August 2023 (including books)

 Just returned from our trip to Alberta for our grandson Deklan's wedding, and the opportunity to have four of our six children in one place at the same time! It was wonderful.

I still did all my exercises, and walked every day. On Tuesday, I walked in Idaho Falls while stopped for lunch. On Wednesday, I walked and walked and walked at the Calgary airport while waiting for Nancy's flight to arrive. It was not super late--just a few minutes--but it was a huge plane, so deplaning was time consuming. On Thursday, I walked on the shores of the lake in Chestermere, Alberta, with Nancy and her girls and David. On Friday, I walked around on the walking trails in a new development on the north-eastern edge of Calgary while the kids played at a musical playground. And then also did a bunch more airport walking, but not a lot. On Saturday, I walked to Sunshine Lake in High River, Alberta with Nancy and her kids (and kept walking until I hit 20 minutes) and then back to our hotel again (also with Josie on the way back--she and Miriam walked both ways TWICE). On Sunday, I walked with my cousin Lavon on the shores of Waterton Lake by Emerald Beach in Waterton Lakes National Park while our grandchildren played in the water together and our daughters visited and watched their children. (Lavon is seven years older than I am but she looks young! And is very fit!)

On Monday, I walked with my sister Colleen, and after we hit twenty minutes, we continued to walk and walk some more. We walked over to her d-i-l Jocelyn's house and got the little boys, who walked back to Colleen's with us. On Tuesday, I walked around and around the playground of Big Rock Elementary School in Okotoks, Alberta. And today, Wednesday, I walked in my own neighborhood again, after finishing the drive home.

Books read:

Despite the busy-ness of the month, I have a nine book total!

1. A moment comes (2013) by Jennifer Bradbury, is set in India during the partition of 1947, with the story told through three characters: the muslim Tariq, the seikh Anupreet, and the English cartographer's daughter Margaret. Very well told, with good character development.

2. The benefits of being an octopus (2021) by Ann Braden. Zoey and her siblings live in Lenny's trailer. And they feel lucky--because they have a good place to live, and after living in the car or being homeless, this is bettter, right? Maybe not. Fuschia's mother also has boyfriend trouble, but when the women set aside their differences, they can help each other.

3. I want to be where the normal people are (2022) by Rachel Bloom. Okay, she is funny, and interesting and I liked her book, but also she can be a little bit crass for my taste. Like, it isn't necessary in my opinion. 

4. Very in pieces (2015) by Megan Frazer Blackmore. Very is a person; her name is short for Veronica. I liked this book, but either the copy I read or all of them have a significant problem: Bottom of p.267 last line "applied in the same spot every time, eschewing the"...and turn the page to "So I go back downstairs," which is not just a new sentence, but a new paragraph. I wonder what I missed. What was eschewed? Still, it was okay without that--it was just a puzzlement.

5. So we meet again (2021) by Suzanne Park. Jessica Kim and Daniel Choi were childhood frenemies, always in competition with each other. Now, they meet again as 29 year old business people.

6. Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) by Alan Paton. This was our book group book, and it was very good and sad and touching. I read it slowly to absorb the sadness little by little. I wish that things were totally better in South Africa now, but they are not. I have seen the shanty towns! Like, I think I can safely say that things are better than they were in 1948, but they are not better as in good.

7. The maid: a novel (2022) by Nita Prose. Molly the maid discovers a dead body in the hotel, and learns lessons about herself, and friendship, and who she can really count on. (Book group book for next month.)

8. Might as well laugh about it now (2010?) by Marie Osmond and Marcia Wilkie. I just really like Marie Osmond. She is warm and genuine, and frankly truthful. I enjoyed spending time with her in this book.

9. The girl on the boat (1921) by P.G. Wodehouse. This was an audio book that Bruce downloaded from internet archive to listen to on our trip. What a hoot! I liked it so much that I asked to listen to it again on the way home, after already listening to it on the way up north. 

A perfect accidental death

 When a person dies in an accident, or is injured in an accident, sometimes other people have many regrets--they can see the "if only" that might have prevented tragedy, and it is difficult to move past that. 

My colleague's son died the perfect accidental death, because nobody had an "if only." I suppose the only possible "if only" would have been that they should not have gone on this camping trip--but that is a stretch because it was meant to be fun and all the planning for it was well done. They did not plan for anything abnormally dangerous--it was all going to be what people normally do when they go camping, ramped up a bit because not everyone goes boating, but many people do, so still normal.

The trip included several families of friends from work--doctors and their families, actually. They were launching boats, and my colleague's son had gone to get life jackets from the back of the truck. Imagine a truck with a shell, the lid to the shell is lifted to get things out of the back. Everyone else is on the boat(s) and my colleague's son is momentarily out of sight behind the truck with the lid to the shell lifted. And then he never comes back. And they are all like, where is he? Where did he go?

So one of the guys goes back to see where he is--and he is on the ground. He fell for who knows what reason and apparently hit his head. The other doctors gather round and do what they can, and they rush him to the hospital, but they know he is not going to survive, and they manage to be able to keep him alive enough to harvest his organs (which was his wish as they all knew, being doctors who have discussed such eventualities, and which he had documented). 

None of the survivors saw or heard anything. It just happened. No guilt is there because nobody did anything or failed to do anything. 

My colleague's family had, about a week earlier, held a reunion. All of the siblings and their families were there. They had a wonderful time, with great memories of being together with this, the oldest brother of nine children. 

It is still very sad, because he leaves a widow and four children. But it was so apparently a death that happened in a way that nobody could have changed the outcome. So in that respect, it was perfect.

Mistakes

 Everyone makes mistakes, but learning that you made a mistake that really hurt another person is hard, especially when you did not even realize that you made a mistake. After the person is hurt enough that they basically avoid you, how can you even fix it, once you realize you made it? I don't know.

I had forgotten this even happened, didn't know that we failed to communicate, and only now have remembered the ocurrence, and realized the problem, which was failed communication.

I was having a conversation with a non-native English speaker about a year ago. I thought that we were communicating, that we were each telling each other experiences, sharing as it were. I thought that we understood each other. But we did not.

The other person was telling me about a tradition about the three kings. It reminded me of a tradition that I grew up with. In my family of origin, my mother brought to our home from her family of origin a little New Year tradition. What these two traditions have in common is leaving shoes to be filled with a couple of toys. The three kings tradition is better, because it is tied to the Christmas story. I think it is a cool tradition. Both happen in January, overnight, but not on the same dates. 

About the tradition I grew up with, I really liked it. It was one of my favorite family traditions. But, as far as I knew, only my cousins who were the children of my mother's SISTERS carried the tradition into their own families. (I was far removed in either age or geography from most of the children of my mother's BROTHERS, so IDK what they did.) My cousins on my father's side, when they learned about it,  thought it was weird, because their families didn't do it. 

However, I loved it and looked forward to it. But when I got married, I suddenly had two children and they already had family traditions, started without me, and I didn't know how to bring the little New Year tradition into it. Also, we moved to California, and were celebrating Christmas differently in so many ways, because no snow, new place. It was just all new. And that was the beginning of me not being very good at establishing our own family traditions.

I thought I expressed to the other person that I thought their tradition was cool, and in no way did I mean that just because I sucked at starting a tradition, and indeed gave one up that I wish I hadn't, that they should not start the tradition they were describing--the three kings--in their own family.

As I am remembering that conversation, I thought we understood each other, but now I know that clearly we did not. I should have listened more and not talked about my own tradition so much, but I was trying to relate, but I think the only thing this person took away from the conversation was  the line where I said, "and I was in a different country, and so it was different" in which I meant that I failed at that hurdle. I did not mean that was a good decision! In fact, it was a decision I have always regretted, that I allowed what was a really cool tradition from my mother's family to die because I was inept at doing it in a different geographical setting. 

And I feel soooo bad because I had no idea how much hurt that the other person experienced because their perception was that I was dissing their cultural tradition, when actually I admired it and thought it was totally cool. 

So, I have learned that when you are conversing, two people with different first languages and imperfect skills in the other language, maybe a good assumption to make is that things might not have gone well, and that maybe misunderstanding occurred. 

And I don't know how to fix that if I can't talk to the other person--made difficult because even if we could talk about it, would we understand fully? Sigh. Communication is hard even when both people DO speak the same language! 

There is the possibility of hurt feelings and grave misunderstandings, but it is still important, I think, to keep trying.