Posted on December 20, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

 

It’s a girl! No, It’s a boy! This puppy has an identity crisis

 

“I’ll tell you, life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue.”

A Boy Named Sue – Johnny Cash

Having a newborn for any young couple is one of the most exciting times in their lives. It is a time full of wonder and sleepless nights. Every day brings joy, triumphs and tribulations, and yes, surprises.

Charles always wanted a dog but not just any dog. He wanted a husky, the legendary dogs of Canada’s north. They are beautiful animals by all accounts, and he was prepared to do anything to acquire one including temporarily moving to Northern Quebec. This sounds like an extreme measure just to get a dog but as fate would have it, Charles’ girlfriend was working in the Arctic. He would get to spend time with Catherine, experience Inuit culture, see the Northern Lights, and get a puppy. He even managed to get a few weeks of work at the local school.

Charles made arrangements to get his new dog a few days prior to heading back down south for Christmas. It was very dark when he was accompanied by the brother of the owner of the dogs to a small shed. The shed didn’t have power. It should be known that male huskies are not normally sold as they often become part of a dogsled team, but this didn’t seem to be an issue in this case because the litter was almost exclusively female. The puppies were elusive as they scurried around the shed but eventually Charles extricated one and gleefully headed back to his apartment.

The bonding was immediate. Naku (not her real name to protect her dignity), loved Charles and the affection was mutual. She was so content with her new owner that there was nary a whimper at nighttime. Being up all night with a new puppy is not uncommon, along with cleaning up “accidents”. This gal seemed perfect in every way. Charles could not have been any happier. In order to fly back down south, Charles had to contact the airline to make sure that space was available. One quirk of northern airlines is that they only allow a certain number of dogs on any given flight.

So proud was he of his new acquisition that Charles took Naku to school on his last day in the village for a showing. Needless to say, he was the most popular guy at school. The kids couldn’t get enough of the puppy, and he proudly passed it around. The only thing missing with this new father was cigars. Two young girls asked Charles if they could come over that evening, the night before his flight, to see the dog one last time, so charmed were they by this tiny mutt.

Around 7:30 p.m. there was a knock on the door. As promised, Minnie and Samantha were standing there waiting for this last chance to see Naku. The girls seemed puzzled when Charles continuously called Naku she. It took them exactly 30 seconds to enlighten Charles that he was the proud owner of a male dog. There was an audible gasp. “How could this be possible,” wondered Charles. It appeared that in the two days that he had owned her (him), he had never done a close inspection to determine sexual orientation.

Charles immediately placed a call to the brother of the owner of the litter.

“Hey Jupi (not his real name to protect his dignity!). I think we have a situation. Catherine and I think Naku is a boy.”

“If it may be a male dog, that’s fine,” replied Jupi.

“Oh perfect. Fine for me.”

“Hey, um, Charles. Yes, we do have a situation. LOL. I just spoke to my bro. That is the only male dog, and the rest are female. I’m so sorry dude.”

“Oh!”

“I’m sorry man. I know you connected well with this dog. He (Jupi’s brother) said he doesn’t mind to trade the puppy tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. Same place.” (note that this would be after sunrise making the identification of the sex somewhat easier).

“Yes, but it’s ok. I understand completely. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

Now, the “next morning” was the morning of the flight south. Check in was at 8:30 and ideally, anyone travelling with a dog is expected to arrive earlier than that. Charles rushed to the owner’s house at 8:00 and returned with not one, but two female pups – one for him and one for a friend down south.

Charles is a pretty easy going fellow. I happened to be a witness to some of this drama and couldn’t resist having a little bit of fun at his expense. I suggested that if he and Catherine got married some day and had children, that he might want to invite me into the delivery room.

Having witnessed the birth of my four children, I felt eminently qualified to determine the sex of the next member of the Dion family.

Have a great Christmas week.

Stay safe.

 

The girls

 

Posted on December 13, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Northern Reflections. Thanks for the memories, Kangiqsujuaq!

 

Posted on December 6, 2021 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Eat your heart out, Charlie Brown

 

“Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree,

How lovely are your branches,

Oh Christmas tree, of Christmas tree,

How lovely are your branches,

Not only green in summer’s heat,

But also winter’s snow and sleet,

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree,

 How lovely are your branches.”

O Tannenbaum – Ernst Anschutz

The frenzy to find the perfect Christmas tree in every village, hamlet, town, and city in Canada has begun in earnest.

Well, almost every place.

Surely most of my faithful readers remember a simpler time, when you bundled up and followed your parents into the woods to find a Christmas tree. There were no Christmas tree farms but rather vast tracts of forests where one had unfettered access to thousands of trees. Now these trees weren’t always perfectly shaped and nurtured to the point of perfection. There is no such thing as a perfect Christmas tree. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

When I sat down on the weekend to write this post, I was going to take the easy way out and mail it in. On December 7, 2013, I published a story about the trials and tribulations of taking four small children to find and cut down a Christmas tree. I have republished this story every year since then and I thought about doing the same this year. Here it is in case you’re interested: https://www.week45.com/oh-christmas-tree/ But on one of my walks a few weeks ago, I spotted something very unusual and decided to write a fresh piece.

There are many things that ratchet up the blood pressure at Christmas but securing the right tree and finding the perfect gift would be near the top of most people’s list. Over the years, the “must have” gift for a child could have been a Ken or Barbie doll; an Easy Bake Oven; Care Bears; Transformers or My Little Pony. In my memory one stands out above all: Cabbage Patch Dolls. These arrived on the scene in 1983 and mercifully, our first born was only 8 months old and hadn’t been afflicted with CPD fever. Such was the frenzy to have one of these cuties, that trauma units in hospitals across the world were flooded with battered and bruised parents who were stampeded trying to get into a store having a limited supply of the dolls.

Buying a Christmas tree these days has become somewhat less onerous. It’s almost clinical. You simply go to a Christmas tree vendor parked in a mall parking lot. Choose from 1000 trees. The vendor will wrap it up and tie it to the roof of your vehicle. I’m sure you can even order one online from Amazon.

But what if you live north of the 55^th parallel? Well north, in fact? When flying to the north of Quebec, the last trees you are likely to see are near Kuujuaq, the capital of Nunavik. Kangiqsujuaq is another 435 kilometers further north, not fertile ground for growing balsam fir trees.

Back to my walk of a few weeks ago. A handful of us were doing a Saturday walk. We decided to drive part of the way and park the truck. But before starting the walk, I took a small detour to show the dump to our newest staff member, Charles. We warned him about the perils of walking this road alone in winter. Occasionally, polar bears and wolves scavenge the dump for treats. Pity if you should become their lunch. Just across the road from the entrance to the dump, our heads turned in unison as we spotted a small, real Christmas tree.

I can report with total honesty that none of us had been consuming alcohol or illicit drugs at the time.

This got me to thinking.

Naming your first born is not as difficult as finding the perfect Christmas tree. Oh sure, it’s fine when you can go to a lot and sample 300 trees but what if you only had one from which to choose? This tree could qualify as the most beautiful or most ugly tree and everything in between. Now, in a village of 1000 people, your odds of acquiring this tree would be 1 in 1000. These odds are infinitely better than the 649 but unlike the 649, no one takes it personally when Joe Schmoe from Temiskaming, Ontario wins the big one. However, if you were the only one who had the pleasure of decorating a real tree at Christmas, I think the milk of human kindness would sour very quickly. I’m picturing a bidding war to end all bidding wars. If you think that buying real estate in Toronto in a hot market is competitive, how about standing at the entrance to the dump when it’s -25 vying for this truly unique, one of a kind buying opportunity?

However, having tested my marriage vows on many occasions picking out a Christmas tree, this would be simple. There would be no debate about its height, shape or fullness.

I remember one Christmas after the children had flown the nest, where we went to a convenience store parking lot to get a tree very close to Christmas Day.  (Yes, you locals. It was Brendan’s). Don’t ask me why we waited so late. Maybe we were so traumatized from shopping for trees for 25 years, that it didn’t even occur to us to get a tree.  The vendor had long since left the lot and gone home to his loved ones. Before he left, he posted a small sign indicating that the remaining inventory was free.

There were three trees on the lot… just enough to fight over! I can’t remember if we played rocks, paper, scissors or flipped a coin but we threw the scraggly evergreen, coniferous tree into the trunk of our car. Once decorated, it looked like every other tree we had ever put up.

Oh ,Christmas tree.

Have a great week.

P.S. I know what I want to do when I grow up. I want to be transported back in time and be a writer for Monty Python. Can you imagine how much fun it would have been to have been sitting around a table coming up with the most absurd scripts imaginable? My dream job.