12:12 - 01.01.08
Half Time
The Sunday before Christmas Day I had two piecework assignments to complete. The day was relatively pleasant and the work was pretty straightforward too. No major adventures or challenges to report. The travelling was a different matter. For the week previous, there had been an unusually strong police presence on the train platforms downtown. It isn't normal to see uniformed police officers located there in this city. But they were, in addition to police vehicles along the route as well. There were undercover police on the trains too. Maybe a drug bust in the works, since so much of that type of activity is carried out along the transit corridors. All that, as I was pondering an email received from my favourite astrologer the day previous.
The other presence that was unusually visible was that of First Nations travellers. Our city shares one border with one reservation and several others are located nearby. Most times those residents and the urban native population just blend in nicely with the multinational clientele found on the trains. Office drones and labourers, just like the rest of the travellers, as well as some that are actors in a number of television series about western history and culture. The past few weeks though, the small contingent of travellers, who give the rest of their culture a bad image, were predominant and the results for travelling were interesting, to say the least. The small contingent that gives trouble to the rest of their culture is the stereotypical "drunk and/or disorderly" indian. I suppose with all the extra parties that occur around the Christmas season, there was the perception of permission to be as inebriated as desired. And yes, I am very well aware of the double standard for drunken behaviour between aboriginals and caucasians. To me, having survived a marriage with an alcoholic, I have no tolerance for same regardless of who it is, male or female or whatever ethnicity they call their heritage.
One train trip, about half a dozen of a mixed gender group got on at a downtown station. Obviously all drunk, but, except for the one scary male, all the others were just loud, boisterous and happy. When a gentleman of an east coast persuasion boarded at city hall, wearing a brand new $400 hockey jersey with the number of one of the more popular players in this city, they greeted him with enthusiasm, starting a vigorous debate about what team was best. The newcomer said that he rooted for the local team with all his heart, but being he grew up in Halifax, his true loyalty was to the Boston Bruins. Ok, fine. That started another stream of discussion about the mainstream culture - the celts - in Nova Scotia. By the time the first nations group detrained, they had exchanged recipes and techniques for producing the best moonshine out of the oddest ingredients - at least to me. Apparently there is an eastern recipe that closely resembles that for gingerbread cookies. Who'd a thunk.
The more disturbing behaviour was demonstrated by one young couple on that Sunday trip I mentioned above. They had obviously been shopping for Christmas gifts for their children - laden with packages, as they were. I had been feeling uneasy about being on that train home, even though it was mid-afternoon. I hadn't noticed that couple in particular, but I looked for the person I would feel safest with in an emergent situation and asked him if he would allow me to sit between him and the window, since he was already in the aisle seat. He consented graciously - a traditional Sikh complete with turban and the beard. Those Sikh males are always very protective toward any woman in their vicinity, while still being very gentlemanly and chivalrous. The gentleman across from me - sitting directly behind the couple in question - was very tall and broad in the shoulders and was probably of northern Chinese heritage. About five minutes after I boarded, that couple started yelling at each other. Obscenities were added into the mix and finally became the only words exchanged between the two as the volume rose and rose again. They hadn't been drinking, but the level of violence that they apparently were accustomed to in their interactions was imposed, by proxy, on every person in that train car. Most of us were cringeing to be quite honest. If the behaviour became physical - which seemed imminent - there was really no place to go to avoid random flying objects. It seemed to go on forever.
Then the woman yelled out the first coherent thought expressed by either of them - laced with expletives as it was. She said "You know what our problem is? Our problem is that we don't know how to communicate with each other. All we know how to do is fight. I know we are both angry and we can't, either of us, deal with that anger. Maybe we should both just not say anything until we're calmer." Amen and amen to that. You could see heads nodding all up and down the car. The male looked as though all he wanted to do was continue to fight, as the female was waving around the hockey sticks they had bought for their children using them to emphasize her points as well as, maybe, stave off any physical approach from the male who had his fists bunched up by then. The only other seat that was not filled was directly across the aisle from her. Those sticks were shoved in that space, blades first, grazing the arm of the male sitting in the window seat. That changed the tone of the two fighting. The man who had been hit was holding his arm and looking at the woman angrily, but with caution also, as he sized up her and her partner both. The couple facing him were shifting uneasily in their seats, wondering what their best course of action might be. It seemed they didn't want to draw the feuding couple's attention their way, in case they also were assaulted. The yelling woman stopped and apologized to her victim several times - although it didn't sound very sincere because she was laughing so much. Her partner started to snigger and then was into belly laughs, as the two of them discussed her "faux pas". The man across from me, directly backing onto the woman's seat, was sitting frozen in his seat, also not wanting to draw that couple's attention but realizing - even though he hadn't been able to see the first exchange - that he was likely to be hit too, if that woman didn't stop waving those hockey sticks around. She, in the meantime, was shifting the sticks this way and that, careless of the other people in the train car, telling her partner "I don't want to have them damaged before our kids see them Christmas morning". She finally tucked the sticks, blades first, into the packages on the empty window seat beside her, all the while still laughing with her partner about hitting the other gentleman. Everyone else on the car breathed a sigh of relief, as it appeared those sticks were not going to be used again. I suspect the rest of my fellow travellers were probably thinking along the same lines as me, hoping that the sudden shared "humour" between the feuding two would remain until they detrained. Fortunately that is what happened. After they left, everyone else started to breathe and move a bit again - shifting in their seats from the tense, intuitively self-protective positions they had taken. The Sikh gentleman hadn't moved at all during the conflict; just stillness and a calm sense of waiting in the moment. Or maybe that was just what I was projecting on to him. At least it helped me stay ready for whatever would occur and that was a bonus. I think all of us were just relieved when we reached our own destinations that afternoon.
Monday was just a blur of rushing around to the local stores trying to get last minute purchases completed. For many of the Christmasses I've had as an adult, the money in my pocket in the last couple of days before Christmas, has usually been all I could afford to spend on gifts after paying the bills and such. Usually it was very little, but those last minute sales made it possible for me to make it go much further anyway. This year has been one of the leanest years in a decade, but at least my sons are old enough now to understand why they haven't received gifts. Most of what I picked up was food to get my youngest and I to the end of the month, but also to get the bits I needed to make my share of the Christmas Day buffet at my Dad's home. Spent the evening preparing the dishes, while decorating the Christmas tree that number three son and I picked up on the Saturday. My youngest had strung the lights up on it during the day while I had shopped, then left with one of his brothers to attend the Christmas gathering with his Dad's family. The cats were bemused indeed, but favoured the nativity scene over all the other new and wonderful objects set up for their sole pleasure - or so I let them think. Went to bed at a reasonable hour, only to be wakened about 3 am Christmas morning to the sound of sirens - lots of them - that went on for at least a couple of hours. Turned out to be a house fire a couple of blocks away. No humans hurt, but one cat died. Poor thing.
Christmas Day number three son picked us up around midday, then we swung by my oldest son's home to pick him up - number four son already having picked up his children, so that they would have a longer visit with the extended family. The afternoon went quickly and happily, with everyone just visiting and catching up on each other's news. My nephews had brought girlfriends - some who looked a little overwhelmed - so we numbered over 30 people at various times of the day. All very nice young ladies it seemed. My one nephew - the one who wanted secondhand books for Christmas -, who just became of legal age, had asked if I would bring my Tarot cards to read for him. He knew my rule about not reading for children and apparently had been waiting anxiously for the first possible moment for "his turn". As it turned out, his girlfriend had to leave early and he went with her, so it will be sometime in this new year before that can happen. Funny synchronicity, but the two weeks before Christmas Day I kept seeing myself sitting at my computer sipping Sangria - something I learned to love in my days in a dormitory at university - from one of my wine glasses received years ago as wedding gifts. Knew that wasn't going to happen, because liquor of any sort wasn't even a remote possibility as a purchase. As it turned out though my gift from the family "gag gift" exchange ended up being a bottle of Sangria and a spun glass angel. Since Christmas, I've been seeing myself dressed for office work moving into an office where I've been given keys and a security card for various accesses. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Om mane padme hum.
Got my youngest off to work Boxing Day, then lit in to followup correspondence to various family members arising from conversations from the day before. The recipe I used for the potatoes I'd brought - cream cheese and cottage cheese mixed in - and the coleslaw, mixed with an Italian parmesan salad dressing to make up for the other artery blocker dish - to my sisters and daughters-in-law. Proof to my brother and brother-in-law that I knew what I was talking about about the origin of the word Pews. Straight from a website dedicated solely to word origins. Jokes to lighten the discourse and thank yous', as well. Work related discussions with various family members too. There were a lot of messages in my inbox from e-friends and old friends I haven't talked with for, sometimes, a decade or two. Some happy and some sad, some requiring an extended exchange of missives between us that day. Some plans limned out for face to face meetings - soon. A lot of synchronicities where the question of one correspondent was answered by a random comment from another correspondent. How cool is that, eh? I started early on one of my New Years resolutions, switching to another yoga exercise tape that doesn't contain so much pivoting and asanas that are focussed on the shoulder and elbow joints. I had wanted to rebuild some upper body strength, before trying the more technically difficult tapes that focus more on the core muscles, but obviously the sore shoulder I had earlier in the month was pointing out that the one injured elbow isn't ready for that kind of stress yet. "Listen to your body". Anyway, I want to be certain I continue with regular workouts, so that compromise had to be made. So far so good, although now my hamstrings and calves are complaining - oh well. Made a couple of dishes up out of leftover turkey, then crawled into bed thinking I was done for the night.
Couldn't sleep and I felt really edgy, so I got up again around three in the morning. Started baking a cake - my youngest got cake mix as part of his gag gift - and washing up the dishes from the two previous days. Fired up the computer to see if any of my overseas correspondents had responded to various missives from earlier in the day. Saw the breaking news about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and realized that was probably what had had me edgy. I've mentioned my concern about the current regime in Pakistan and the prophecies.... A couple of the astrologers I check in on from time to time, tying the murder to the unexpected comet that had shown itself beginning in November, just after Ms Bhutto returned to her country after an 8 year exile. News of India and China (like Darfur and Nigeria???) conducting mutual war games "just for practice" a week earlier and the activities of Putin in Russia, bombing neighbouring states the past few months, came to mind too. Interesting that an election in Pakistan scheduled for January 8 might have seen the return of democratic rule as opposed to military control, isn't it? I spent the balance of the morning watching different news sources trying to gauge how destabilising that one murder would be. It wouldn't take much to plunge the entire region into a nuclear blood bath, you see. And yes, it will affect the rest of the planet from the environment, to social and political stability to the economy. No corner of the globe will be exempt. Slept for the afternoon, then responded to an email from the second quality assurance company for which I do piecework. They had broadcast an urgent request for help, you see. I think I'll stop here though, since my yoga tape is calling my name - "Come my Beloved...". Talk with you later dear diary.
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