In Passing

It's another beautiful day here near the nation's capital. So was yesterday, but there were clouds inside. The kids were awakened in the wee hours yesterday morning by one of those dreaded telephone calls: The Boy's father had passed away. His passing was not unexpected, but the timing was. It happened sooner than expected.

Butterfly woke us later with the sad news and the request for a lift to an appointment and then to work. It was a pre-natal appointment. As the kids look forward to adding new life to their family, an older life has slipped away. Gilles was not that old, not very much older than I. We met a few times, and I liked him. He was French and hesitant about his English, but he always tried, and I admired his effort and was rather impressed with how well he did in his second language.

As we drove Butterfly to work yesterday, I was touched by the beauty of the day. The sun sits lower in the sky now that autumn is upon us, and it bathes the landscape in a gentle and inspiring light that enriches the already golden fields and the already resplendent leaves. It's a feast to this pilgrim's eyes and spirit.

It's rather glorious, this autumn season. It does not beat with the exuberance of spring or the vigour of summer, but it is rather glorious, and because we know that winter approaches, we seem to appreciate it deeply. We inhale the crispness of its breath and drink of its artistic canvas.

I speak both of the reality of the season and of the metaphorical autumns of our lives. I have been so very pleased to be alive and able to live my little life these past few weeks. I like to think that I am almost always content, but I have been more than that recently, for I have felt deep pleasure in the taking of my breaths and the seeing of my sights. Until yesterday, there have been good tidings -- the engagement of the girls, the miraculous beginning of the life of my grandchild, and the beginning of my music lessons -- but I rather think it is more than that. I think it is the enhanced appreciation of life as my own winter draws closer. In a sense, I seem to feel more alive, for as one of Cuppa's favourite quotes says:

Death is the sugar that gives life its pizazz.
It makes life really sweet.

Today, we'll drive Butterfly to Montreal so that she can stand beside her husband and mother-in-law in these difficult hours. But I'll also feast on the joy of being alive for one more day and for whatever time The Creator will grant me.

Where the Girls Are

We have appreciated your comments about the girls and their situation in Thailand. Many of you offered kind thoughts, and Ginger's comment, based on her experiences, had a calming effect. Thank you.

In our version of It's a Small World After All, our neighbour's son teaches in Taiwan, and he has a good friend who teaches in Thailand. So, this nice teacher from Thailand wrote us a most becalming email assuring us that all was peaceful and orderly and that the girls could certainly contact him. Phew!

But, as the days passed we were quite anxious to hear from them and were greatly relieved when they finally blogged last Thursday, a whole week after their preceeding note. Double phew! Then on Friday night, actually Saturday morning, they actually telephoned to reassure us even more. Yesterday, they blogged again, and all remains well.

Thanks again for you concern. For those who want to read of their latest adventures, their blog is here. Cuppa has mentioned both her angst and relief too.

Another Banking Oddity

The difficulties that I described in my Banking for Bug blog brought a few comments from others who are almost equally mesmerized by the workings (although workings seems to be a most inappropriate word) of banks. In fact, since then, The Very Nice Man has posted of his own frustrations on his blog. The sundry comments and Nice Man's blog caused another incident to resurface from the deep, dark, and dank recesses of my memory.

It was just over a year ago in our cross-province move. Within 24 hours we had to close two real estate deals: the selling of our old house and the purchasing of our new one. That's a lot of money to process within a very short span of time. The deal on the new house would unfold like so: the lawyer would call in the morning and tell us the exact amount of the bank draft that we'd have to bring to his office. The problem was that our bank in Sarnia did not have a branch of our bank in this small town.

No problem: we would simply open an account an a different bank.

In we walked to a branch of that particular bank in Sarnia. "We wish to open an account at your branch in Mills."

"Sorry. Can't be done."

"Say what?"

"We can only open accounts for this branch."

"What are we then to do?"

"Pick up the phone and dial this central number, and you can open an account at any branch anywhere."

"We can open an account on the phone but not in an actual bank building?"

"That's correct. But I would be glad to dial the number for you and get the process started"

That's what she did. She talked into the phone and informed someone in someplace (Delhi perhaps — certainly not in Mills) of our request. She passed the phone over to me, and I supplied the required details.

And so it came to pass that we were able to open an account in our new town, and the financial transactions all went very smoothly.

Although, the various individuals that we had to involve in the process were most helpful, the mystery remains. Why is it that you can open an account via an almost anonymous phone call but not by presenting yourself to a branch of that institution? It's a mystery I tell ya.

Greybeard

We were doing some painting at the kids' house yesterday — grey paint. While I admit that I frequently get as much paint on me as on the object of my endeavours, I also admit to being very surprised to see how much I had apprently gotten on my beard when I looked in the kids' bathroom mirror. I noticed several grey splotches.

However, when I got home and looked in the better light of my own mirror, I realized that I hadn't dripped paint on my beard at all — the colour was totally natural!!

A Boneheaded Idea ...

... or so U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy said.

"It is clear to me that those who want to build an enormously costly barrier across it have no clue about the character, the history and the day-to-day commercial importance of the northern border and the needs of the states and communities that would be affected."

There's more in this article from yesterday's Toronto Star.

Only in Canada You Say?!

Once upon a time, there was a long-running commercial for a Canadian tea called Red Rose. They repeated the following scene with all sorts of different actors over the years.

A Canadian would serve Red Rose tea to a sceptical English person. Said person would then be so astounded by the taste, that he or she would exclaim: "Only in Canada, you say? Pity!"

Following, are two photos from our parliament buildings. The first shows a groundhog right on the Parliament Hill lawn: keep in mind that this is in the centre of the city and on the lawn right in front of our parliament buildings where there are always, at least in good weather, scores of people walking about — well maybe not always scores, but I'm sure you get my drift.

The second is the actually the main parliament building — The Centre Block. This structure houses both the House of Commons and the Senate. And if you look closely, you'll see that it is being held together by duct tape, a rather famous Canadian product. Red Green must be ecstatic.

Somehow, I can't imagine being able to take two similar photos at any other centre of government in the world. There are also the Parliament Hill cats. Really, they have set up housing for stray cats well off to the side of the buildings. Everybody wants to see them too! I don't have a picture at hand; maybe next time.

Only in Canada, you say?

Banking for Bug

It's difficult to give money away these days.

When Bug went to Asia, of course she left things until the last minute (oh, my ceiling light just went off by itself — see here if that means nothing to you). She's like that, you know, always has been, and this banking was one of those things. She called and asked me to do her banking for her whilst she was globe trotting. Since a dad always agrees to help as he can, I acquiesced.

Without dredging up all of the details and reciting long-winded accounts about my running hither, thither and yon to obtain her funds, let me share this. In the end, I presented myself at a branch of Bug's bank (this involved a out-of-town trip because we don't have one of those branches in this town) with a thousand dollars in my pocket last week. Simply desiring to deposit said amount into her account, I presented Bug's access code to the teller. "Sorry sir, I can't punch in her access code from a piece of paper. I have to have the plastic card."

"No really, all I want to do is deposit money, not find out details. Besides the account is set up jointly. It's just that I've never used it and don't know the numbers. I can access the details online you know, I simply want to deposit money."

Of course, my yammerings were futile. Apparently, while it is deemed inappropriate to punch in my own daughter's access code, it is just hunky dory to verbally and within earshot of others dredge up all sorts of information about a person and find the account number through the back door as it were. So, I stood there for about fifteen minutes, answering all sorts of questions. To her credit, the teller eventually found the account numbers for me and deposited the money. She gave me a receipt and painstakingly highlighted Bug's account numbers for me .. to make it easier in future doncha know.

So, it's okay for me to have her account numbers but not okay for me to present her access card number to a teller to make the process easier? I mean to say, she could have used the access number to look at a screen that I couldn't have possibly seen. The end result would have been to obtain the very same information fifteen minutes sooner that the circuitous method that she ended up employing. It's the very same result in the end. What is it that I don't get?

It's crazy, I tell you. Crazy!

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Speaking of Bug (and Puff), guess what southeast Asian country they're visiting right now? Remember the bomb last weekend, down south in the beach and tourist area? Guess where the girls were last weekend? Guess what country experienced a coup yesterday? Guess who hasn't communicated with the folks at home since last Thursday? Guess who's a tad anxious?

Also, I sometimes forget my audience. While most real-life friends know of Butterfly's struggles with fertility, I pretty well forgot that y'all weren't up to speed. However, Cuppa revealed some of this in her blog yesterday.