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Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Dealing with Kell Antigens

18 Feb 2010

Two weeks ago, I was sitting at my desk at work, plugging away on requirements documentation. It’s rather mind-numbing at times, but is often very helpful for the rest of the team. My phone rang. It was my wife, Alex. Normally, she just text-messages me. Actual phone calls are left for things that are important and need immediate discussion.

Alex didn’t sound her usual cheerful self. In fact, the tone of her voice that worried me almost immediately. She asked me: “Look up ‘anti-k’. What does it mean?” Google quickly plunged me into Wikipedia and a raft of pages filled with partial information and incomplete answers. “You need to get a blood test right away! We need to know if you’re K+.”

I can’t remember the last time I felt my blood run ice-cold.

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Memories of Grandma

29 Jan 2010

I still remember the day. December 6, 1995. I had been working at my part-time job at a computer store just off-campus, suffering through a wicked head cold. I’d begged my manager to let me leave early, but he’d needed me to stay. (I remember feeling not only put out, but tortured — I hadn’t done much all day.) I had trudged the two-odd kilometres back home just itching to crawl into bed and not emerge for a day or so. But when I placed my foot on the driveway of the house I was living in, I had a feeling that something wasn’t right.

I rushed inside, quickly descending to the room in the basement I’d rented (I was one of seven students in the house; four up, three down), and immediately went over to my phone, not removing my jacket. There was the familiar pulsing tone that said I had voicemail. It was my father. Dad never called me. Mom would always call, then hand over to Dad. He was quiet, saying only to call home when I got in. The news was short.

Grandma had died.

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Happy 97th Birthday, Nana!

29 Jan 2010

There’s nothing like a birthday to make people feel young. Yes, young. You think birthdays make you feel old, don’t you? C’mon, admit it, most people think of birthdays as another notch in the Age Belt, and suddenly grey hairs appear where you didn’t think they should, and you swear you feel your bones creaking.

I’m of the opinion: You’re only as old as you act. Namely, if act your age, you’ll feel old. Oh, sure, there’s a need for maturity and responsibility in our society. But, like all things, there’s a time and a place for all of that. And I think more people should just lighten up and be more immature. ‘Cuz frankly, it’s more fun.

This is something that, to some degree, I learned from my Nana.

Nana is my grandmother — my Mom’s mom. She’s my last living grandparent, and is one of those living embodiments of the Energizer Bunny. She might have slowed down more in recent years — she is 97, after all — but she gets around really well, still remembers quite a lot (even if she sometimes has trouble following a conversation), and has the same wit she’s had most of her life. Frankly, I hope I look as good and think as well as she does when I’m her age.

Equally important tonight was the fact that it brought her family together. It’s been a while since we packed into a room, and I hadn’t seen some of then since we went to Costa Rica — and my Uncle Dave and Aunt Alaine even longer than that. We even had a new addition — my cousin Pam’s newborn daughter, Sarah. The Monkey, of course, was utterly fascinated by the baby.

So happy birthday, Nana! This time next year, you’ll have two more great-grandchildren to faun over.

Torches and waterslides

17 Jan 2010

Well, Monkey, it’d been over a month since the last time you swam in a pool, and I thought it high time we went for a swim. In fact, it was so overdue that I felt it was also a good time to go for a Surprise Weekend. And that’s a big deal, because it’s been almost a year and a half since our last one.

Why so long? It’s been a number of things. First, I worked a lot, and too hard. It wore me down and I was almost always too tired to do things that we should have done. It’s a poor excuse, Monkey, and I’m sorry that it’s all I have to offer. Second, doing things in Costa Rica was always just that much harder than it really needed to be, at least when planning for us. You can only go to Arenal so many times, and getting to the coast never seemed to be as easy for us as it was for others. After a while, we planned all of our weekends, rather than letting one of us surprise the rest.

Needless to say, I wanted to change things up a bit.

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There and back again, a Monkey’s tail

8 Jan 2010

This is a joke you might not understand until you’re older, Monkey. For now, it’s one many of my friends will have a good chuckle at…

You’re asleep right now, in your own room, on the mattress from one of our sofa beds. A month ago right now, you and we were standing in the immigration line, waiting to enter your country of origin, and go to your new home. I can’t say “home” the way Mommy and I say “home”, because for you, this isn’t your home. Costa Rica is more your home than here.

You still look at video of our condo in Santa Ana, and you ask when are we going home. Because that’s what you know more of. We left Canada when you weren’t even a year old. You learned to walk in Costa Rica, to swim, to talk. Almost all of your friends are in Costa Rica, you went to school there. You ask for “schoolday”, and talk about your teachers.

But you came a long way to be able to say these things, and have these memories.

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2009, A Year in Review

4 Jan 2010

The year past was one of the toughest ones I can remember. It’s been a year of extreme highs, some pretty darks depths; my share of awesome joys, mixed with an unhealthy dose of stress. And that’s not when you consider the economy, I might add — things are even worse when you roll all that in.

The year closed out on a more sombre note for me, in many ways. Much quieter, and I got to spend a lot of time with my family (which I cherish now, and cannot regret in anyway), but the future is a little less certain. I’m less concerned about that fact than I thought I would be, however.

On with the year that just was… (more…)

‘Twas a couple of nights before Christmas

24 Dec 2009

Not a lot of posts in a while, I know. We’ve been pretty busy since returning to Canada barely two weeks ago. We arrived late on the 8th, having spent 19 hours in transit from Costa Rica. It was dark, extremely cold, and covered in snow.

But it was home.

The next morning, we moved back into our home here in Calgary. We started seeing things we hadn’t seen since before the Monkey was even conceived. (Since then, we’ve unpacked virtually everything, and put together about a half-dozen large boxes of stuff we’re giving away.

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You can never go home again

14 Dec 2009

When I was a kid, I heard the phrase “you can never go home again”, but never understood it. I mean, I went home every day after school, so what was wrong with that? It wasn’t until I went to university that I started to appreciate it — I was regularly amazed at how much my hometown seemed to change whenever I was away at school.

When my father died in 2002, the term gained a whole new meaning for me. Suddenly, I couldn’t even go home. My home was where my family lived, which was now only in the past. When my mother moved away, my home became a sightseeing stop.

Then I moved home from Costa Rica, to a house we own. Man, talk about change of perspective.

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The trip home

10 Dec 2009

Well, Monkey, we’re home now. I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, because you’ve lived in three different homes since you were born. But this house, the one in Calgary (where we’re currently adjusting to serious sub-zero temperatures and drying out) is a home we hope you’ll come to know and love.

It’s not Costa Rica. It’s not always warm. It’s not filled with the sounds of parakeets, or tropical rainstorms, or filled with Spanish-speaking voices. This is the Great White North. It’s chilly for most of the year, leaves are seen for only five months, and the only monkeys you’ll see are at the zoo. It’s going to be an adjustment for you, and for Mommy and I, too.

It was a long road to get here.

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Taking a pet from Costa Rica

28 Nov 2009

It figures, just when we thought we’d started to have everything figured out, we hit another snag. (There’s always another snag.) This time, it’s with Asia, our cat.

Our problem is not with Canada — all they need is a valid rabies vaccination, which we have. Our problem is not our airline (Continental) — we already have a reservation that allows us to take our cat. Our problem is with Costa Rica.

I’m so not surprised.

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