This is how long it took me to complete the cross-stitch tablecloth of Hungarian dancers. I meticulously tracked every one of those hours, counting four by four threads to fill in the 1m x 1m cloth. Any imperfections would ripple across it and ruin the finished work. So in the energy and enthusiasm of youth I toiled through every one of those thousand hours.
Category Archives: Stories
Epiphany
By this point in my drafting career I was the right-hand of the project supervisor responsible for checking every single drawing that was produced by the group and making sure all of the materials to be purchased were correct. My boss had relied on me and entrusted me to the point that he called me his “Petal”.
Headline Calendar Epilogue
August 20, 2014 the final day in the year of the headline calendar project, amazing. Personally it was not a very good day for me as the day started by finding out that the herpetic lesion on my eyelid had now spread to my cornea. Then I went to pick up my new glasses happy in the idea that my existing pair had actually remained intact before the new ones arrived for the first time ever only to find out that the glasses were not going to work out, therefore giving my glasses time to break. The weather was bleak and cold, feeling more like fall than summer.
Falstaff’s Lament and Charade
Was the title of the piece being played (and written) by William Beauvais at the Summer Guitar Festival concert Zaia and I were attending that lovely August evening. This was the first time I had attended an event such as this and I only briefly read the programme, going only so far as to read the artists names. Even if I had read the title of the piece it would mean nothing to me. I was simply an enthused listener awaiting the music ahead. We were able to have front row, center seats as only the students and guests attended the concert.
Visitation Rights
It had been twelve years since I had left my parents and I found myself thinking about when if ever I would see them again. I imagined that I would be seeing a frail old man or old woman and suddenly realizing that they were my parents. This thought would lead me to call them up and ask if they were interested in talking. They thought about it and decided that they would allow this to happen.
I’m so sorry, what a shock
Was the way I found out my Mother had died. This was the Facebook message from an old childhood friend to my husband’s page, a friend who had only recently reconnected with me after an over thirty year separation.
I knew immediately it was my Mother as I had, quite by coincidence, found out that my Father was dying. So the “shock” had to be in reference to her not him. His was pending, eighty days later as it turned out.
World Cup 2010 Spain vs. Holland
The stage is set for the world cup final between Spain and Holland, our friends have arrived, the TV is on and the menu has been decided.
In honor of Holland we would start with Oliebollens, a delightful deep-fried fritter dusted with icing sugar. In honor of Spain, a Paella was ready to be prepared for dinner after the game.
Brother Can You Spare a Ruble
I had flown since I was a child and never really liked it, especially landing, but I was never sick until our honeymoon trip to Greece. I started to feel ill on the tarmac here in Calgary and it only got worse as the flight progressed. I ended up having to be wheel chaired off the plane in Heathrow, spend the layover in the medical clinic injected with mega doses of gravol only to be wheel chaired onto the flight to Athens. I had nothing to eat or drink in over twenty four hours by the time we landed in Athens. The flight home wasn’t much better, thus began my aversion to flying. But I refused to allow it to stop me from ever travelling again, which I did.
Air Safety and other Travel Woes
One of the consequences of the Gulf War was that our planned trip to New Zealand had to be cancelled because they wouldn’t let anyone born in Iraq into the country. So this trip was rescheduled for a year later.
We had planned to spend the three weeks only in New Zealand thinking that there would be plenty of things to see and do to need that amount of time. Our flight took us from Calgary to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Auckland, all told 36 hours between actual flying time and layovers. Once again I was sick on the tarmac in Calgary and once again I was unable to eat or drink. This isn’t classic motion sickness and it isn’t because I am afraid of flying, because I’m not, it has to do with the vibration of the plane’s engine.