The Perfection of Random Chance

Randomly Placed Staples: Power Pole on Davenport Road

The circumstances around the sad passing of Bruce's mom left me a bit short of time to shop for perfect gifts for the folks assembling on Christmas day.

So this is what I did:

• I sat down with the Lee Valley Christmas gift catalogue, selected seven items I liked that were all reasonably priced, and called the store.
• When I learned that most of the items I liked were out of stock, I ordered the two items they still had that were on my "A" list, hung up the phone and plowed through the catalogue to find "B" list gifts.
• I called again and made my second order.
• The combined total of what Lee Valley had and what I liked still left me one gift short. So I headed over to Church Street, wandered into David's Tea without an agenda and emerged with the seventh gift.
• I went to Lee Valley and picked up the rest of the gifts, brought them home and wrapped them all. After they were wrapped and I'd started to forget which was which, I put tags with numbers one through seven on the gifts.
• Then I wrote the numbers one to seven on little cards, and put each of those in an envelope with a Christmas card expressing Bruce's and my fondest holiday wishes. I did not put names on the envelopes.
• On Christmas Day, I explained to the seven giftees that we were playing a version of Secret Santa. They could randomly draw one of the seven Christmas cards and, whatever number they had in the card, that was their gift. After everyone had opened their gift and everyone else had a chance to take a good look at it, anyone who wanted to could swap.
• There were no swaps.

Thanks for reading!

Have a Happy New Year!

Karen

Happy Holidays

Christmas Cactus Blossom; Allan Gardens Cactus House

I'm off work this week, so I took the opportunity to make an appointment with my non-surgery related doctor for my annual check up. The clinic is always busy and wait times used to be a real problem, but, they seem to be working on that because I was ushered into a room not long after my actual appointment time, and then sat and waited in there for about ten minutes.

While I waited, my attention focused on a poster on the wall that featured how to say hello in different languages. For example, the poster explained that in France, people say "bonjour". To represent France, the poster showed a famous landmark - the Eiffel Tower - and a rendering of a young woman wearing a traditional outfit - a lace-trimmed blouse, an apron and a white, flared bonnet.  

I was struggling with the spelling and pronunciation of the Russian word for hello when my eyes strayed to the picture for the United States of America, where everyone says "hello" to say "hello."

The representative image for the USA was a farm girl wearing overalls holding an orange cat in her arms and standing in front of a barn and silo. 

A quick review of the other countries - Mexico, Russia, Greece, China - all showed the same thing - people in situations and clothes absolutely unlike how people in those countries actually look and live, but instantly recognizable as the "traditional" identity of those countries.

This immediately put me in mind of Christmas.

Here's a traditional picture of Christmas at the Allan Gardens:

Here are a few pictures of Christmas at the corner of Yonge and Dundas:

Ho ho ho.

Have a happy holiday season and all the best for the New Year!

Karen

Mourning

Ken Clarke, Marna Clarke and Bruce Clarke, March 21 2009 at our (2nd) wedding.

From the first major loss, every next one recalls all that came before. Losses accumulate, each nestled in the others, blending in a blurred-edge reassurance that life truly is precious.

My dad - always anxious to start trips early - went first. Then my grandmother, then a trio of two aunts and one uncle in rapid succession all in 1989. Then there was a pause. More than a decade passed without anyone I knew closely slipping the bonds of the mortal coil. In 2005, Mom died. The very next year, a man I barely knew who worked in my office suddenly passed away. I went to his funeral and wrote about it in November 2006:

My newly-established group of near-strangers/co-workers at the Ministry of the Environment had this week to collectively cope with the sudden and unanticipated death of a colleague. 

I had met him – his name was Shiv Sud; he was from India, had a wife, two beautiful daughters 18 and 20 years old, and a son 8 years old .... 

... Shiv’s Hindu service was held on Saturday, November 11, in the Crematorium Building at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. I got there what I thought was fifteen minutes early, but the chanting had already started.... The man sitting next to me knew the chant. I listened to him for a while, got the gist and chanted along until we all stopped to listen to speeches. 

One speech came from Shiv’s daughters. Well, one daughter sobbed out in a clear, strong and heart-broken voice a beautiful speech about her father while her sister wept on her shoulder and while a man – an uncle or friend of the family – reached over a couple of times to press a giant white handkerchief to her face to dry her eyes.

The counselor called into our offices to help the staff manage Shiv's passing had mentioned that even people who did not know the deceased co-worker might return in these times to unexhausted wells of grief from other losses in the past.   

I was overcome at Shiv's service with grief for Mom and Dad.  

The death of Bruce's mom, Lois Marna Clarke is the most recent reassurance of how precious is life. She passed away early in the morning on December 13, 2016. She'd been in the hospital a month already. We were all hoping - and expecting - her to recover from bones fractured in a fall. But, instead, for any number of causes that could have just as easily happened at home, she suffered a bowel rupture, became septic, survived a last-ditch surgery in an attempt to save her life, but died about twelve hours later.

Here's the link to the funeral home page.

Thanks for reading.

Karen

Last Thing Friday Afternoon

Yet another little truck. Where does he keep them when they're not locked to a bike stand?

At 5:15 yesterday afternoon, I hung up the phone after a short chat with the person we call the Accommodations Specialist. He'd just given me the good news that he'd found a solution to a problem that had really upset one of my staff. I was grateful for that, and resolved that my very next step would be that I would go onto the online system and make the change the Accommodations Specialist advised.

Instead, as I looked up from my desk, I saw two other members of my staff hovering around my door. I invited them in. They started talking even before they sat down. They were impaled on the horns of a dilemma involving four separate processes with four different timelines that all depended on one thing that almost no one knows how to do. Could I tell them the answer, like, right off the top of my head.  Giving it my best shot I suggested they should check with the one person on the staff who actually does know how to do that one thing that almost no one knows how to do. Satisfied, they left.

I turned back to my computer to go online and make the change discussed with the Accommodations Specialist. A person from the assistant deputy minister's office, wearing felt antlers festooned with bells, came to my door wanting to know if "the letter" was ready. "The letter" was what I had been working on when the Accommodations Specialist called me. It was still on my screen, about four sentences short of completion. As the person stood at my shoulder, bells tinkling softly, I finished the letter, added a note for context at the beginning, and fired it off to the antlered person and several others who had been waiting for it since Friday morning.

As I sent the e-mail with the letter, I remembered that I needed to broadcast an e-mail about another member of my staff who had taken a new position elsewhere in the Ministry. My staff's new boss had already sent out the announcement from his side, and every minute I left mine unsent shamed me more deeply. My notice was not quite completely drafted, so I took a minute or two to polish it up, another minute or two to find the group distribution list, and hit send.

I was actually at the online site to make the change discussed with the Accommodations Specialist when another member of my staff came to my door. She asked me a question I completely down to its last detail did not understand. I hazarded as a response that staff were well enough on top of the situation that they could make a good decision and that I would support it.

The phone rang. Another Director from another Ministry was not patiently waiting for something I'm not sure we had promised to send. I left my desk to find the staff who could help with request. I found them. They sent the other Director's object of desire.

By the time I got back to my desk, there was an e-mail from the other Director saying, in sum, "thanks, Sucker!"

Simmering just a bit from my fellow Director's scam, I finally got to make the change to the online system that would solve my upset staff member's problem and make my life a little bit brighter.

That wrapped up, I closed all the open windows on my screen. Just as I turned off my computer, I looked at the little clock in the lower right hand corner. 

It said 5:30.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Neighbourhood Embellishments

For the past three or so weeks, this little tractor has been chained to the bike stand right outside our front door on Sherbourne Street. Two weeks ago, one morning as I was leaving for work, I saw a tall man, probably in his late thirties or early forties, walking toward me, carrying a "top prize at the fair"-sized stuffed bear. When he got to the tractor, he put the bear in the seat and removed the chain. Realizing I was staring, I headed off to work and did not see what happened next.

This blinged-up motorcycle has sat in front of "Wildside" - a retail outlet for drag queens on Gerrard Street - for years. 

This festive display at the corner of Gerrard and George streets is brand new this week.

Thanks for reading! 

Have a great week!

Karen