167 photos.... but you only get to see 167!

 LETS GO!!!!!!!

April 25.  My first blog of 2024.  It must be a crazy year!  So busy.  

So this is a blog post about Meighan's celebration night.  The SAIT students in her class all finished their final projects for the year.  It was not one person, one video.  It was instead structured to allow a student to be the producer on one video, the clothing on another, the set design on yet another.  

Groups A & D were the ones that presented at 6:00 down at the Eau Claire Cineplex Odeon.  How fun to see these professional works on the big screen in a real time movie theatre.

Working towards this special night, Meighan was working so hard.  I saw her a few times and was able to chat.  We drove over to Safeway on the weekend before and she seemed so driven and focused.  A few days before Meighan revealed that it was going to be business casual but that "sheek hollywood" was also a dress up theme.

I left work and ran home to dress up for the night.  I picked up my little hollywood buddy and we dressed our best before running out the door.  Before leaving in the car we ran out to the garage and pulled down the fanciest box of scarves that we could find.  Betty rifled through the silk scarves looking for ones that would match my clothing, and I rifled through trying to find scares that would go with her outfit.  We settled on three scarves each and stuffed the backup scarves in our pockets for if we wanted to change looks mid show.

As we dropped into the car and started down crowchild I gave Betty my phone in order to give her something to do.  She was giving me directions on how to get to Eau Claire and it was rush hour and we had no time for traffic jams.  Just then I said, "you keep that phone.  your job tonight is to take as many photos as you can.  I want to see you get a hundred photos!  click click click.  take as many as you can".

Half way down to Eau Claire I realized that in my suit jacket was lots of scarves, but no wallet.  I thought to myself, could you make it back home and still be on time?!?  I decided no.  I realized that I had paid before with my phone and decided that we would probably be able to do that act if we had to pay for anything.  I wasn't certain, but I was certain that I wasn't going to be late.

We arrived just perfectly on time.  The doors opening at 5:30, and us walking up to the theatre at 5:35.  No charge for the theatre, but I had already paid for parking with my phone so I was feeling pretty confident with one problem already solved.

Right away we came into the lobby and saw Eli, so we had found a familiar face.  Then Meighan shortly there after.  Lots of young professionals milling around in their sunday best.  Looking like they were ready to take on the world.  We asked Eli if Betty and I could get a photo in the hollywood chairs.  I'm not sure how to get a copy of that photo but we did sit for a photo.

Then off to popcorn.  Up to the counter, and ordering whatever I thought would keep Betty's little hands busy if this production became too much for a little 8 year old.  We then made our way into theatre 5.  I asked Betty where she wanted to sit and we ended up right in the front and center.  Just as we were getting comfortable I heard "DOWN IN FRONT!!!!" It was Doral and anita back in about row 20.  Doral said that they had two seats for us, so we followed them up and sat with Anita, Doral, Marcia, Art, and Ron.  

Anita and Doral had driven all the way from Saskatoon for the production.  I got to sit beside Doral and we chatted the whole time before the movie began.  If you've watched a movie with any two of my siblings you'll know how the movie went while we were sitting together.  My siblings are so great at movie watching.  Funny little jokes in the pauses of a movie.  A quick laugh in just the right moment but no disrupting the movie while the dialog of plot is moving forwards.

It was a two hour long reel of commercials, documentaries, horror flix, feel good pieces, and 'behind the scenes' productions.  Although not all perfect like hollywood, I found myself fully submerged in the work.  A few moments where the credits were scrolling too fast, but for the majority of the pieces I was flabbergasted at the professional quality.  No, not flabbergasted.  That's not my sentiment.  I was impressed, and proud, and joyful of the accomplishments of these students.

One fun moment was in the horror film which played second to last.  It was one of the higher man hours productions.  In it a group of students were socializing in a basement, and called upon the spirits summoning a demon.  In the end, the main character inhabited the demon once more, and cut their own throat to end the demons life.  The Self throat cutting was so jaring that I quickly reached over to betty and covered her face with my hand.  "eek".

The final video was the behind the scenes for that horror film and we were shown the contraption and how the throat cutting was performed.  I hope that this was enough to brush away some of the potential nightmares for Betty.  We had a good laugh saying.... they're still alive!  We were saying so because that student had dressed up in the costume for this night.  So Betty took a photo of that student.  It is closer to the end of the photos attached.  

I was going to trim down the number of photos to post here.  But life is short!  You can skip photos faster than I can trim them down.  So here is the complete works of Betty's photography on Meighans big celebration night!

Oh, and when we got home, there was a rabbit on the lawn.  We got a photo of that as well.

April on Lot #3 - a photo essay of sorts

After a couple of days of raking...tarp in background

 Steve, Penny the wonderdog and I headed out to Lot 3 in April.   Thanks Doral and Anita!

It is as beautiful as ever. 

Here are some photos to whet the appetite of the rest of you planning your summer visits!

Tis, of course, the season for gardening.   And given that this is the middle of the forest, there is lots of gardening to be done!

Penny guarding the growing leaf pile

Steve is the one who caved first, and gave up on the idea of rakes alone:  he found some magical 'leaf sweeper' that you can push around the lawn to gather up the leaves, and take them to the burn pile (as opposed to Arta's usual method of dumping the leaves on a blue tarp, and then dragging it across the lawn. 

Bonnie joined us for the festivus of yardwork, and we settled down to cut back the raspberries.     

I discovered how much i like pruning back branches on the willow trees, so they don't stick out so far into the road.  Steve would pick up the branches, cut them down to size, and wheelbarrow them over to the burn pile on lot 4.  As soon as he passed, i would find a few more branches.... Steve did wonder at how more branches would miraculously appear in the zone he had already cleared. 

Penny checking out all the smells

adding more branches to the pile

In one of the encounters with the willow branches, it won: a lovely hole at the knee.   No blood involved, just a big rip in my jeans.   

Bonnie offered to find me some duct tape to close the gag (so that they would really look like Arta's gardening jeans)

The branches won this round of the battle!

A bird for the new year?

 January 1, 2024?!   It arrived.  

And on the front of the local newspaper (yes, the Times Colonist!) was a photo of a new painting by Robert Bateman:

And I had a flashback to the spring of 2022, sitting at the desk in what was Arta's bedroom at the Annis Bay house, and seeing a little burst of colour hopping around on the ground at the bottom of the trees, just out the window.  

Having no idea what the heck it was, I posted it to Facebook.  It was Tracy Sabey Caldwell who said it was a varied thrush (I had never even heard the name).  Tracy for the win! 

Here is the video I had posted to Facebook, asking folks if they knew what it was (and where you can see the little bird tossing leaves around, presumably on the hunt for something delicious.  Sometimes i think i look exactly like that when i enter the kitchen.)

https://www.facebook.com/555530179/videos/291820813146706

I wonder what will be your first birds of the new year?

 

Funeral: Virginia Johnson 1936-2023

We all found out about the funeral from facebook.  I think Catherine, or another of my sisters had reported it.  I am not on facebook but once the arrangements were made the facebook reports let us know that the day would be November 11, 2023.

These days I think about Barnwell more often.  Where we come from.  I feel like important points in the arch of our family's history are solidly planted in the small little southern albertan town.  I felt that our family was old enough and it was time to start filling this role in the larger family group.

 Nov 11 was the funeral of Virginia Johnson.  Lovely, lovely, Aunt Virginia.

Virginia had been living down in Utah these last months or years of her life.  Between Larry's and Darla's if I recall.  A lovely part of Larry's talk centered around a day before Virginia's passing when she called Larry to have him come to Darla's home to all have dinner together.  It was a lovely thought that there might be some foreshadowing on that day and so a wonderful moment in a critical point of their lives is now a core memory.

We drove down, Miranda, Michael, Alice, Betty, and I.  Lots of wind.  We ran to buy nicer clothing for the children and left early saturday morning to arrive for the funeral.  Although being late for a funeral is a bit of a silly thought, it was certainly important to me to avoid it.  We dressed and ate breakfast for 9:30, then to Chris and Joan's at 10:30 for a little more breakfast, and finished dressing up there before making our way south.  I checked the oil before hand and Chris ran to his garage to add a litre of oil before we left.

The funeral began at 2:00 and we arrived at 1:30 or so.  We spent a few minutes in the halls outside of the relief societies area before going to the chapel for a pew.  We didn't make it into the family viewing area but it was packed.  There was a long lineup and after ten minutes in the hallway waiting for viewing Colleen Keeler came through and we instantly joined at the hip.  I had plans to bring the kids through the line, and get a chance to normalize holding the hand of a departed loved one, but it wasn't to be on this funeral.

Colleen said that Doug was in the pews just behind the reserved sections and so we went to sit near, and eventually sat in front of them.  It was lovely to chat while turned in your pew.  That can't happen very often.  Sort of turning in the pew and talking to those behind you.  

Coreen was there as well, along with the last sister, up from Pennsylvania if I recall.  That was the Johnson representation if I am right.  The chapel was FULL.  The bishop commented immediately that the Barnwell LDS chapel does not often see such a presence.  

Larita and all of the Barfusses were of course, there as well.  Another pile of Calgarians down for the celebration of Virginia.  

Driving down to the funeral was a treacherous ordeal.  We were pushed from the winds to the point at which all semi & tractor trucks were pulled over on the highway unable to drive and stay upright.  I was steering a good 30 degrees to the right in order to stay straight along the highway.  The tumble weeds were fierce and it was fun to talk to the kids about the tumble weeds.  Dorothy herself would have thought that a transportation to the emerald city was possible.

The funeral began with a talk from Nonavee Campbell, Virginia's sister.  There was a long list of interesting tales that were laughed at together with the congregation.  Many memorable moments of their childhood together.  Although today's standards would find those moments startlingly politically incorrect, these were memories from a different world (like dressing as aunt Jemima with a plate of pancakes and paint on one's face). There were about four stories that left me thinking about the differences between a small town and a large metropolis, in terms of what people know, how people act, and how people treat each other.  Kind ignorance isn't foul like hatred and pointed mean spiritedness: for example, how would a child know that a new child is spanish and not black, if they've only ever seen a sea of white faces living in a sea of wheat and mustard and corn?

After Nonavee spoke, the two dozen grand children went up, and all sang together 'teach me about the temple'.  Virginia and Bev had a very special relationship with the temple.  Many years of baptisms for the dead.  Many years of volunteer work at the temple.  The song was appropriate for Virginia's loves, but for me, the moving part was staring at these grandchildren, about 14 years of age to about 30 or so.  One very specific grandchild stole my undivided attention: a 20-something adult, with a long sleeved cotton Carharrt t-shirt, two humongous hoop earrings, a warm looking knit toque, and the sharp handsome jaw of a supermodel --  and so uncomfortable and out of place.

The song finished, and then Larita and Darla spoke together.  They talked together after proclaiming that their family were 'criers' and that they'd try to get through it.  Staring at these faces was like exploring a booklet of children's drawings of a giraffe.  Every giraffe a little different, but all the same.  Darla's face, Larita's, Larry's, I look left or right and I see Kelvin Sr's face.  All different, all the same.  I know every one of these giraffes.  They are all the same.

Larry got up to speak afterwards.  A similar message, 'we are a family of criers'.

Larry is commanding.  He is soft and towering, and can draw you in with his radiant heart.  His was the last talk.  After about 20 minutes of talk, in a chapel with no natural windows for lighting, the power went off.  Only for ten seconds, but when it turned back on Larry said "I guess that's my cue".  Another five minutes of talking and yet another blackout in the building.  I suppose that wind had followed us all the way to Barnwell and had taken out a bit of the power nearby.

I got two moments with Larry.  He was always an iconic person to me.  His eldest son reminds me of Mike Card.  That beautiful child with the hoop earings.  

While in the gym, waiting to lineup for the most spectacular roast beef sandwiches', I took my chance to walk over to Larry to get my two minutes with him.  Half way there, a young twenty something filling water glasses with a pitcher stopped me.....

"I'm sorry, but you look so much like uncle Bev".

I have never been given a compliment so meaningful.  A random person that I'd never met, and they were compelled to stop me and say something like that.  The worst part of that compliment... was that it was the compliment that I was going straight to Larry to give to him!!!!!

We got our talk, and it was a lifetime of sharing in seven minutes.  I brought him over to my table to introduce him to my family.  We talked about feelings and struggles and our particular genetic makeup.  I shared with him Kelvins trip to Edmonton alone, and he shared with me Bev and Kelvins interaction that kept a person alive.  But seven minutes was what the world had in store.  That beautiful boy of his came by with his earrings, and said "dad, we're supposed to take a family photo right now".  

I had been talking to Larry about that child, and he was telling me the challenges and I was telling him the challenges of Mike Card that could be a mirror of his boy.  For my ten seconds with Will, I told him how fantastic his earrings were, how he must be a basketball player, and how he reminded me of the most important friend of mine from my childhood.  

He told me that they were Virginia's earrings.

Before the food, Larry was dedicating the grave nearby.  We tried to catch up to the procession, my little family.  We got there although Barnwell is so unfamiliar to google that googlemaps tried to send us through a farmers field to get over to the cemetery.  We got there after a few circles around.  A little grove of pines just behind the city, just a stones throw away from Virginia and Bev's house in Barnwell.

The wind had arrived for the Dedication as well.  Despite the wind break of the trees people were leaning heavily to the left in order to not fall.  There were five folding chairs near the grave site and the folding chairs could not stay erect for the gail force of the wind.  We stood next to Colleen and Doug but the moment was cut short because of the weather.  Both of my little girls wanted to take a rose from the top of the casket.  We kept those roses on the kitchen table in a cup until they crumbled away last week.

I'm not sure what else to say about Virginias funeral.  Virginia was the love of Bev's life.  Into old age they were reaching for each other, holding hands, showing affection.  They were in love.  I loved Virginia.  

I started driving to this funeral knowing that it was the right thing to do.  But doing it for the right reasons ended up being the right thing for me.  Attending the celebration of Aunt Virginia was for me.  I love my family, I love this life.  What a wonderful moment, or collection of moments that we are gifted with in this life. 

Why is it so hard to only make two loaves?

 It took every thing I had to NOT make 4 loaves.  

You can never have too much butter.