Today and yesterday's count

Yesterday in the afternoon sunshine seven brightly coloured children, pink and green and turquoise, bravely in the sun in their hats, did what children have always done if allowed, invented a game using what comes available.  These seven had found a large-ish branch off a poplar tree and used it as a pony on which most could ride, to charge up the slope, then it changed into a toboggan and they slide down again.  The sky was blue, the day was warmly hot, and I was able to pick crabapples from my favourite  tree after all.  A pie is in the offing.  Today I went to the far side of the crabapple grove and entered the path to the Education prairie garden.  There a large brown and green dragonfly landed on my leg.  But it tickled and I started, and he flew away.

Today's count

A perfect pre-fall day.  Pre-fall I say because fall is my favourite season, unless it is spring, and visa versa, and a sign that the heat and stickiness of this summer may finally be over is a blessing and a bliss to me.  I wore jeans the other day.  Sigh.  Today though it is blue with wispy clouds which send forward messages of distant rain, and a breeze which made a light sweater over my sleeveless shirt quite comfortable.  I walked not to the crabapple grove but down between the buildings in the tree lined avenue to watch the geologist setting up spikes in the bowl where they are doing a sub something on the ground there.  I think she meant under the grass.  There being much under the grass: gophers, plumbing, electrical tunnels, soil, dirt (which I am told are most certainly NOT the same thing), tree roots, and a monstrous, and as far as my brain storage information goes, number of unknown and uncatalogued weeny beasts of all kinds.  (Wow, that was almost a proto Dickensian sentence.*)

*In one of my copies of one of what-his-name's books I found the entire first page was a sentence.  Dicken's blog says he once counted one that was 21 lines long.

quick cataloguing tip

Or is that trick?  It's great anyway because it saves you writing a note to the overworked people in cataloguing, attaching it to the book, letting someone haul the book over to the catalogue department, having them print a new tag, affix it to the book and reverse the process to you.  Go to the catalogue (online in these fasinating modern times). Check for the correct number.  Discover it is only the difference of a 0 that should be a 9.  Pull out your trusty dryline whiteout, and whiteout the 0.  Pick up your trusty black pen and write in, carefully now, practice a few times first if you feel you need to, a 9. Situation saved. Shelve the book.

me vs the ipad: round eight

Henry and I went to class yesterday.  Him to enjoy a direct link to an electrical outlet and me to learn tricks and tips (which are more than just angry birds...which I admit to actually having heard of!).  I now know that if I hit Henry up along the top of his noggin where he alerts me to the time, he will shoot up from the bottom of a long web page to the very top.  My poor flicking fingers thank you, which ever clever geek thought that up.  I also discovered that I have been a bad mother, if I am such, to Henry.  He is languishing behind all his ipad friends at a mere 4.3.something aruther, while they are all zipping along at 5.1.1 and gaining rapidly on 6.  I feel adventures in updating coming my way...

...but after my vacation.

Today's count

photo by Ron Oriti 2007

Hot, but not too hot.  Blue, with clouds accenting the sky.  A cool wind which is most pleasing.  And I walked among the blue and orange dragonflies in the crabapple grove.  The blue dragons have a wing span of about five inches and are a joy to watch hovering and turning, and once flipping over backwards as they eat the dreaded mosquito.  The orange dragons are smaller and spend more time close to the grass.  The apples on the trees are just starting to turn.  But sadly the ones on the yummy tree have some kind of blight, so there will be no crabapple pie again this year. Sigh.

Here be the dragon

I promised to show you where the den of the dwarf dragon is.  And what it is. It is the dumb waiter in the law library, by which we transport trucks of books, and once, according legend, a person, from floor to floor.  We have five levels at the law library which house books.  Three exits to the dumb waiter face north, and two south (give or take a fee degrees due to the winding nature of the river and its effect on the placement of buildings).

The buttons give up, from top to bottom, come (the all purpose button), 1st floor, upper ground, ground, lower ground, basement (which is not shown on this set) and up and down.  These last two are necessary when the carriage stops too far up or down making disembarking the truck difficult or even impossible.  The legendary human occupant had to trust absolutely a compatriot because once inside, there is no getting out without help from the outside.

I was told about dumb waiters from an early age.  My mother, raised by her grandmother, played in one as a child in the house of one of her grandmother's bridge partners.  So I knew that the dumb of the waiter meant mute, not stupid.  I have found most people don't know that any more.  The waiter who serves, but is silent.  Now apparently they are called micro elevators.  I find modern language so sterile.  I prefer the image of a silent waiter in tails, standing ready to serve, like one of the footman at Downton Abbey

a story

The old man is running. The grass is whipping at his legs; the ground so flat feels uneven.  Like his breathing.  It is harder and harder to breathe.  But he is listening, his ears all out ahead of him.  He is close, surely they will be there.  It is a hot day, he told them to stay away from cars.  They would not have gone to a car.  The older ones knew why.  It was just hot.  They had left the yard to go to the slough to swim.  But he couldn't hear them.

The old man has to stop.  He can't breathe.  Sweat is running down his face. His worn hands on his knees, his gasping loud in the summer air.  But otherwise, silence.  Are they hiding on him, playing a game?  He pulls in deep breaths.  He calls their names.  His seven beautiful grandchildren.  All their names carry away on the wind.  They would not have gone to a car.  The older ones knew why.

The slough is calm, empty, the ground around it untrammelled by bare feet.  A robin looks at him.  He heads toward the coulee.  Perhaps they are playing hide and seek in the cool of the ravine.  It is farther away.  Farther than they would have gone without telling him.  The old man tries to keep running, but his breath will not let him.  He sets a steady pace and goes to the coulee.  They are not there.

The silence of the afternoon hurts his ears after the sounds of their laughter in his yard.  His children trusted him with their children.  

The old man looks at the sun, then at the horizon.  He must go for help.  The RCMP detachment is nine miles away.  The old man starts to walk.  He is hungry, the wind dries the sweat of his running onto his body.  He walks.  He reaches the highway and hopes a passing car will give him a lift.  He sees no one.  He walks.  Finally he reaches the detachment.

The tall blond RCMP officer has kind blue eyes.  He is concerned about the children.  Could they be playing a trick?  Perhaps they had gone to a neighbour's farm.  He helps the old man into his van and they drive to the nearby farms.  No one has seen the children.  They go back to the slough, the coulee.  It is dark now.  They call in the darkness.  They do not find the children.

Much later, when some of the children come home, the grandfather is told what happened.  It wasn't a car.  It was a van.  They had never seen one like that.  The tall blue eyed RCMP officer let them get inside.  It was only when he shut the doors that they realized.  It was only when the doors of the residential school closed on them that they knew.

A the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Saskatchewan some of the stories that are told are to be repeated.  I have repeated one here.  It was told to the Commission by an old man who was the youngest child taken that day in the Qu'Appelle area.  He was five years old at the time.  He did not go home again for two years.