Auntie Jean

My great aunt, Auntie Jean, died on Friday at the age of 94.

Auntie Jean was always a figure in the background of my life.  She and Grandma were quite close, my mom and her daughter were best friends, and we spent a lot of time with their family.  My middle name is after Auntie Jean (but spelled differently) and she was very important to my mom.

The main memory I have of Auntie Jean is the time we went to see them in Saskatoon and went shopping at the mall across the street.  I was around 13 or 14 years at the time.  I was embarrassed by every adult who happened to be related to me, but Auntie Jean trumped them all that day.

Mom got the siblings ready to head to the mall when Auntie Jean announced she was coming too.  She was in the middle of perming her hair, but had a 30 minute window before she could take out the curlers and wash out the perm rinse.  So why not tag along?

She threw on a plastic shower cap over her head full of curlers and got ready to go.

I DIED OF EMBARRASSMENT.  DIED.

We went shopping regardless, with me pretending I didn't know either my mother or my aunt.  I found a really cute outfit that day which became my favourite for the summer.  A navy skirt and a rayon, multi-coloured shirt.  A friend that summer got a picture of me.

Oh the 90s.

Looking back at this outfit and my hair, I wonder if Mom and Auntie Jean weren't more embarrassed of me than I was of them.

They had every right to be.

Company sweater

When I was growing up, the temperature in our family home was always the same.  Day in and day out.  Even before programmable thermostats, Mom was diligent about the temperature.  19 degrees (66 F ) during the day and 16 degrees (61 F) at night.  For as long as I can remember.

Mom was always too hot.  She could be found most days wearing a T-shirt or a sleeveless blouse, a pair of cotton pants (complete with elastic waist) and no socks.  My mother wouldn't wear a pair of socks if the floor was covered in glass.  She loved having her feet free and (despite the fact they were always cold to touch) her feet didn't see socks more than once or twice a year.

The family became immune to the weather in our house.  For us, it was normal.  There was no wearing shorts indoors in the winter.  It was full winter regalia.  If you were cold, put on a sweater.  Fine, put on another sweater.

When company would come to visit (as they did often in our house) it was not uncommon for the woman to be cold.  I don't know what made Mom different (maybe it was early onset menopause!) but she was rarely cold.  Except when she would go outside and then she was allergic to cold, but that's another story.

My mom had a sweater put aside especially for company.  It was called "the company sweater" (apt, eh?) and it hung in the closet waiting for our skinny, cold-blooded friends to come visit.  There were a few who had to ask for the sweater (or would be offered the sweater later when Mom would notice they were shivering and wearing their mitts) but there were a few people who walked in the door and immediately changed their jacket for the sweater.

The sweater was knit by my Grandma years before.  It was some sort of polyester blend yarn and was knit the perfect gauge for warmth.  With long, tight sleeves the sweater hit just past your bum and could be wrapped tightly around you or buttoned together in the front.  It was the perfect keep-you-warm sweater.

The sweater now hangs in my closet.  It waits for the occasional guest who is chilly, but mostly I wear it on days when I am too hot to wear a sweater all day, but need a little warmth.  Mostly, I wear it to be comforted by the memory of my Mom and imagine it gives me a hug on her behalf.

Why working with family never works.

For 4 summers, I worked on a bee farm.  Technically, they are called apiaries, but when you say that to someone they usually stare at you as though you're off your nut.

The first year, I worked for Dave, a retired bee farmer from Florida who summered in northern Saskatchewan.  He and his wife thought it would be a good idea to run a small farm with 400 hives with a 19 year old rookie as their only help.  I learned a lot that year -- about myself, about the joys of manual labour, and about the bee industry. 

I was pretty sure I knew it all.

At the same time, my brother worked about an hour south on another bee farm belonging to a friend of the family.  He started when he was young and worked every summer until he decided to get a real job.  Although, truth be told, it was a real job.  One year, he made more than I did as a crisis worker.

My second summer, I started up to my usual farm.  However, they had a tough year with a lot of hive deaths and didn't need me.  I was crushed.  It had been my oasis and a place to regenerate after a year of classes, school, and practicum work.   The family friends to the south offered me a place on their crew and I accepted. 

Now I knew I would be working along side my brother, but the year before we had gotten along better than ever before in our entire lives.  I figured it would be fine.

Oh, how I fooled myself.

The first day was a cloudy and dreary day.  On my first farm, we were old school.  Nothing but an old smoker and a dream.  It was just me and a 65 year old man doddering around without agenda or too much worry if things took longer than you thought.  That is what I was expecting when we went out.

Oh, how I fooled myself.

With a crew of 6, plus the boss, we headed out to the first field.  The hives were taller, the boxes heavier.  The cloudy, dreary day meant the bees wouldn't move of their own accord, so I expected we would gently smoke them out of their homes in order to collect the honey.  Not so.  One of the crew members slung a "blower" on his back and we went to work. 

The blower looked like a mix between a jet pack and vacuum cleaner.  It violently pushed the bees out of their cozy cracks and crannies so we could quickly steal the top layers of their hives and replace them with empty homes they can fill up again. 

I started with a confidence that I knew what I was doing.  It became quickly apparent that I had no idea.  It was a different pace, a different philosophy, and a different world altogether.  They ran thousands of hives compared to Dave's 400.  I was out of my league.  And it was in front of my little brother.

Like most of our arguments, I have no idea what the fight started about.  But the next thing I knew, we were having a throw down in the middle of the bee yard.  Dressed in full bee suit regalia, masks on, gloves to our elbows, my brother and I stood in front of our coworkers and boss and screamed bloody murder at each other.  We were separated by our boss's stern words and sent to different corners of the yard.  I stewed and steamed and fumed the rest of the day, all the while cursing my parents for continuing to procreate after me.

That evening, I retired to my room exhausted and mortified. I was sure this would be the longest and worst summer of my life.

The next day I was transferred from the yards to the honey house where I saw my brother once a day for mere moments.  I had a great time and found my niche quite quickly.

My brother and I got along well that summer.

The Librarian

Since the beginning of time, or at least the beginning of our lives in this city, my family has been going to the same library.

Every weekend, my mother would bundle the four of us kids up and we would begin the trek down the street to the library.  It was not a far walk, by any means, but it seemed that way to us.  A baby in a stroller, an older toddler, a geeky trouble maker, me (practically perfect in every way), and Mom wandered down the 4 or 5 blocks to the library.

We had certain rules and guidelines before we were let loose in the library.  No running, no yelling, and only as many books as we can carry home.  This usually meant 10 - 15 children's books for me.  It wasn't near enough, but I knew we would be coming back the next week.

Many of the librarians in our library were there from the beginning.  There is the lady who looks like Dave Foley in drag, the lady with the really long hair and low voice, the other lady, and the one who we moved next door to about 15 years later.  They were the staples of our library.  They knew our names, what we liked to read, what grade we were in, and which movies were playing on Kid's Movie Day.

I never really thought about them much.  I knew they would always be there.  I knew that the one with the long hair would sneak me racy Western novels when I was 13 and Mom wasn't looking.  I knew they existed in the library, but didn't think of them in the outside world.  To me, they would just always be there.

This week, I went in to get a new library card.  The long haired librarian with the smokey voice was there.  She instantly knew who I was despite the fact it had been years since I had seen her.  She asked about my sisters, my brother, my father in Ukraine.  She was thrilled that I had gotten married and wanted to know all about it.

We talked about the last time I got a new card (I was 12 and thus allowed to check out books without Mom's permission!) and how many years it had been since I had been visiting the branch.  We thought about it and realized it has been over 25 years.  She laughed.  The first time she met our family, she was 10 years younger than I am today.

Getting older is a bitch.

We chatted for a bit and I carried on my way with a handful of knitting books and a promise to come in and visit more often.  I thought about it and realized how lucky we are.  It is a rare place indeed where the staff of an establishment watches you grow up and becomes such a huge part of your life.

I like how small the world is some days.

The Button Box

Latest story at Buggering Knit Monkies: The Button Box

Our "Button Box" was an old shortbread cookie tin with a jam label on the top. In my mother's handwriting, it read Button Box and that was all. It sat on her sewing table or in a cupboard for most of my life. When I "inherited" all her sewing and craft items, this was the thing I cherished most.