Today was an exhausting day at work.  Part of me is wishing that the guy filling in for my boss on her vacation was my boss.  Things that have been left unaddressed for weeks he’s handled in a few hours.  I’m not sure he wants the mantle of responsibility but he’s certainly doing a good job.

I got home from work with storm clouds looming.  Lately it’s been pouring rain scant minutes after I drive into the yard.  I arrived home to find Drew busy clearing out the garage in preparation for the demolition this weekend.  He’d already moved out the wood and typical garage items – lawnmower, snow-blower  and such – and I found him crawling into the attic storage space when I drove in.  Apparently the secret to being a pack rat is to store everything in the ceiling of your garage and then move when it’s full.  We found boxes with flyers in them from 1986 and more wood and boxes than you can shake a stick at.  Drew hauled it all down and set aside as much as he could for the garbage and recycling.  It was garbage and recycling day today and, true to form, the city of Edmonton garbage removal crew didn’t arrive.  So, instead of a few boxes of cardboard set aside for recycling, we had dozens.  Drew brought the wood over to the neighbours with firepits.  Most of them are now well and truly stocked for the summer.

We toddled over to L and J’s for burgers on the BBQ – all the while keeping an eye on the sky for the pending storm.  Just as we finished eating, the storm broke.  Thunder rolled and lightening crashed.  E, V and K from across the alley arrived just as we were moving into the L and J’s garage to shelter from the storm.  With the garage door rolled up (so we could watch the storm) we babbled for hours talking about cars and men and silliness.

After the storm had broken we toddled out into the alley to say our goodbyes.  As we’re standing in the alley, we watched a peace officer chasing a young man down the alley, calling after him to stop and to “get down on the ground and put you hands behind your head.”  The young man turned around and began taunting him, screaming “you’ll never catch me”.  He darted forward and lunged at the officer.  This gained him a face full of pepper spray (to which he showed no reaction). Apparently, he hadn’t seen what the peace officer and police officers immediately following him had – the wall of people standing across the alley watching it all unfold.  Drew braced for impact.  When the young man turned around, he screamed again that “no one is gonna catch me” short seconds before Drew tackled him.  Drew waited while the peace officer and police officers arrived; turning him over when they wandered into the neighbours back yard.  The alley filled with police cars, paddy wagons and an ambulance.  Statements delivered and witness statement paperwork in hand, we finished the journey across the back alley to the house.

Apparently no one had told the young man this neighbourhood doesn’t tolerate criminals.  It’s taken a long time to clean it up – years before we moved in it was a den of iniquity – and the residents have worked hard to make the neighbourhood safe for families again.

I wonder if any of this will make it into the local paper in the morning?  No media was present and it was just another day at the office for the hard working men and women of the EPS.

Yesterday was Father’s day and it nearly slipped by us unnoticed this year. Since dad passed in the fall of 2006 I really haven’t kept track of it anymore. I figure Drew should have to remember something since he left Mother’s day up to me. Probably explains why our mom’s received flowers and his dad got a late night phone call.

Come to think of it, I’m sure I graced dad with many late night phone calls wishing him happy Father’s day and assuring him that a card and/or present was in the mail. At least 50% of the time I’m sure the card actually made it into mailbox before the phone call was made.

For a non-father, Drew usually makes out quite well on Father’s day. A few years back he wanted a new lawnmower. We had completely forgotten that it was Father’s day and couldn’t figure out why the stores were so packed. We bought a new lawnmower and Drew happily toddled off through the yards testing it out. It wasn’t until a neighbour was showing off the tie he got from his 4 year old daughter (ooh, sparkly) that Drew realized what day it was.

We did it again this year.

I wanted some capris or shorts to wear over the summer. Most of my shorts aren’t appropriate to wear to work – silly dress code – so after I’d gotten sick and tired of working on my paper we hopped into the truck and headed off. Shopping therapy is always nice. Usually I don’t manage to find a lot that I like at prices I’m willing to pay so when I landed at the store with the giant SALE! signs in the window I was pretty excited. I managed to find 3 pairs of capris, 3 pairs of normal dress pants, and three shirts.

Drew’s eyes bugged out of his head when he paid the bill. Then he got his revenge.

He decided he wanted to stop into Moore’s to check out their suits. He has a few but wanted to increase his wardrobe. My mistake was thinking that he was in a browsing mood. Drew hates to shop but once he’s made up his mind to do so, he dives in feet first. One mortgage payment later we left the store with two suits, a macintosh, new dress shoes, and a shirt.

Remember those bugged out eyes when he paid my bill? It was less than a third of Drew’s. He didn’t even bat an eye when he paid his. He’s trying to tell me I got “the look” because he thought I’d brought my Interac card with me. He should know better. Besides, it’s not like the joint account magically has more $$ in it when we use my card instead of his…

Drew’s clothing selections are interesting. 60% of the time he wears a uniform. When he’s puttering around the house, he wears ratty jeans and t-shirts. I’m having problems prying them from his hands. To say he’s attached to them is the understatement of the year. I think he cried the last time I threw out one of his t-shirts. It was so filled with holes that it showed off more skin than it covered. You’d never know this is the same guy who likes to get dolled up in suits and ties and go out. Hell, he even owns his own Tux! And don’t get me started on the number of shined dress shoes that are in his closet. We counted once. He has 3x the number of shoes I do. Uses some silly excuse about being issued shoes by the gov’t…

What’s a little bit odd (to me anyway) is the fact that he has no real mid-range casual clothes. He used to wear golf shirts and khaki’s but stopped a few years back. Oh, you can catch him in a (slightly ratty) golf shirt paired with really fugly jeans on rare occasions. Really rare.

That’s my man. He’s got three looks; man-in-uniform, homeless bum, and businessman/mobster. Happy non-Father’s day to you.

Last night we dismissed our plans to view a movie after being invited across the alley to a BBQ.  Since so many were arriving, we brought our BBQ over to help handle the giant mass of food to be cooked.  Our neighbour’s son’s fiancee was celebrating her birthday so we had a few new faces in the mix.  Early on in the evening, the boys pulled down the tailgate on a truck parked in the driveway to add extra seating.  Drew, Amanda and Ryan had plates of food on their laps and had been sitting on the back of the tailgate for a while when there was a loud banging sound.  There they were, flat on their asses on the concrete with the tailgate at their backs.  The chains holding the tailgate to the back of the truck had separated.  Amanda had a look of deep shock across her face while Ryan was nearly rolling on the ground in tears – laughing of course.  Drew, true to his natural reaction, took one look down at his plate of food in his lap, picked up a chicken kabob and continued to eat as if nothing had happened.  None of the three of them are overly large indivduals and I’d be shocked if their combined weight reached 600lbs.  Apparently that was enough to break the tailgate however.

Between bouts of loud laughter the others in the area kept asking if everyone was alright.  Thankfully, aside from a few bruised egos, everyone was fine.

Later, Les brought out a screaming monkey to throw around the yard.  It’s a stuffed monkey with elastic arms and a small electronic device in the chest that “screams” when the monkey is sent flying.  The boys proved they had rotten aim – usually off by a mile when trying to send it from one to the others.  Then Mariah got her hands on it.  Years ago she was a champion marksman and has competed at the national level.  While her fiancee jokingly told her to “aim for the head” she let loose a monkey flying at 3-5x the speed of anything the boys had previously managed.  Drew, in what we assume was an attempt to catch it, deflected the monkey off his wrist and into his eye.  Within minutes he was developing quite a shiner!

A few hours later while he was cleaning up the BBQ grills, Drew dropped the cover on his hand and jammed his thumb.  ‘Twas a night of bruises and abuse for a guy who’d barely had anything to drink.  I think I may be able to relinquish my standing clutz title to him.  If nothing else, we have some great stories to tell on Monday morning.

We were at it again (go figure) and I’ve decided that enough has been said.  Enough screaming and ranting.  I’ve moved out to a hotel.  If nothing else it’s quiet here.  Mum didn’t want me to leave, claiming that running away and avoiding things won’t make it any better.  She’s probably right.  Except I don’t think of it as running or avoiding.  I don’t see us agreeing to disagree and living peacefully unless we’re far, far away from each other.  That, and I don’t really see it as running away as much as I see it as closing a door (to a place I don’t want to return to) and opening a new one to walk through.  I’ll take my imagined traumas away.

I wish I could get a flight out of here but they are few and far between.  So, I’ll spend a few days in a hotel and catch my original flight home on Wednesday.  Maybe I’ll rent a car and explore the city.  At minimum perhaps I can get some work done on my paper.

I feel better.

Culture, traditions and ethnicity seem to be topics I can’t escape from this week. Frank has been exploring the connection between culture and traditions over at DMB and a few members of an Instructional Technology forum I belong to have been discussing the differences between culture and ethnicity.

As a first generation child of immigrants I don’t think it’s as easy for me to separate the three concepts. Unlike many who are decades removed from their ethnic roots I am the first and only Canadian born member of my immediate family. The language, music, dances, and foodstuffs I was raised on aren’t things of long gone memories, but things brought from the home country when my parents immigrated. Rather than paying homage to a genetic memory it seemed we were carrying forward old traditions in a new land.

As a child, I acted as a translator for my parents on occassion. Some people seemed to have difficulty understanding the accent that I most often wasn’t able to hear. Like most first generation immigrant children I don’t share the accent of my parents. My sister, born in the old country, also speaks as any other Canadians might. The only differences in our speech is the occassional use of a word or turn of phrase we were raised with.

Growing up, we returned to the home country every few years for weeks (and sometimes months) on end. We met and renewed aquaintance with our cousins and grandparents. As an adult, I’ve continued forward following the traditions my parents taught me as a child. While I’m no longer graceful or energetic enough to continue dancing, I listen to folk music, attend ceilidh’s and am learning to play the pipes – on my father’s chanter, using his music books, and when ready, it will be his pipes I play.

Despite this, I was raised in Canadian culture. I watched CTV and CBC growing up. I played in the snow and have climbed mountains. I went camping and fishing. I attended Canadian public schools as a french immersion student and married a Canadian. I watch hockey, not football (soccer) and sing O Canada, not God Save the Queen.

Do the traditions I carry on as a part of my heritage reflect my culture, or are they just a reflection of ethnicity? Is it possible for first generation children of immigrants to separate culture, tradition and ethnicity when you are raised with all elements in the home?