CHICKEN LITTLE ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE

I recently returned from Toronto having replaced Sister for a spell caring for our father, Crotchety Pensioner.  CP remains crankier than ever.  He can't help it.   He's never seen a silver lining in his life.  He will remain this way until he dies.  But I am placing bets he will never die.  At ninety-one he was out shoveling snow for five hours.  You couldn't stop him.  You'd have to tackle him to the ground, drag him into the house, and tie him to a chair in order to contain him.  It's tricky... how do you stop someone who is physically able from doing something they want to do, even if it's something that might hurt them.  It's a fine line, protecting someone versus holding them prisoner. 

One day I prevented him from going out to throw compost in the back yard to start off the gardening season.  Three feet of snow blanketed the ground and the temperature was minus 40 with the wind chill factor.  He's like the Energizer Bunny. 

Mr. Leszczynski

View From The Gulag  

If you picked him up his legs would keep moving.  CP had a very tough winter. When he's trapped inside everyday seems endless, and CP gets crankier and more negative.  Sister and I are wary of his dour disposition,  admire his tenacity, and hope it's those latter genes that will help us in the long run.

Next Year it's Aruba

Sister had a lovely break in L.A.  But it was a short lived foray into warmth.  Winter refused to leave Toronto.  The day of Sister's return a blizzard hit with snowflakes the size of chipmunks.  Cars skidded on city streets like bumper cars at the CNE's Kiddie Midway(that's the Canadian National Exhibition for you non-Torontonians).  I was petrified navigating Lakeshore Blvd. in white-out conditions with drivers trailing me by inches.

Red Alert!  Red Alert!

I managed to crawl back to CP's house by late afternoon, driving twenty miles an hour for the entire thirteen mile journey from Queen and Ossington.  Not only had the blizzard stopped the city in its tracks, but our rental car had no snow tires.  Fortunately the snow didn't last long, it morphed into freezing rain.  Sister's plane was due in at eight pm that night.

By the time I got home, the house was in black-out.  The entire neighbourhood was in blackout.  Actually, a good chunk of the city was in black out.  CP was unaware.  He is nearly blind and navigating in the darkness is a natural occurrence.  Besides, he is used to black outs, relishes them in fact, they might lead to catastrophe.  I lit candles. 

Exploding Transformers

In the kitchen I am distracted by a series of alarming flashes outside the window, otherworldly against a sickly greenish dusk sky. Only later did I learn the fireworks were exploding electrical transformers.  In the meantime I wonder how this black-out will affect the airport, just a couple of miles away.  Is Sister going to be diverted to Cuba or Florida.  She should be so lucky.

In order to determine Sister's estimated time or date of arrival, I dialed the ancient Rotary phone CP uses, and called Brother-In-Law; a man in California possessing both power and the internet.  Brother-In-Law could monitor Sister's progress from afar and call me on my cell if she'd been diverted.  Miraculously, Sister's flight was on time.

 

It's The End Of The World

CP loves disaster.  Long winter days trapped indoors turns that love into obsession.  With not much else to do he is glued to the news.  During the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis he was practically giddy.  "It's WW III!  It's WW III!  It's the end of the world!" he reported, "I won't be missing much when I'm gone," he laughs.

Later as I head out the airport to pick up Sister, he tells me, "You couldn't find worse weather to fly in.  You wouldn't catch me in an airplane today... they're just machines.  They fail.  They drop from the sky."  CP built planes for a living before he retired to spread his message of joy throughout the world.  

  

Giving myself forty-five minutes to travel the eight minutes it normally takes to get to the airport, I set out.  Ten minutes to de-ice the car - done!  Icy slush covers the roads.  Icy sleet falls from the sky.  No traffic lights.  Car rears careen right and left and right again, like big metal Kardashian butts, while taking corner's at a snail's pace.  Vehicles lie abandoned in ditches waiting for tow trucks that won't arrive.  

As I crest the bridge over Highway 27 I see huge lights in the distance, massive lights.  Pitch black all the way to the airport, then these brilliant lights shining in the murky atmosphere.  The airport is on a generator.  Inside the place is jammed; packed with people whose flights never left, people waiting for friends and family delayed by hours or even days.

         

Sister finally lands, one of the 'lucky' few to arrive in Toronto that night.  The terminal lights flicker on and off with the power fluctuations, like some outpost airport in Kathmandu.  Sister comes down the ramp with her luggage.  A calm, robotic, end-of-the-world voice reminds us over the PA system that much of the city is without power.  "Welcome back!"  I hug her. 

   

We arrive home.  CP is seated in the living room in the dark, (candles extinguished for safety's sake.)  He's all bundled up, staring out the window, into more dark, aware of the storm, certain his daughters are dead.  He seems more surprised than anything when we pull up.  Once the shock of our survival wears off, he heads upstairs to turn on the news and check in on what fresh mess has hit the world.  We remind him there's no power and he'll have to wait for the next disaster.

Sister and I sit on the bed wearing pajamas and sweaters, down vests and socks, under mounds of comforters, clutching glasses of Merlot.  Outside ice pellets ping against the window.  CP has retired, happy that his 'girls' are home.  Sister and I sit in the dark, with no heat and no power, pondering this peculiar fate of ours.

In the middle of the night the power is restored, but the weather remains foul.  The next night I head back to the airport to return to the UK. "Let's hope you get home alive," is CP's farewell. 

The Joy of De-Icing

As the plane is de-iced on the runway I replay CP's encouraging words about air travel and airplanes.  With power restored he will watch the CBC and wait for news of my aircraft falling from the sky.

I return to England to find that spring has sprung.  Walking the streets of London I am acutely aware that I have freedom again... that my life is my own.  The luxury of spending time with Dear Friend brings me joy.  When you care for someone elderly your life is not your own.  While CP may feel a prisoner of the elements, Carer feels a prisoner of CP. 

Spring Sprung

It's miraculous the change in outlook that fine weather can bring.  CP has long been invited to live in Southern California where he would have warmth and a year round garden to tend, but he refuses change.  Yet another case where you wish you could do something against his will that might be good for him; an abduction perhaps.  Back at the Pink Cottage the sun shines and the flowers are shooting out of the ground.  Still, there is drama.  I return home to care for three other irascible, willful creatures of nature, Penny and the Pea-Chicks, and encounter another unusual family dynamic... but I will save that for next time, and for now just enjoy the daffodils.