Small Pain + Big Gain = Great Day

Angelyne, post- and pre-cut.
Who could ask for a better Saturday? Sleep in comfortably (nothing like that luxurious fleecy sheet set), sing in the shower, eat breakfast at leisure, all the while the sun bursting through the winter windows. So it's cold, so what? We put winter jackets on Button and Riley and of course on us, and pull the cleats over our boots and set off for the ravine. Colder than it has been of late, colder than yesterday by a wide margin, when it rained, washing away the measly 5cm of snow we'd had dust the landscape the night before.

There's a winter breeze, but not nearly as bad as two days earlier; the days and nights seem to delight in alternating between frigid and mildly cold, so what kind of nutty winter is this anyway for the Ottawa Valley? Never mind, we can always appreciate what we do have and today there is much to appreciate. The sky is incredibly clear, the sun bright, the trails either bare and hard or icy and also hard, but with our cleats negotiating safely is no problem. And then we see the two doves, gentle creatures of peace seated together on a tree branch beside the trail, undisturbed by our close presence.

Later, we've bundled all the bags into the car and set off for the day. The new white, down-filled jacket with fur-trimmed hood for Angelyne, along with two zippered velvet hoodies and a number of Scholastic publications suitably frightening for a reading-adventurous ten-year old - and a bag of chocolate treats. The USB 1GB memory stick for her mother, the tins of salmon and tuna on sale, along with a large frozen fillet of Steelhead Salmon. Oh, and the bag of onion buns from Open Window Bakery.

We're on the Queensway, traffic moving nicely as usual, but when we approach Bayshore traffic begins to slow...to slow...to...slow...right.down. And thus it goes and becomes worse, much worse, as we begin to sit, idling for long periods before jerking to a short, hopeful start, only to slow again, and stop. In short, a disgusting stand-in for a parking lot. The line of traffic ahead seems endlessly at a standstill. Accident? Nothing to be seen anywhere, only this long line of stalled traffic.

Which doesn't ease until we pass (why didn't we guess?) the Palladium. Finally, we arrive at our destination, the journey having taken a mere half-hour longer than the usual hour's drive, although it seemed as though it had taken infinitely longer. There she is, at the door, the light of our lives. There, behind us just coming in the door is Shik. He'd been out trying to fix heavier hinges onto the door leading to the propane tank shed; high winds had caught and twisted the others. And then, Karen rounds the corner from the guest house, where she'd been working out with her newly-acquired free-weight set.

Whoa! Did I forget the dogs? They're everywhere, hurling themselves at us for attention, all eight of them, exclusive of our two. Tibby the cat is nowhere to be seen. There's a general unbundling of bags; the salmon into the freezer, the long stick of cheese into the refrigerator, cans stacked on shelves - and clothing examined, not found wanting, and modelled. Our daughter sets about installing her new hardware, then turns her attention to the two rabbits she has been busy trying to bond for the last several months. They're stubborn.

I find that book by Lafcadio Hearn which had got mixed up with Angie's novels and give it to Shik to read. But for the present he's been buttonholed by you-know-who, and is set for the next hour or two, as they compare notes, ask questions and one of them expounds endlessly on his experiences and the conclusions he has reached about said experiences and how they relate to life in the round. I mention briefly the philosophical-literary style of Lafcadio Hearn and what a following he has of Japanophiles.

Angie and I get busy with her digital camera. She has 68 photographs to download and can't remember exactly the protocol to follow, so I lead her through it. After we've created a number of new folders and deposited the photographs appropriately, she runs through them, deleting those she doesn't like, which turn out to be mostly those taken by her best friend who has a penchant for photographing anything and everything. Something like me, by habit.

I ask Angie if she'd like to have her hair cut and she's agreeable to the prospect, as she usually is. I generally get around to cutting her hair every three months or so. Her hair, a particular familial inheritance, is luxuriantly thick and healthy. And, of course, cursedly curly. One cannot draw a comb through her hair; even approaching her with a comb is enough to have her draw back in horror, eliciting the imagined pain of early memory, the little kvetch.

We assemble brush, comb, waste dispenser and set to work. I'm her dedicated hair groomer, and it's not at all difficult to cut her hair, since what can conceivably go wrong? In the same way that I cut my own hair, I do hers. We've both got curly hair, so the sins of comission are more than adequately hidden by the curly tresses which tend to turn in on themselves and very nicely hide any possible unevenness. When I'm finished she looks far different. Like a shorn sheep, her mother says. But now we can see the little sheep's face.

Little, did I say? She is ten years old and already almost an inch taller than I am. I feel really really good about having cut her hair. Order has been restored to that unruly scalp. It will be easier to groom. It will dry faster when it's been washed. Best of all, she will look more civilized. This will, of course, do little for her behaviour, always civil and civilized, loving and sweet-natured - other than when she's behaving little a spoiled little harridan, of course.

The drive home, alas, brings us back to the former situation, only this time all the hockey fans have exited Scotia Place (Palladium), post-game. And we trail in their wake, stalled, hopelessly stalled.