Bandwagon Update

I've now been bullet journaling for four months.

I've invested in a Leuchtturm 1917 (in pink, of course), and it is being put to good use. I put my habit tracker in there, along with the NaNoWriMo word count tracker that you've already seen in previous posts. There's a month-at-a-glace page that I stole right out of Ryder Carroll's The Bullet Journal Method, and I merged that spread with a colour-coded budget and a three-point-daily mood tracker -- all on a two-page spread. It's a lot of information all in one place, but that's exactly the point. The colour coding helps a LOT and it's really helpful to have events, money, and mental health information for a full month all at a glance in order to see patterns (particularly since money is a very strong predictor for my mental health). I've put a suicide safety plan spread in there as well with things to try to distract myself, people to contact (with phone numbers), and a list of reasons to live.

I wouldn't say the impact on my life is dramatic, but it's definitely noticeable. I'm remembering things now -- to the point where if I tell my husband that I wrote it down in the book, he knows I'll remember. This was a man who could not (and I think still can't) wrap his head around the concept of needing to write things down to remember them; a man who used to get angry and frustrated with me multiple times every single day because I forgot something and he couldn't understand how I could forget such important things so often. We still argue, but it's far, FAR less than we did before I started bullet journaling.

In the daily logs, I've been marking things that made me happy with a pink heart instead of a bullet. Everything else in the daily logs is written in my black pen, so the pink hearts really stand out. I have an unofficial goal to have at least one pink heart bullet per day. Some days I really have to reach for it, and some days it doesn't happen at all, but it's something to strive for. (Today there will definitely be a pink heart because the local Tim Horton's had a sprinkle and jam doughnut for literally the first time since I moved here in summer 2020.)

My journal is still not flowery or a crash course in visual design and probably never will be. Just colour coding numbers for the mood and budget trackers are enough to keep me busy. But it's practical and everything is in one place, and those are more important to me than prettiness.

Probably the thing I like the most about it is the fact that everything is in one place. I used to have one notebook for dance videos in the works, one for dance class notes, one for choreography in progress, one for writing ideas, one specifically for Kyrie, one for 'random stuff,' one for journaling my actual thoughts and concerns, one for scheduling appointments, one for budget tracking... all of those have been condensed into a 250-page dot journal and a $3 pack of pens from Wal-Mart (the Papermate InkJoy coloured pens, which bleed a little and can be a tiny bit gloppy, except for the black, but the colours are amazing, the price is right, and I will not write with anything besides Papermate because I love the feel of their pens. I've been a Papermate devotee since my early teens and I will stop using them when you pry my Flexgrip Ultra 0.8 from my cold dead hands).

To be perfectly honest with you, everything that has happened to me since summer 2019 is a complete blank in my memory. I don't remember much of anything from 2020. I can only call up the very vaguest of memories from my own wedding in August 2020. A good part of 2021 is gone as well. By the time I finished an eight-hour work shift, I would not be able to tell you anything that happened at the beginning of the same shift. I couldn't even hold a conversation outside of my semi-scripted drive-thru order-taker conversations because the meanings of concepts and words were just -- gone (which in turn impacted my ability to make art and engage with the people around me, which pushed me further into depression and isolation). I had no past, and therefore no present and no future. I felt adrift in an endless ocean where time didn't exist. It was not freeing, as one would be inclined to think -- in fact, it was terrifying. When there is no time, there is nothing else. Nothing exists. It was like being stuck in an abyss. I was losing myself. I had no idea who I even was anymore because I had nothing to look back on, no reference point. Having this journal is helping me feel more grounded and like I'm an actual person rather than just a phantom in a shadowland. I have 'yesterdays' again now, and I didn't for two years. I'm only just starting to rebuild an awareness of myself as a real human being who exists in a real place and not a featureless ghost floating aimlessly in an endless cloud, and so far this journal is a large part in that.

Maybe I'll even manage to remember another update in a couple of months.

Ten Years

A few months ago (June), this blog celebrated its tenth anniversary. It's outlived some of my friendships (because said friends died). Heck, it's almost outlived the Blogger platform itself. It's listened to me when quite literally no-one else will. Some people think I'm ridiculous for wanting to post my 'private' thoughts online 'where everyone can see them.' I've always had a couple rebuttals to that one:
1. Honey, this blog barely scratches the surface of my thoughts. These are by no means the private thoughts. Not by a long shot. I fully recognise that people might see them, and I am 100% okay with that. In fact, the reason I post things is because I want people to see them.
2. 'Where everyone can see them?' Don't make me laugh. Since Brittney died, there's been nobody to read these unless I post one of the especially good (or especially offensive) posts on my personal Facebook page. In a way, that's why I did this -- then those who really did care to know how I thought could read them at their own leisure, and at their own pace, and those who found this blog 'too negative' could simply forget about its existence.

I started this blog just before the car accident that almost killed me (we're talking days before). As a result, this blog has chronicled my life as I navigated through that paradigm shift and the consequences of my conclusions about life. That accident was a major life event and probably was the thing that had the greatest impact on my life up until 2015/The Year From Hell (incidentally, this blog also serves as a nice before-and-after of the state of my soul in relation to said Year From Hell). Many times I've posted things thinking it would be the final record of my thoughts before my untimely death, and I've also tried at other times to post the happy things that I could not feel in an attempt to remember something, anything besides the soul-sucking depression.

Often, this blog has been a place where I can offload some of the mental weight of depression without actually burdening an actual overstretched human being. I think in a way, that was my secret motivation for starting a blog in the first place (that and I thought people would be far more interested in me and my thoughts/writing career/computer nerdiness than they actually are). Turned out only Brittney was even moderately interested in such things, and she was the greatest supporter of this blog until her death in February 2015. (To this day, I would say she is still the greatest supporter this blog has had over the entire ten years.) I managed to somehow hold onto this blog during college, and it probably saved my life more than once by giving me a safe place to vent when not a single soul on the planet was willing to acknowledge my existence.

Anyone who's been here since the Brittney days (I don't even know if there are any out there) might remember the old name -- Thoughts From The Asylum. I named it that partly because sixteen-year-old me felt like she was living in an insane asylum (while this may have been a slightly extreme take on the situation, it was not entirely inaccurate), and partly because she took asylum from a dysfunctional home life (from which she had literally zero refuge because homeschool) in writing, which has been a focus of this blog since its inception. When dance started to become a bigger factor in my life and I started seriously considering making a career of it, I renamed the blog The Edge Of The Dream -- after the White Heart song -- in reference to my faith at the time that bigger and better things were to come for me in the world of dance and performing. (In a nutshell -- has that happened? Kind of... yes, in the sense that I have done more as a performer by this point in my life than I could have imagined eight years ago when I changed the blog name; but also no, in the sense that my hope was and still is to direct a dance team. In that sense, I am still, in September 2020, at the edge of the dream -- and wondering when I will finally start heading toward the centre.)

I'm glad to have this blog. Sometimes I read back through my own words and find deep encouragement here, from my past self, words that I need to hear in the present that no-one can provide. Often it provides me with a small escape into the world as it was before 2015, when my mother's family still spoke to each other, Brittney and I wrote copiously and proofread each other's work constantly, and I still had some semblance of childlike faith in God (to SUPER condense that update: I've somehow managed to not become agnostic. I definitely still believe God exists. But I'm still not convinced He loves me. I really think no-one other than God Himself will be able to convince me otherwise).

I plan to continue writing and posting here. Whenever I feel the urge to write but have no clear idea of what I want to talk about, I tend to go to Blogger and open up a 'new post' page. I have probably about as many unfinished drafts as I do published posts because of this practice. It's somehow different, more freeing, to write in Blogger than in a Pages document despite how simple literally all my Pages documents are (I keep them almost Windows-Notepad-esque in their simplicity, even -- perhaps especially -- for my novels). This probably also explains the amount of rambling posts on this blog (which probably also explains the lack of readership).
Anyway, where I was going with this is that this has been such a comforting habit over the past ten years. In this time of societal and personal upheaval, you'd better believe I don't plan on letting go of this blog anytime soon.

Thanks to any of you who may have actually stuck around over the years (and managed to not criticise me extensively for being 'too negative' on my OWN PERSONAL BLOG THAT YOU ARE IN NO WAY REQUIRED TO READ). Here's to another ten years at the asylum/edge of the dream.

My Room

Cleaning out my room at my parents' house for the final time.

Sure, I've moved away before, but before I always had the option of coming back. My possessions continued to reside here in this cheery pink room, under increasingly thick grey layers of dust and the occasional spiderweb. I never really truly had to move out of this room. I left for years at a time, but it was still my room.

But now I've just gotten married, and my sister is planning to take over my room. This requires me to clean it out for perhaps the first time ever. I've certainly straightened it up once or twice, but never truly deep-cleaned, and I've especially not had to pack it all away into storage at the same time. It's funny how few of my finds truly surprised me (apparently I pretty much knew exactly where everything was, despite some things not seeing the light of day for over a decade), yet when I dusted them off, only then did they bring back memories.

I'm a terribly, terribly sentimental person. I will keep a Staples receipt for pens and paperclips for nostalgic reasons, even though I know I will probably never look at it again. Part of the reason I had never truly cleaned out my room was because I was suffering so much loss already and I knew I couldn't bear to throw anything away. But now I'm forced to, and that, coupled with knowing this room is no longer my safe place anymore, is a very emotional process.

This room was where I cowered in fear from my mother's outbursts and listened to ABBA CDs nonstop on my headphones. This room was where I listened to Oilers hockey games and paced the carpet in the dark as I listened, working out some new plot idea. This room is where I would write all day long and late into the night on my old Windows XP machine with a 20GB hard drive (pretty sure the processor on that thing was measured in megahertz), or simply stare at the screensaver and daydream. This room was where I would sit on the floor after dance class and choreograph to Petra and White Heart, planning all sorts of dance shows with M. This room was where I sketched out revenge stories centering around the youth group that hated me. I've fallen asleep on the grey-pink carpet, I've made endless crochet and cross-stitch projects, I played hours of Polly Pocket with my sister, I've written over half a million words of ideas and prose, I've tap danced, I've even practiced a few ballet steps here. I've done so many self-portrait photoshoots, written so many blog posts, lost myself in so many dreams, cried so many silent but tortured tears. I moved into this room somewhere around 2003/2004, and it's been a home base for me ever since.

I found cards with greetings in both M's and Brittney's handwriting. I found a bear that my late grandfather gave me when I got baptised. I found mementos from a 2004 trip to see my now-deceased great-uncle and his wife in B.C. I found bookmarks my sister had made me, story ideas I'd sketched out on the back of church bulletins, and tickets for shows I'd performed in as a child. I even found a folder with all my work and costume designs and very early choreography for a book/dance company idea I had nursed for some three or four years in my early teens before joining the real world and realising that that exact particular idea was simply not feasible (it's not completely dead, though, the dream of a dance team and even some sections of choreography from that period still live on in my present work).

These are things that you never know the value of when you first receive them. This is another part of why I can't throw anything out. How could I have known on my 20th birthday when I received that card from M that she would be dead barely five years later? If I had thrown that card out two weeks later like I'm told 'normal people' always do, I would now have nothing left of the fierce woman who so often inspired and encouraged me. No-one else will ever exist with that exact handwriting, that exact way of wording things. And even if someone could forge it, they could never forge her personality, her essence, her spirit, her -- the things that all who knew her fell in love with.

Brittney was one of the very few people who was capable of being encouraging in writing. Sometimes her birthday cards to me were the only source of encouragement I would get for that entire year. This words-of-affirmation person had to scrape together all the encouragement she could, and sometimes it was contained only in the left-handed script of this one dear friend.

How could I know that my grandfather would only give me two gifts in the entire twenty-three years he knew me? Yes, I will never play with that stuffed bear, but my grandfather was a hardened, bitter man who rarely showed approval, let alone affection. That bear showed me what his gruff voice and distant actions never managed to do. I would rather remember that than simply replay the fading memory of his critical voice over and over in my head.

Memories fade. And these people meant far too much to me for me to justify callously tossing aside the things that remind me of them and their huge, huge impacts on my life. And because I never know which bright young life will disappear next, I can't afford to lose any of those memories. I learned when M died that just because something is statistically improbable (losing TWO best friends at age 22 in three years?), DOES NOT mean it's impossible. Especially if it's something bad. You know, like losing SEVEN people to death in four years; all but one under the age of 27. What's to say there won't be an eighth? Statistically, there should have been no more deaths in my life after Brittney for a good fifteen years, save maybe my grandfather due to his age and health. Yet there were five more in 1,461 days. Improbable, you say -- but it happened. It happened in real life, in my life. You truly never know. You can 'be positive' and 'not think about it now' and believe in the health and wealth of your friends all you want, but you truly. never. know. Nobody escapes the death of the ones they love the most. Nobody. (Except the ones who die young.)

(Side note: I am literally not even joking, iTunes just started playing Memories Fade by Tears For Fears. I did not plan this, and I am not making this up. I just started playing TFF and I had completely forgotten that song even existed.)

This room has been my safe haven through a lot of things, when there was no-one to talk to and no-one to go to. The golden light, amplified by the pink walls, seemed to bring a modicum of hope even on the darkest days of suicidal depression. The lone incandescent bulb that hung from the 2x10s that made up the upper floor above me lit the way to many a late-night story idea -- the spaceships that allowed me to travel through time and space, away from the pain of whatever situation I was in.

To not have even the option of spending a day alone in this room again -- it steals the breath from my chest. This room was one of my few constants in a world that insisted on dying away around me. It was always there, even after Brittney died and M died. It was my sanctuary when the world was against me (and let's be honest, it still is in many ways). I feel untethered without it, but it is time...
Another goodbye. It never gets easier.

Thank you, big pink room with the tree-dappled southern sunlight and the desks lining the walls, for all the good times and for sheltering me through all the bad times. Thank you for all the memories. Thank you for the safety and protection and inspiration you provided. I'll miss you something awful.

Upheaval and Music (A Snapshot)

Life has been in upheaval lately.

I am preparing to graduate this coming April (and none too soon, according to the powers-that-be...). I have planned several auditions for productions outside the college over the next couple of months -- hoping to hit the ground running so I don't experience the post-grad psychological crisis (because it's a real thing and it almost killed me last time). Also I actually managed to land an actual role with actual lines at the college (I know, I was shocked too). And I've now attended the funeral of a suicide (my very good friend -- a brilliant dancer and fearless writer).

I find myself re-evaluating my life quite a bit in the wake of all this. I am definitely ready to graduate -- not angry-ready, just ready. I sense I've more or less gotten all I'm going to get out of my current post-secondary stint and it's time to move on.

And my friend's death has redoubled my passion to live my life the way I feel called to rather than be pressured into spending it at some soulless desk job. I feel a bit of a burden in my spirit to live the life that she never will -- to dance just as brightly and passionately and to write with just as much verve and abandon as she did. It's up to me now to take up that mantle she left behind.

I don't know what any of this looks like. I guess I'll keep practicing and keep auditioning and keep performing. After all, that's basically the life I've always wanted anyway.

Tonight I'm listening to Michael W. Smith's brilliant album i 2 (EYE). This is the album that fits this night, this moment of my life, with its themes of providence and life (warts and all), and darkness and light and loss and sadness and camaraderie. As I've said before, where people cannot grasp the feelings in my soul, music can, and tonight this album is that music. I can't really describe it -- it's a strange mix of what MWS actually wrote coupled with my long bank of memories associated with this album and they all come together in this particular listening tonight. I wouldn't quite say it's bringing me comfort -- in fact as I Hear Leesha plays it's kind of ripping the hole left by my friend's death even bigger -- but it just fits. It makes emotional sense, on some deep subconscious soul level. It accompanies the upheaval with a sort of peace even at it brings me temporarily back to the times before everyone died, sitting in the Dodge Spirit in a Fabricland parking lot with my dad, playing this cassette over and over.

I'll help you find your way
When you're lost in all the madness
When you're blinded by your doubts
When you need someone to be there for you
I'll help you find your way...

A Time Machine of 1/500

I used to do a lot of photography. And even back when I started taking pictures seriously around 2009, it wasn't really about art or money or making a statement (although later it did become those things). My photography mainly centered around two things: people and events.

I learnt about photography principles of course -- the rule of thirds, the power of a wide aperture/selective focus and of zooming in, what sorts of compositions work best, how to use colour and light to draw attention and enhance the mood. My photography grew lovely in its own right, and by now it's so second nature I often barely realise I have a camera in my hand. My Nikon is essentially an extension of my arm. But the subjects are still mostly people and events.

When I started taking pictures, my goal was to capture moments and keep them. It was mostly for my own personal record more than anything. To this day I'll stop to take a picture of something and whoever is with me will give me a strange look -- 'that? Seriously?' -- but because they know taking random pictures is something I do, they say nothing. After all, no harm done. And my friends and family have long since gotten used to me wandering around with a camera at all times.

And now, in the wake of three deaths, one cancer diagnosis, and two shattered marriages, all involving people I love dearly, I'm reminded why I started taking pictures in the first place.

It's like a mini time machine. I was looking for pictures of my recently-deceased young cousin (it was her birthday), and in my quest I found myself scrolling back through 2013 -- the year I discovered Daniel Amos and started college... 2012 -- the year we held our Father's Day party as a barbeque... 2011 -- the year we invited a lady from our church to our family Christmas gathering and our dance school staged Little Bo Peep... 2010 -- the year of my accident, the last family reunion... 2009 -- how tiny my sisters look! the year my sister began ballet classes...

I had forgotten most of this. I had forgotten how my sisters looked so young. It's funny to think how at one time I could not picture them any other way, but five years later I hardly recognised them. Their hairstyles are different, two are now wearing glasses, one has lost a drastic amount of weight. I'd forgotten how short my brother once was. I had forgotten the full brilliance of Brittney's sweet shy smile and seriously cool wardrobe. I had forgotten that once my aunt and uncle would laugh and once they would sit beside each other and hold hands. I had forgotten what my uncle's twinkling eyes looked like -- last time I saw him, only a few weeks ago, those eyes were so lifeless. He was a completely different person from the man who hugged me goodbye last Christmas.

There was a time when things were right -- when everyone was here who should have been, when people were healthy and happy and while there were always smaller problems and the occasional falling out, we were all here. We were together. We smiled and laughed and no-one was missing. I can't bring that back (how I desperately wish I could!). But for a few minutes I can return there and see it all laid out before me, re-insert myself in the space, hear their voices again, if only in my mind.

Maybe it's a waking dream. But it brings the missing ones closer to me.

Music Day - When Everyone Wore Hats

I was raised in the shadow of the world of the good old days, in the farm country of Alberta -- close enough to the 'big city' to know what was happening in the world, but far enough from it to still have real neighbours, real community. The actual time of old-fashioned gentility had long passed by the time I was born, but the scent of it still lingered in our neighbourhood. I remember it, vaguely, but at the same time I knew it was lost. I lived in its ghost.

For me this song is at once a trip down memory lane and a yearning for a time I never knew. The world of the good old days. The melancholic grace of the electric guitar so perfectly captures the wistful tone of the lyrics.

Title: When Everyone Wore Hats
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Songs Of The Heart
Year: 1995
Label: Brainstorm Artists International/Frontline Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

This song takes on a stronger meaning for me now, as I'm so far from home. I'm nearing the end of the semester, and I feel I can almost step into the small-town restaurant where my parents would sometimes take my sister and me for breakfast on Saturday mornings, as an occasional treat. I feel that would be the closest I could get -- the place where everyone really could wear hats and it wouldn't seem out of place.

This is really just an all-round beautiful song. It's five and a half minutes of that lovely DA blend of rock and melancholy and poetry. Perhaps one of their best.

Music Day (Or, A Probably-Pointless Trip Down Memory Lane)

Last fall and early winter, this was my driving-to-tap-class album. The dance studio is far enough away from our house that I can listen to an entire album on the way there, and another on the way back. Tap was on Monday nights and while the album on the way back would vary, on the way there it was always Don't Wait For The Movie.

The first couple songs were me setting the speed, getting to the highway. By the time I got to the first city lights (I skirt two cities on the way in and enter the third), Fly Eagle Fly would be starting.

Here the magic began. Not so much the song (it's actually kind of a really cheesy song), but the visual... velvet black nightscape dotted with oncoming headlights and the streetlights of the city up ahead. And as I took the ramp onto the main highway, Convertibles would always start to play.

Let The Children Play and King George would mark my time on that highway, following the streetlights for part of the way, and then as I approached the second city and got onto the exit for the ring road I would get to listen to No Apology, and then Maybe Today would always just start as I went under the first overpass on the ring road and into the beginning of the curve. It was always a glorious sort of moment, not in that it was a big dramatic thing, but because the tinkling intro and the quietly-soaring keyboard backing Mark Gersmehl's brooding vocal seemed to be so, so perfect with the glittering streetlights in the endless Alberta night sky. I think this moment was the reason I always, always chose this album on that drive.

As I got to the halfway point on my trip on the ring road, Dr Jekyll And Mr Christian would start, and it would always just be ending as I was coming up across from the second city's skyline. (About halfway through the tap session I noticed that and holy crap I almost had a heart attack the first time I saw it... It was all lit up and so so beautiful -- red and green and blue and purple and streetlight off-white. I hadn't realised you could see the skyline from that road.)

And then I would exit off into the third city (well, not technically a city, though it's big enough to be one) during this, the final song on the album, to kind of calm me down and gently lead me into the dance school's little parking lot. Often I would pull into the parking lot with one chorus left to go, and if I wasn't running terribly late I would stay out in the rattletrap and let the song finish.

Title: How Many Times (Seventy Times Seven)
Artist: White Heart
Album: Don't Wait For The Movie
Year: 1986
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

This album so quickly became my soundtrack for winter night city driving, following the string of streetlights along the highways, stars against a black sky. Several times it was snowing during the drive and I seem to remember one time where it was raining. Once the fog was just so that it caught the streetlights and scattered the light everywhere, lighting up the entire road and the sky above it. It was almost -- though not quite -- like driving in the daytime, so spread around was the light. There was one section on the ring road that randomly didn't have streetlights (still can't figure out why not), and driving through there that night was almost terrifying... the rattletrap isn't exactly known for its great headlights (actually, it's not really known for its great anything, but I digress), and without the light to scatter around, the fog pressed in and blocked the streetlights ahead and the streetlights behind almost completely from view. It was almost completely dark there for about a minute.

Oh, the song? Well -- Rick Florian. That should tell you everything you need to know. It's a good lyric too:
How many times
Have You wept from the anguish of all my shame
How many times
Have I nailed You up on that cross of pain...

It starts out with the concept of protagonist trying to come to terms with the concept of forgiving someone who's wronged him -- knowing it's what Christ has commanded, but struggling to lay aside his pride in order to do so.

But then after the interlude (a lovely simple keyboard bit that capitalises very well on the 'quiet struggle' mood of the song), the protagonist's point of view shifts to his precious Christ on the cross -- did Christ not forgive me of things far more grievous? Who then am I to withhold the grace that shouldn't have even been mine?

The ending is gorgeous. Protagonist is still wrestling with his desire to not forgive and is halfheartedly trying to convince God that 'no really, this is unforgiveable' when he knows better. And to each one of his arguments, a soft voice comes back to him: Seventy times seven.

And finally he is silent in the face of the reminder of simple, powerful love.

Seventy times seven.



(For those wondering what 'seventy times seven' has to do with anything... once, Jesus' disciple Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive somebody who's wronged him. Peter asks, "Is seven times enough?" Jesus (God in the flesh) says, "No, not only seven times, but seventy times seven." The term 'seventy times seven' has since come to be, for better or worse, a 'sacred buzzword' of sorts, a code phrase within the church meaning 'forgiving.' You can read the account of Peter's question and Jesus' answer in Matthew chapter 18, starting at verse 21.)

The Pencil

I have this pencil.

It has a slender black body, once shiny but my fingers have long since worn off the finish. It had a pink clip on it, which I accidentally broke at Bible study during prayer and the broken piece clattered quite loudly onto the floor at my feet.
It has a matching pink finger grip, which heats up and and begins to slide down over the point if I use it long enough and then I have to push it back up on the body every once in a while so I can keep control of the thing.

The eraser is flat and unusable, formerly white but stained with graphite grey and a bit yellowed from its travels. The bit of plastic that holds what's left of the eraser in place is cracked in two places and there's a small dent in it too.

It takes 0.7mm lead refills and I have probably half a dozen of those little plastic containers with spare leads strewn about my room and across various bags because I'm paranoid about running out of lead at any moment (even though at almost any given moment I also have half a dozen pens on my person). It's been with me on countless forays into town for errands, it's put many pages of math behind it, it's been a part of many, many letters to my childhood friend, it's been on several youth camping trips, it's been to Vancouver with me, to the labyrinth where we played broom hockey in the pouring rain, to the beach where I watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my entire life (still kicking myself for not bringing the camera), to the little church where we made lunch and mixed gallons and gallons of juice for the kids to keep hydrated in forty-degree weather. Come to think of it, it probably came to Kelowna with me to visit my great-uncle and great-aunt when I was eleven.

I've had it for probably about nine years now.

But lately it has been showing signs of being discontent with writing choreography and jotting down email addresses of other artists I happen to meet and is making attempts at escaping.

No less than three times today it has been sitting on my desk, beside my computer -- its usual place -- and I've accidentally bumped it and it's fallen off.

No less than three times today I've had to get on my hands and knees and crawl about on the floor to find it, only to find it several feet away from where it would have fallen. (It's worth noting that my floor is carpeted.)

In fact, the last time I ended up nearly tearing my room apart looking for the stupid thing before I finally found it hiding deep within the recesses of my messenger bag -- way over at the other end of the desk.

It's now directly in the middle of the desk, right in my sightline as I touch-type this.

And so help me it is not. going. anywhere.

Hannah

She was my first Sunday School teacher -- way back when I was three or four years old.

I don't remember a single lesson she ever taught. All I can see in my mind's eye is her squarish face with the gold-rimmed glasses set against the baby blue of the classroom walls as we sat around the low wooden table.

I don't know if I ever saw her actually smile, but I never really saw her frown either.

But she talked. Oh, she was always talking. Her face probably had no chance to smile or to frown -- her mouth was always changing shape, always moving.

She never seemed to age. In all the years I knew her she never seemed to get any older, though she passed through nearly two decades in that time. All her wrinkles had set in by the time she was my Sunday School teacher and it seemed not a single one was added since.

She was forthright, rather loud, and nothing if not opinionated. It seemed to be a trait in the family -- good German stock, I'm told. She cared about things, though the vehemence with which she did so was rather off-putting to those not used to such forceful decisiveness.

She was a tower. Strongly built, firmly set.

But she was not one of those who just sat around and grumbled about how terrible things were. No, no.

She was a member of every board she could find, every committee relevant to the things she cared about. She was involved in everything. She was the change she wanted to see in things. Some disagreed with her, sometimes strongly, but no one could say she was a lazy whiner.

Though four years his junior, she faithfully supported her brother, his only constant in a family broken by greed. Card games, church choir, Thursday morning coffee, she was his rock.

And then the ailment which had so nearly claimed her brother years before... a heart attack. Rushed to the hospital. A string of infections, two other operations she shouldn't have needed. Her birthday somewhere in the middle of it all. Flat on her back, a trach tube rendering her unable to speak.

Even now her fierce independence shone through -- she refused all visitors except her own children. No one needed to see her like this.

For months she ebbed and flowed. Finally there was a stretch of significant progress and she was moved out of the ICU.

And then Sunday morning came the call to her daughter -- respiratory distress. Hours later, a stroke. She was moved back to ICU, family was called.

Then on the morning of the twenty-eighth, her last earthly memory was made.

Though I can't remember a single Sunday School lesson she taught me all those years ago, I can still hear her voice. Even though I can't remember whether her short-cropped hair was light blonde or white -- or if it made a transition between the two over the years -- I can still see it softly permed and piled above her head. I still see the plain-style floral-print blue and green dresses she would wear to church with gold-plated earrings and a large ring on her soft white hand.

Though I hardly knew her, in an odd way I miss her. And my heart aches for those who knew her well.

In memory of H.M.G.

1934 ~ 2012

Music Day

This song, for me, like time traveling to 2008, to the Bible study I was in at the time with our youth group -- all twelve or so of us crammed in the youth pastor's cosy living room eating his wife's baking, fresh from the oven, playing with the cat and the eight-month-old's toys. There resides many of my favourite memories, even though more than half the original members are abroad at school, the very youngest members of the study are all now in their final year of high school and the youth pastor himself has since spent a year as a head pastor at another church and is currently back in seminary.

I had never heard this song, nor even knew of the artist, back then, but the connection remains because the title of this song is the title of the book we studied.

That book grabbed me by the shoulders and woke me up. And I do believe I'll be forever grateful for it. So it was little wonder I thoroughly enjoyed the song which (I'm fairly certain) is inspired by that book...

Title: Don't Waste Your Life
Artist: Lecrae
Album: Rebel
Year: 2008
Label: Reach Records
iTunes here; YouTube here (official video) and here (full song).

I don't listen to any so-called 'secular' rap at all, but I've heard many people say this guy is on par with the biggest names out there in rap right now (I won't even try to name them because I have no idea who they are), and this, by far, is his best performance to date (according to me). (Actually this is his best album to date according to me.)

See your money, your singleness, marriage, talents, your time
They were loaned to you to show the world that Christ is divine...

Music Day

Another song from my childhood. (It was either this or more White Heart.)
This band has exactly two major hits (that I'm aware of, anyway). One from a VeggieTales episode (The Rumour Weed Song, from Larry-Boy And The Rumour Weed), the other, featured today, was catapulted to fame when Christian radio started advertising it as 'from the band who performed The Rumour Weed Song on the new Larry-Boy video.' The immense popularity of Larry-Boy at the time (strengthened by the newly-launched website -- a big deal in 1999) and the catchiness of both songs combined so strongly that most people who listened to Christian radio and/or knew VeggieTales in that era can hear either song now, more than ten years later (has it really been that long?) and still name the band. Not a lot of Christian hits from 1999 are that recognisable.
This is probably the only song that reminds me of PFR that isn't actually by PFR.

Title: The Devil Is Bad
Artist: The W's
Album: Fourth From The Last
Year: 1998
Label: Five Minute Walk Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Because let's face it, it's way too much fun to say Ski-dee-lee-oo.

Music Day

This is another story that could be filed under 'I bought a whole album for twenty dollars or more just for one song because it wasn't on iTunes and the song had memories so I was sort of desperate...'
The good news is, this wasn't nearly as dramatic as the Amazon ripoff back in March. Better news: it was only twenty dollars and it was a double album (both albums are all right, although aside from this song I probably wouldn't have bought them).
Even better news (for you, anyway): the song is now on iTunes, thereby making your potential acquisition of it much easier than mine was.

As I already mentioned, this song does have nostalgic value for me. Specifically, it reminds me of going to laser tag with a few church friends years ago; of the vehicle driving down a steep (and narrow) descent into the northern part of the city. It was already dark out and the skyline just before us was all lit up -- a sight I don't think I will ever tire of.
The crazy part is, I don't think this song was even playing at that point in the journey.

Title: Beautiful Love
Artist: The Afters
Album: I Wish We All Could Win
Year: 2005
Label: Simple Records
iTunes here, YouTube here. (As I was watching the video, I was fairly strongly reminded of Relient K. So if you like them, you might like this...)

I Don't Understand

For years -- over a decade actually -- I've wanted to be a dancer.
That has been my main goal in life since I was five.
Then, of course, it was a childish dream completely founded in a princess fairy tale mindset. But I started taking ballet lessons at age six and by age seven I had considered the angles and the work involved more thoroughly and had come to the adult-like decision that yes, I was going to be a dancer. Yes, it would be hard work, and yes, it would be a long time before I could see it come to fruition. But there was no doubt in my mind.

I was going to be a dancer.

And I am still going to be a dancer.

My family, however, thinks otherwise.

You see, I made the mistake of starting to take pictures of things that I wanted to remember. So when I got old and grey I could show my grandkids the places and the people I'm telling them about. So whenever I get lonely and sad I just pull out the pictures and relive the good times.
Naturally, I wanted the pictures to be as clear and well-taken as possible, so I learnt a little about aperture and shutter speed and other tricks of the trade.
I've been taking dance for more than ten years now, but my family took this little bit of photography knowledge and blew it completely out of proportion.
So now I am going to be a professional photographer and I'm going to do studio portraits and I'm going to run my own business and I'm going to do twenty weddings a year and I'm going to win win win win WIN every photo contest they can get their hands on and I will become a household name and other photographers will simply beg to go on photo excursions with me, the great Canadian photographer.

It's like a nightmare.

We've been at a great deal of family/neighbourhood gatherings recently, and many people ask, 'so what are you up to?'
I say, "Dancing mostly -- taking ballet lessons and looking for a tap class somewhere (do you know how freaking hard those are to FIND?) and I'm working on a lot of choreography."
"Oh cool."
Then, just as they may be about to pursue that train of thought, my mother and/or grandmother comes in.
"Yeah, and she also REALLY likes TAKING PICTURES and she's thinking of starting a photography BUSINESS here in the next couple weeks and she's REALLY GOOD and lots of people COMPLIMENT her on her great pictures so she's REALLY SERIOUSLY thinking about DOING THAT." (Insert murderous glare at me here for 'forgetting' to mention this obviously vitally important matter.)
And then, because most people have some idea what goes into photography and haven't the faintest clue what's involved in dance, they naturally seize on the topic they feel a little more knowledgable about -- photography.
It has gotten to the point where my mouth tastes bitter when my relatives start talking about photography.
I don't want to be a photographer. Sure, I mentioned perhaps starting an online shop and selling a few prints to make some money until I could get the choreography/dance thing going, but that was only ever meant to happen 'on the side.' Photography is not my vocation, and it never has been. I may be good and I appreciate that they think so, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life clicking a stupid button.

And their I-know-what-goes-on-in-your-head-better-than-you-do attitude has completely ruined any joy I did get out of taking pictures, capturing memories. Aside from some Northern lights this past week, I haven't touched my camera in several months, because now I know that every single second they see a camera in my hand is only fuel for the fire -- their argument is, "Well, I never see you dancing, and you're always taking pictures, so I thought that's what you wanted to do."

Yeah, well, you try testing out the timing in that one part in Spirit Mover when you're in the middle of the mall. A camera takes up a space the size of your hand. A dance takes up two or three of those little shops, depending how big your movements are.
And these two are completely different things. Sure, they're art, but the fact is, with the camera, I'm only recording memories and things I find either beautiful or interesting. With dance, I want to express emotion and beauty and marry it to my love of music and the stage.

I don't understand how they can have misunderstood all this so badly. Ten years of dancing should not trump a couple of library books on photography. It just shouldn't.

Music Day

I think this song will forever remind me of eating sunflower seeds in my father's old Toyota. How, I don't know, as we owned this album on CD and the Toyota in question was far too old for CDs (although I'm fairly certain it had a cassette player).

I don't know exactly what year or model that Toyota was, but I do know it lasted basically forever. It had a line of rust spots all along each side of the pickup box and the spots never seemed to get any larger.

In order to house his tools, my father had built a cover for the box, added some hinged doors (which may have been padlocked, I don't recall), and painted it silver.

My sister and I loved to go with him to town on Saturdays in that truck. Usually he had to go look at a potential job or measure something and get supplies for Monday morning. He almost always stopped at a gas station and got us each either a bottle of pop or a treat of some kind. If we went to the Building Centre (which was a common occurrence), we got popcorn... a nice reward for those seemingly interminable hours we would spend there as Dad visited with everyone in the store.

There were always sunflower seeds in his truck though, and often I would sit in the truck and eat them until he made me stop before I ate the whole bag. I liked the salt mostly. I would suck the salt of the outside of the seed, then carefully bite the tip off and pry it apart to get the actual seed inside. My parents never seemed to understand why I would put the whole thing in my mouth if was was just going to spit it back out but it seemed perfectly logical to me...

Anyway, this song is far too steeped in nostalgia for me to give you an objective description or anything, but I can tell you this -- if you don't like the eighties' sound, don't listen. This is the song that still defines 'eighties music' for me.

Title: Dancin My Heart Away

Artist: Kim Boyce

Album: Love Is You To Me

Year: 1989

Label: Myrrh Records
iTunes here. I couldn't find it on YouTube.

Music Day

AAAAAHH! Look what I found!

We bought this on cassette tape when it was first released just after Larry-Boy and the Rumour Weed had started to seriously take over the homes of parents with young children everywhere. I distinctly remember the first time listening to it in our little emerald-green Dodge Spirit and my mother, sister and I laughing our heads off at the Bumblyburg Groove Remix and the Superhero Slim-Down Remix as we sat in the parking lot of a gas station that no longer exists (I can't remember why we were there, but I do remember my father seeming to take forever doing whatever it was. Then again, I was a little kid. Everything takes forever when you're little).

My sister and I quickly claimed it as our favourite and even our Barbie dolls were made to dance to it as we flipped the cassette over and over (why listen to it only once when you can listen to it three times and have three times as much fun?).

Eventually though, the Spirit was totaled and replaced with a minivan with a CD player. We had cassette players in the house, of course, but I've noticed that whatever player is in your vehicle ends up being the primary music player in your possession. Whatever's getting decent rotation in the vehicle at the moment is what you listen to in the house until you get sick of it and go dig up something else.

Over the years as the CD collection grew, this particular cassette was left in a drawer and all but forgotten. Somewhere along the way, it picked up something awfully sticky that managed to get inside the cassette and attach the tape quite firmly to the casing, making it impossible for the spools to turn, therefore rendering it unplayable.

Some time later, EMI released the soundtrack album again -- this time updated with scenes from the then-recent release Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple. However the Bad Apple scenes (which weren't very good in the first place in comparison to the first two episodes according to me) were included at the expense of some of the greatest moments on the original release -- Larry-Boy's (almost) classic line about needing a doughnut, the entire introduction of and performance from the W's, Alfred's dramatic quotations of poetry, et cetera. I was sorely disappointed.

However...

Yesterday I got thinking about Bob the Tomato and VeggieTales in general and on a lark (like I have nothing better to do -- it's not like I'm trying to write a novel and prepare for a potential career in dance or anything) searched 'veggietales' on the iTunes Store. Finding nothing but their post-Jonah tripe, I searched 'larry-boy.'

And found this, the original version of the soundtrack, the one I remembered from my childhood, unadulterated by the forced stereotypical superhero flick that is Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple. Note that below is the link to the whole album, but if you're on a budget (although $6.93 Canadian is pretty bargain already), at least buy Look Who's Here To Help, Bumblyburg Groove Remix, Superhero Slim-Down Mix, It's The W's! and The Rumour Weed Song (as performed by the W's).

Album Title: Larry-Boy: The Soundtrack
Artist: VeggieTales
Year: 1999
Label: Big Idea
iTunes here.

Note: It should be blatantly obvious by the name VeggieTales (not to mention Bob the Tomato) that yes, this is about talking (and singing) vegetables. Yes, it's technically children's material. No, it's not deep and serious and talking about either how crappy life is or about some girl like 'grown-up' music does... this is just funny. No toilet humour (save the image of the plunger ears and one use of the word 'underwear' in the The Superhero Slim-Down Mix), just cheesy puns and innocent goofiness.
Let your inner child out here (Alfred even addresses the listeners as 'boys and girls'). Laugh a little. It's okay. :-)

Onions

Several years ago the youth group and I went to Vancouver in a serving-the-community endeavour. It was only for a week, but it was one of the greatest weeks in my life.
One of the funniest memories was in the kitchen of one of the churches.
Most of our group was assigned to help at a kids' camp in this church that must have been last renovated in 1972.
Three of us were assigned to the kitchen to fix lunches and snacks for the kids, per the menu the director had written out for the week. On the Wednesday, burritos were on the menu and Kristin, JJ, and myself were fixing them.
Kristin was at the far end of the kitchen mixing a five-gallon jug of fruit punch and I was shredding cheese when JJ started to chop the onions.
He was at the far end of the counter, beside the sink under the window which no longer opened and the exhaust fan that made more racket than a German metal/scream band when it wasn't tripping the main power breaker.
I was at the other end of the counter, near the door and the bulletin board, with my back to his, shredding cheese with the tiniest hand-grater on planet Earth into a little bowl.
Within a minute of JJ's first cut into the little onion, my eyes had teared up. Soon it was so bad that I couldn't open my eyes the slightest crack to see what I was doing and quickly discovered my hidden ability to shred cheese manually with my eyes closed.
But that wasn't the end of the onion's vengeance. Oh no.
Even though I'd already squeezed my eyes shut, they still stung. The pain in them only diminished when I squeezed them more tightly shut.
I now know that it is possible to squeeze your eyes shut so hard that the muscles in your face begin to cramp. I can't imagine what JJ was going through, since he actually had a sharp knife in one hand and he was much closer to the onion than I was.
Despite all this though, for some reason we found it utterly hilarious and we laughed and we rubbed furiously at our burning eyes which only made it worse and we made onion jokes that I don't remember as tears streamed down our faces. Anyone without the ability to smell would have thought we were all certifiably insane.
But it was so much fun. (Even as I write this, my eyes are starting to sting from the memory.)

Why Wikipedia Should Be Blocked After 9.30pm

I have come to a conclusion.
There should be a plugin built into every web browser on the market that blocks all access to Wikipedia after 9.30pm local time.
It's not that I'm addicted to Wikipedia. If I have a question about something, I usually go to the library and borrow a half-dozen books on the topic. If I need something right this minute I'll ask a friend who I think is likely to know the answer. Rarely do I turn to Google and by extension, Wikipedia.
However, on the rare occasion I do Google something, I tend to end up on Wikipedia, because it's the first link on the page and it generally doesn't have viruses that screw up people's computers (I'm a bit paranoid that way about Google searching).
And let's face it, it is informative... too informative. I looked up Rich Mullins once and I learned everything I could possibly have ever wanted to know and then some about microcassettes, analog generation loss, and Space Cadet Pinball for Windows 98 (plus, of course, Rich Mullins).
And that's the whole problem. If they didn't link to other interesting and informative Wikipedia pages, I wouldn't be writing this post. It wouldn't eat five irretrievable hours of my life at a time.
And I wouldn't end up terrifying the living daylights out of myself for a few days.

Have you ever looked up the Wikipedia page for Elvis Presley?
I swear you could print it out on regular paper 8.5 inches wide and lay it across Canada and it would reach from Vancouver at least to Winnipeg. It's insanely long. I'm a fast reader (the fastest I know), and it took me and hour and a half to read it. An hour and a half! And I didn't even read it all... I skimmed quite a bit (mostly the bits about his, ahem, very private life).
A quick subpoint here -- there should seriously be an adult content warning label on that page. Mostly it talked about his songs and movies and maybe a bit about his family life (especially in the earlier years), but I saw -- even though I started skimming -- far more about his, er... intimate life than anybody needs to know. I know the Internet is kind of a free-for-all, but seriously, what if it was your eight-year-old doing a report on Elvis and decided to look at the Wikipedia page? Have a little consideration here, people. No, a warning label is not going to prevent you (or your child) from continuing to read it anyway, but at least then you have a heads-up and if you've trained your kid well they'll at least come ask you if they should continue reading.

Back to Elvis.
I don't even know what possessed me to start reading the Elvis Presley Wikipedia page at eleven pm, knowing the chain reaction Wikipedia lays down for you.
I had been looking for album artwork for my iTunes library and randomly decided to check out the Imperials Wikipedia page that appeared in the list. Why, I don't know -- I could ask my dad about the Imperials and he could tell me more than the Wikipedia page did. And why I opened the link to the Elvis page from there I don't really know either.
I mean, I knew all I really cared about -- singer, started his career in 1950s sometime, acted a bit, served in the US Army, died of some kind of overdose in 1977. Sure there's more than that, but I didn't really care about any of it... except for the question 'what did he actually die of?'
From laypeople (most of them aged four or younger when he died) I'd heard it was drugs, I'd heard alcohol, I'd heard he starved himself to death trying to lose weight but I'd never heard from a slightly more reputable source. And since I apparently have some kind of morbid fascination with how famous people die (especially if they die young), I decided to check it out.
I know, I know, they have that neat little box at the top of the page that links to certain segments of the article, but as the page was loading I suddenly thought, I wonder how he even got started in the first place.
So I read that part. But you know how it is -- as soon as you start reading something, anything, you have to continue; you can't just stop.
So I continued.

Finally, at about 12.30am I reached the part with a heading about the decline of his health.
Now put yourself in my place.
It's 12.30 in the morning.
You're fighting to keep from falling asleep over your keyboard.
It is completely silent save the very, very soft whirring of your laptop (city people may struggle with this one).
Aside from the computer's screen and one fluorescent bulb, it is completely dark.
You've just spent more than an hour with your (very vivid) imagination firmly locked, no distraction, in the world of Elvis or at least his fans.
And you have an irrational terror of music being garbled or messed up.
I'm not kidding about that last point. As far back as I can remember, the drone of a cassette tape in a faulty player would give me nightmares for weeks. I hated that sound -- the slow, painful, mournful death of music. I would hear a song droning like that in the daytime and then in the dead of night I would close my eyes and the song would suddenly be in my head, warped and moaning, almost melting slowly in a flame as the proverbial ghost was wrenched from its being. And I would be too terrified by the awful sound in my head to even consider seeking reassuring company in my parents' room at the other end of the dark house.
I still hate that sound.

And as you sit there in silence, only half-awake and barely aware of your surroundings as the darkness presses against the window just above your head; like the beginning of a horror show -- creepy music in your head and all -- it's as if the light takes on an eerie reddish cast, turning everything that isn't in tar-black shadow into an hazy, choppy scene the colour of blood.
Your eyes become stuck on a paragraph which, coupled with your very focused, very vivid, half-dreaming imagination, becomes a nightmare as your brain invents the sound... like watching a horrific accident that's too terrible to look away from... the account of one of Presley's musicians about a concert on what I gather was his last tour, describing how Elvis had to hold onto the microphone stand for support, how he was so drugged and listless he couldn't even sing the words to his own songs...
And your primed imagination pulls together a shaky, unfocused hand-held video recording of a rock star clinging to a microphone stand with the band thumping and crashing along behind him as if all's right with their world and yet it's so obvious something is very wrong... the singer tries to form the words of his own songs and he can't make them work, he can't keep up with the band, his eyes are half-closed as he channels all his strength into clinging to that microphone stand... the band continues to play along behind him but all that comes through the lead microphone is irregular mumbling... droning and patchy against a much stronger and steadier beat...
You blink and return to your bedroom thirty-five years later but only momentarily as you're suddenly thrown back in time again, a child standing in the doorway to her bedroom, swaying, the sound of a badly dragging music tape looping through her head, echoing through the pitch darkness as she tries to gather enough courage to make the sprint across the house to her parents' room through the sound of the dying cassette tape coming from all around.

Music Day

My sister and I loved this song when it hit the radio and in fact we loved it so much that we were actually saddened as it faded off the playlist (usually I'm glad to see the latest radio 'hit' get the heck off the station because I was sick of it within the first week of its appearance).
We had these toy Barbie telephones, sort of like the tin-can concept only slightly more sophisticated (and pink) and whenever I heard this song come on the radio late at night when we were supposed to be sleeping I would knock on the wall separating my room from hers -- the unofficial 'pick up your phone' signal -- and hold my receiver up to the radio speaker, turning up the stereo as loud as I dared (since our parents' room was directly above me and the ceiling/floor wasn't insulated).

Title: Soldiers
Artist: Out Of Eden
Album: Love, Peace & Happiness
Year: 2004
Label: Gotee Records
iTunes here, YouTube here.

Music Day

Sincere apologies for the haphazard post but I completely forgot today was Music Day...
I don't actually own this song (yet), but it's on my wish list. I'd forgotten about it until I heard it on the radio earlier this week and then my friend sang it for a presentation yesterday. Like my friend said as she introduced it, maybe it has something to do with the rainy weather lately...

Title: Flood
Artist: Jars Of Clay
Album: Jars Of Clay
Year: 1995
Label: Essential Records
Here's a copy on iTunes and you can watch it on YouTube here.

Note that I'm not certain of the album, year, and record label (I don't trust Wikipedia quite that much and I haven't time to do any further research at the moment), so if you have any corrections, let me know and I'll look into them.

The Acrobatic Mouse

NOTE: If you really, really, really can't stand the thought of mice or are phobic (or if you're anti-animal cruelty), you should maybe stop reading this post right now. It's just that I have mice in my head because the place I work right now is completely overridden with the ghastly things (yes, I'm looking for a different job) and it reminded me of this...

When I was a kid, our family lived in a trailer in the middle of what used to be my grandfather's hay field. Not only are trailers good for up-close-and-personal tornado-watching, they are also invaluable if you want to start a mouse farm.
So mice were a fairly common occurrence at our place. Somehow I never actually saw any of them -- my mother always had the misfortune of seeing them scamper across the kitchen (except once, when that honour fell to the most mouse-phobic member of our in-home Bible study group).
One time, my mother, sister and I were eating dinner (our father would normally have been there too, but he had gotten away from work late), when suddenly Mom got up and rushed over to the stove. She grabbed a wooden spoon and stared at the stove in a fighting stance.
My sister and I thought she'd lost her mind.
"What are you doing?"
She didn't answer straight away. Instead, she backed away to the counter, still brandishing the wooden spoon, picked up the phone, and dialed a number.
"Who are you calling?"
"Dad."
"Why?" we asked, but at that moment, he picked up.
"How soon are you home?" Mom asked.
My sister and I had stopped eating, feeling that something was seriously wrong. Then she continued.
"Oh. Well, er, there's a mouse in here. It was standing on top of the stove and now it just went into that gap at the back."
My sister and I looked at the stove as she spoke but of course there was nothing to see now.
"No it's not on now, but it's probably still hot... Okay. See you in a few minutes then."
She hung up the phone and sat down, but kept her eye on the stove.
When Dad arrived home a few minutes later, they poked down the back of the stove with the wooden spoon and other sticklike objects, but no sign of the mouse. Finally they shrugged and gave up.
A few days went by. Some way or another they discovered that the mouse had come out of the stove's innards and was making use of the ledge at the back of the counter that prevented us from blocking off the 'mouse highway' with appliances such as the toaster.
So my dad concocted a plan.
He set up a mouse trap on the ledge, just before the stove, and blocked off the side of the ledge with various appliances and things. Therefore, the mouse would have the wall on one side, a barricade on the other, and a mousetrap in front of him. Presumably he's running, therefore he has no time to turn around and sprint back the way he came once he realises his situation.
I personally have no recollection of this because I'm a late riser, but my parents have told the story so often that I can picture it.
At six o'clock the next morning, my mother heard the trap spring. She woke my dad -- "The mouse! We caught the mouse!" -- and my dad dragged himself out of bed to go check.
As my mother waited for him to return, she suddenly heard all sorts of banging and crashing noises, like he was attacking something.
Finally he returned and said, "Stupid thing was caught by the toenail."
Apparently the mouse had attempted to jump over the trap and had been caught literally by the toenail. When my dad got there, it was very much alive and trying to escape. My dad had to beat it to death with the broom.

My mother still tells this story whenever the conversation turns to mice.