“Well, Alanna,” I said, “What shall we say about this
year in our annual letter?” “It was a plodding sort of year,” she
answered. How true. Nothing big happened at all. She continued, “We
celebrated our tenth anniversary and went to Tofino.” Ah, that would
stick out in her memory.“You can tell them that you insisted on getting
a motel with television so you could watch the Blue Jays baseball
games.” Oh dear! People will think I’m one of those unromantic
husbands. I guess I am. And the reception was lousy. Now what I
remember about that two- day holiday was that we hit every restaurant
in Tofino and ate seafood till it came out our ears. That was 22 and 23
April (our anniversary day is 22 April). The weather was great. We will
return.
But still it was a plodding year. “You could tell them that we are
without pets,” said Alanna. We probably mentioned our budgie, Joshua,
in our last Christmas letter. He was an amazing talker. Alanna taught
him to say things like “God loves you,” “You’re beautiful,” “Pretty
bird,” and so on. I only taught him to say one thing: “God bless you,
my child.” Joshua was sick for a couple months, stopped talking. One
day he flew over and lit on a book in my lap. He began to slide on the
slippery dustcover and scrambled madly to find a foothold. It
looked funny and I laughed and then I guess his heart gave out and he
collapsed and died. I sure felt bad about laughing at him because I
liked the little guy a lot more than I had let on. When an animal
talks—even if he’s just parroting—you feel differently about him. He
becomes human in a way.
Some months after that I got up one Sunday morning to get the newspaper
on the front step and I looked out and saw our cat, Oliver, dead on the
side of the street. He had been hit by a car. He was a stray whom
Alanna started feeding. He lived outside in a little house Alanna built
for him. So for the first time in our married life, we are without
pets. Alanna finds this a hardship because she is now suffering “pat
deprivation,” defined as the loss of the opportunity to pat or pet a
housepet. As she put it to me earlier today, “I have to seek out
animals to pat, or make do with you.” We may have to get another pet. I
hate being patted.
Just for the record, I am still working as a nondenominational chaplain
in four extended care hospitals (nursing homes, really). In May the job
will either become permanent or I will be unemployed again. Alanna
continues to work as Assistant Director of L’Arche Victoria, the Jean
Vanier homes for the developmentally (formerly, mentally) challenged
(formerly, handicapped). We’re grateful to be employed, but the work
tends to wear us down.
I continue my volunteer involvement with Corpus Canada, a Catholic
reform organization, and write a theological column in our national
bimonthly periodical, The Journal. It’s distributed free, so if you’d
like a subscription, let me know. You can also read it on the
Corpus Canada website http://www.corpuscanada.org.
In so many ways it was a plodding year, and yet spiritually it was a
growing year for both of us. Maybe the two things are connected.
We lead a quiet life in the quiet town of Sidney. Like a zillion other
guys I spend a lot of time playing with the computer and the internet.
Alanna devours mystery novels like she devours my good cooking. Yes, I
am solely responsible for the cries of distress that accompany our
daily rendezvous with the bathroom scales. If plumpness pleases, we
shall become the toast of the town. Speaking of which, we bought a
bread making machine, a West Bend, that produces loaves that actually
look like bread loaves. I am inordinately proud of my 100% whole wheat
bread. Why, you ask, when the machine does it all? Yes, but I chose the
machine and improved on the recipe that came with it! (Wanna compare
egos?)
You can email us at menu@highspeedplus.com. Have a wonderful Christmas
and New Year!
Art and Alanna