Never Go To Supper With A Giant

We were lucky enough to be able to look after Hurricane and Tornado tonight. They came over for supper and hung around until mom and dad came to get them.

When the boys got here they spilled the beans about how mom gave them Tim Bits before they came over. I think it was a form of payback for all of the times that I have loaded them up on sugar and sent them home for supper. Sure they were a little wired when they got here, but I just kind of expect a little uncontrolled nuttiness when the grand kids are visiting. They can pretty much do what they want around here and I will just smile and try to see how high they can jump on the bed. Arwen has a ways to go before she can spoil the kids “Poppa” style.

We had spaghetti and meat balls which is a perennial favourite, after all, who doesn’t like meatballs. It was and is a little messy, but that is why God invented soap and water. Hurricane left the table and told me in no uncertain terms that he was so full that he couldn’t eat another bite and his little shadow Tornado just nodded his head. I asked if he were sure and of course he said that he was. I told him that I couldn’t believe that he didn’t want any ice cream. Well, you have never seen a kid back pedal as fast as he did and before you could say “vanilla” he was in his chair. Those boys sure like their ice cream.

 

They had brought a movie over to watch after dinner, "The Lorax". I had never seen it so I was thrilled at the prospect. Hurricane has watched it so often that he will spontaneously stand and deliver monologues from the movie. Tornado has never really shown any real interest in the TV or movies at all, preferring to find something that needs to be taken apart and have those parts hidden. Surprisingly, he will watch “The Lorax” with rapt attention. He didn’t want to sit with Poppa (which kind of hurt) preferring instead to sit on his own holding his blanket.

They didn’t sit for as long as I had hoped, but that was cool. Eventually, it was time to go to bed. Hurricane knew that he wasn’t having a sleep over, but at his stage, Tornado wasn’t sure what was going on. I read them “To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street” and Louise lay in the dark with them until they drifted off. It is possible I suppose that Louise “drifted” them off to sleep. Either way, it became quiet in the house again.

An hour or so later mom and dad came to pick the boys up. I marvel at the way kids can sleep through being man handled into their coats and slung under an arm to get them to the car. I have been that tired and if there were giants in the world I would love to see if they could carry me to a car that way. Mind you, you have to be suspicious of a giant’s motive. They are known for eating humans, so the chances of them just taking you for a ride are slim to none. Never go to supper with a giant!

Then and There

We just had a fairly intense weather system blow through the area. The sky darkened, the wind picked up with gusts of up to 90 KPH and in some places there was hail. I think it lasted for an hour or two and now, well, about ten minutes ago there was a beautiful crimson sky.

 It might still be crimson somewhere else, but here it seems to be, almost but not quite, dark. The storm cut a swath across Alberta about two hundred kilometres wide, travelling about sixty KPH and now it is on its way into Saskatchewan I suppose. I hope the crops aren’t affected for the sake of the farmers.

We get some pretty odd weather out here from time to time and it isn’t season sensitive at all. A storm can blow up in minutes like it did today and in the winter I have seen the temperature change 50 degrees in an hour. Weather seems to be getting crazier all over the world with tornados where there weren’t tornados before, gigantic hurricanes that destroy cities, really cold weather in Europe where they usually have the more moderate weather, drought in prime farm land and flooding where you least expect it.

I was thinking how nice it is that we have the satellites and can actually see the weather patterns forming and watch them creep ever closer and closer. When I was working, I used to watch a winter storm marching across the mountains and know that without a doubt, tomorrow would be just a miserably cold, snowy, toe snapping day. I would dread the next day from the moment I saw the weather channel. In order to combat the satellites, I resorted to another technological marvel, the web cam. I would go to this site and watch people cavorting on the beach in Hawaii and try to picture myself there. http://www.seehawaiilive.com/oahu/waikiki-resorts It didn’t really work, but it was far better to watch that on a cold winter day than the satellite image of a winter storm.

 

It got me to thinking that when I was a boy we didn’t have satellites to see what weather was coming our way. I think they used weather stations that reported the conditions to a central location which collated all of the data and passed it to the TV and radio stations. The first satellite (Sputnik) was launched on October 4 1957. The first weather satellite was launched on April 1 1960 and it functioned for 78 days but it proved what value satellites could be.

 

Every now and then when a storm comes up quickly I think about what primitive man must have thought about the changeable weather. One day they would be hunting and gathering and the next they would be waist deep in snow and freezing their asses off. Most especially if it were an early start to winter. No early warning for them! Mind you, they wouldn’t come home from work and sit in the tepee dreading what a shit day it would be tomorrow. They might have drawn an image of a nice day in the frost on the tepee walls of a nice summer day, but I don’t think it would have warmed their hearts like people cavorting on Waikiki Beach.

 

On the plus side, when the weather turned for the good it would have been such an up feeling. They would be able to get out of the tepee and stretch their legs and more than likely wash the old buckskins. Things would be pretty ripe after a couple of months in a cold tepee.

When I think about it, it is much better to be here and now than to be then and there.