagined

... Lurene and Tim at his birthday party ...

Sometimes grievances, real or imagined can get in the way of happiness.

But I don’t seem to carry my grievances (real or imagined) that way.

I find myself waking up every morning, just thrilled to have another day ahead of me – even if that day includes going to the dentist, which my life included today.

I feel that little pinch that comes with the freezing and think how lucky I am to have a dentist and good dental care.

... Marcia and Arta wearing necklaces designed by Wyona ...

My life is rich.

I wake up early.

I have a chance to do exercises, which I detest, but I still love doing them, since doing them is better than letting my joints get stiff, or not being able to walk at all.

Now it is the middle of December, or just about.

Wyona and Greg, the last of the 6 guests at Tim's birthday party

I have all of my Christmas decorations out, at least the ones I am getting out.

Not that I want them out. Decorating takes so long: little tiny ornaments on trees, finding batteries for small trains that will play tinny Christmas melodies, using the glue gun to repair ornaments that are broken now.

Everything Christmas decoration that stands (as opposed to hangs) is on my island.

To me it looks like an unholy potpourri of objects collected over 50 years.

But my grandchildren like to touch them, or turn on the batteries to them -- and that is what Christmas is about.

... Tim, good-naturedly posing with his birthday hat on ..

I can still name the places where the ornaments were purchased and about most of them I can remember the prices. That makes me laugh.

I try to group them by colour so that they don’t look like I have just come from a garage sale – all the white and silver ones in the same place. It doesn’t help much.

Zoe looked at my decorations last night.

She brought over her new game of Azul, but before playing it with me, she turned every battery operated decoration on, and then off and she also took apart my Nativity Nesting Dolls, which turn out to be a lot of fun.

Zoe beat me four games straight.
Sometimes she doubled my score.
Ouch to that for me.

Not only is there the puzzle of getting them apart, but then they have to be regrouped so that the wisemen stand together, and so that the animals are with the shepherds.

I noticed that just about everyone touches the nativities moves the characters into a slightly different position.

I like to do that myself – to other people’s nativities.

For Christians, Christmas – the most wonderful time of the year.

Arta