working title: favorites

Maggie - "What are you going to be?"
Ruth _ "I'm going to have a degree in English Literature?"
Maggie - "So what will you do?"
Ruth - "The trouble is I've never really know what I wanted to do for a job. What do you want to be?"
Maggie (firmly and with conviction) - "A doctor."
Ruth - "A surgeon or a family doctor?"
Olivia - " I could never be a surgeon. It would be too gross."
Ruth - "Do you know what you want to be Olivia?"
Olivia (also firmly and with conviction) - "A veterinarian."
Ruth - "I think you're going to have a hard time being a veterinarian without doing surgery."

***

In the LRT station a brother and a sister (perhaps twins, they seemed the same age) raced eachother up and down the escalatory - both running up the down, one running up the down while the other ascened stationary on the up. They laughed. Their mother stood with her back to me. She was laughing. I was laughing. In the train they sat in the pair of seats across from me. They were giggling, trying to make their mom giggle. Eventually after many crossed eyes and induced laughter she broke out in giggles. The girl sitting across from me smiled at me.

Mad Skills

I have accepted a postion at for July at a camp called Esperanza - Ferrier point. I am "assistant director." Ferrier point is located on Nootka Island (not pronounced newt-ka or but rather more like nutka. I was informed of my erroneous pronunciation at church on Sunday and though this infomation I hope to save you copious future humiliation) on the North West coast of Vancouver Island. The camp is small. Sixteen campers who are practically adults. Camp is a month long.

Before I embark on new and exciting adventures I often spend a great deal of time imagining my experience. I base my current imaginings on the list below, one visit to Point no Point when I was five, a trip to Uclulet two falls ago, going to White Rock, and taking the ferry to the Sunshine Coast. Needless to say, my visions for the month of July are, necessarily, somewhat skewed. I imagine no running water (I think I'm correct on this point at least because we're supposed to bring biodegradable shampoo and soap), catching a salmon as long as my arm, being thrown into the ocean repeatedly (this based on many years of being thrown into one very icy lake), not getting enough fresh vegetables, being often and severly sunburned, campers who are all taller than me, being often soaked with rain, collecting shells, sleeping by the ocean. I think It will be beautiful place to be and allot of fun. I'm trying to imagine Halima and the girls I will share a tent with.

It is interesting to me that I have gotten this position. Take a moment to peruse the list of responsibilities below:

"Assist with all areas of the program.
You will be directing the teen girls and Halima O'Brian will assist you.
Camp set-up (tents/tarps/general living area etc.)
You will be reponsible for taking an active part in the dailey [sic] running of the camp.
Assist in directing dailey [sic] devotionals/prayer/campfire.
*Kitchen duty(cooking/cleaning/arranging cooking schedules, possibly travelling to
Campbell River to purchase groceries etc)
**Food gathering (fishing/crabbing/etc.)
***Assist in directing work projects.(projects yet to be determined)
Assist in directing hiking excurtions(includes food prep/gear/safety/leading/etc.).
Assist in camp discipline.
****Assist in directing the sea canoe journey(prep/camp set-up/paddling /leading/etc.).
Assisting with First Aid and caring for the general health/hygene of the camp.
*****Some general maintenance on quad/boats/motors and operating the mentioned equipment.
I understand that you have a background in canoeing...I may ask you to do the canoe
orientation...from paddling to safety."

*Campbell River... where's that?
** Once Noelle and I caught a fish. We were in a Canoe. We couldn't take the hook out of its mouth. We couldn't knock it on the head hard enough to kill it, it thrashed in an alarming fashion isolating us in our respective end of the canoe. It took 'Fred' an hour to die. Someone else had to clean him. Fred was just a little pike.
***Ruth's carpentry skills yet to be determined.
****Sea canoeing eh? Never done that before
*****Ruth's "general maintanance skills" questionable. Also operating skills have yet to be determined.

As you can see my plan is to learn allot this summer. Now can you just imagine the skills...

4D 6

As I walked into the room labeled ‘Bonarchuck, Jesse’ I glanced across the room searching for my aunt and saw, instead, my uncle obscured by the stainless steel bars of the crib. Only his forearms seemed to support his stout body, as he bore his stresses onto the edge of the crib containing his young son. Behind him on the miniature TV played a golf game intended to distract. I greeted my uncle. His speech was a demonstration of love borne in a series of statements of all that is failing. No eardrops. No chest x-ray. No Doctor’s visit. No sleep for his wife last night. How deep a father’s love.

My Auntie Jen enters, and Kevin reluctantly trades their older son’s company for the post beside the bed and the car keys. She has brought chicken fingers for Tyson and places them on the tray at the end of the crib in amidst the multicoloured cups of dated jello, a sipee cup of water, apple juice in Styrofoam with a straw. Tyson is playing super Nintendo in the waiting room.

Jen and I talk.

Jesse coughs. Jen sits him up, supporting his body by holding his chin in her hand. The length of his torso surprises me. At three I still think him a baby, he has just learned to walk. His eyes flutter open but settle on an horizon just obscuring his pupils. His eyes are swollen from the surgery, or perhaps the morphine. His blanket is pulled back and I can see the drainage tube that connects to his urethra, draining half his urine output mixed with blood. Jen changes his diaper as he falls in and out of sleep. She is tired; he has contracted a chest cold and tips his head back when he coughs; he refuses the natural inclination to lean forward; he can’t clear his chest. Jen holds him up as he falls in and out of sleep. She tries to get him to drink (he hasn’t had anything since the surgery). She wets his lips with apple juice, sneaks a spoonful into his mouth when he yawns. Pleads with him to take more. How deep a mother’s love.