Jordon is joining David Kirton on 650 CKOM‘s Saskatoon Afternoon Show each Monday and Wednesday at 5:15 to discuss a wide variety of topics. I could have disclosed those topics to you when they were emailed to Jordon over lunch but I wasn’t allowed to read it :-(
So it will be a surprise to all of us when the opinions start to flow.
It should be fun for Jordon, he has the face for radio (that’s for not showing me what topics you are discussing).
Our Father’s Day were supposed to be spent out at the cabin enjoying the peace and quiet. It’s been quite a month for us as it is a month since Jordon quit his job at The Lighthouse and found a new job but is still doing what he loves and is pretty excited about new challenges. So are we.
Instead of going to the cabin on Friday night, Jordon informed me that we were going to the wedding of our good friends Bert Lang and Don Lafreniere. Don is quite ill with cancer and the wedding was a total last minute surprise, even for Don and Bert. The wedding was in a suite at the Holiday Inn and we joined a small group of their friends and family who put together a nice wedding on about 28 hours notice.
Of course with Bert being ill and just about ready to move into palliative care, I shed a lot of tears but we had a wonderful time. So while we didn’t make it to the gay pride parade (we were frantically looking for gifts and getting reading for the wedding), we were at marriage for two dear friends.
As I mentioned, today was the gay pride parade today in Saskatoon. I don’t always understand the nuances of politics like Jordon does but I do appreciate the stand that 8 of Saskatoon’s city councillors took when they took out this ad and marched in the parade. As we were leaving, we ran into one of the grooms downstairs and he was just saying that a guy who was there was so homophobic that he couldn’t even listen to the story of Bert and Don’s marriage. Homophobia is alive and well in Saskatoon.
Later this morning Mark and Oliver get along really well with Bert and Don so we are taking the boys to visit Bert in St. Paul’s Hospital later this morning where we are told to sneak in cold Coca-Cola into Bert. Since Coke is the only thing he can consume, we took him up a small cooler to keep it cold in. The nurses can get him ice which m
Before we leave to see Bert, we did have a chance to celebrate Father’s Day with Jordon.
Jordon is a great father to the boys. He has also taught me a lot about being a better parent. He is pretty much impossible to manipulate, understands the boys really well, and can be fun when he needs to be and firm when it is called for as well. The boys are lucky to have Jordon as their dad. If you ask Jordon, he says that he is lucky to have two great kids.
For Father’s Day the boys got him a reciprocating saw. We want to do some projects with the wood from pallets and to take them apart, you need a good saw. This could also be a gift for me as I am the one that wants to do some stuff with pallet wood so we all win at this. Well I win. The more I think about it, I think Jordon could end up losing. Sorry about that babe.
We all pitched in an got him a pair of Bose AE2 around the ear headphones with my, err, our AirMiles. Jordon loves his Bose in the ear headphones and the sound on the AE2 are even better. Even if I wanted these to be for me I don’t think I could pry them off his head or out of his hands.
From me, I bought him a dual sided barbecue grill topper with a griddle on one side and a flat surface on the other. According to the barbecue cookbooks, they are ideal for doing hamburgers on and I am really curious what it is like to grill on. 
The dog got him a Hydro Power razor and some Snow Power cologne from Swiss Army. Yes that cologne bottle is reinforced and has a carabiner on it so if he goes mountain climbing, he will be able to take it with him.
Maggi was concerned that wasn’t gift enough so she got into the garbage and spread it through the house. Nothing says, “Happy Father’s Day” like garbage in the house. We are thinking of trading her in for a racoon. Of course Mark see’s the carnage the throws up all over the place. Nothing says Father’s Day to Jordon like having to clean up his son’s vomit.
Of course Jordon goes “bad dog” and immediately Maggi climbs up on his lap (her admission of guilt) until he pets her or says, “It’s all right”. Last night that was a little slow coming so we had a dog underfoot for part of it.
It’s good to be together as a family. Tonight we are trying to make a spicy perogy pizza. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
I hope your Father’s Day is a good one.
So last night I went over to Megan Shaw’s and had a great time with her, Tracy, and some of Megan’s colleagues. I got home shortly before 2:00 a.m. and crawled into bed. Jordon had tried to stay up but 6 episodes of MI-5 was all he could handle.
Sometime last night I got up, was hungry and grabbed a chocolate covered granola bar. I took it back to bed and I thought I ate it. Apparently I ate only half and left the other half on the bed right beside Jordon. That is where the fun begins.
The next thing I know was that Jordon was yelling, “WHAT IS THIS? THERE IS A PIECE OF CRAP IN OUR BED!!!” Then he said, “IT’S ON MY ARM TOO!” and “IT’S ALL OVER ME! HELP”.
I realize it’s my granola bar and go, “Oh that’s my granola bar.” Jordon was like, “YOU LEFT A CHOCOLATE BAR ON THE BED? I THOUGHT IT WAS A TURD!”. ”I WAS SCARED!”
Scared of what, I don’t know but he was terrified (and a little disorientated).
I finish eating the granola bar (its kind of gross I know but it was late) and then I wake up and Jordon has chocolate on this face and then he sees the arm and starts to freak out all over again before realizing that it is chocolate and last night wasn’t a weird dream.
In case you are wondering, while I find this story hilarious, Jordon is still muttering, “Who leaves a half-eaten granola bar in the bed?” it could have been worse, it could have been an Oh Henry.
Jordon looks back at how traumatic of time it was for me with Oliver being born on his blog today as Ollie celebrates his fifth birthday. Because I was so sick and drugged during those weeks, I had no idea of how bad it was. A year or so later I was with some friends who told me they were certain that I was going to die during childbirth and looking back, I also did.
Of course the good news is that I didn’t die and Oliver was fine. I have told many times that myself of the baby (or both) would not survive another pregnancy, I am happy that after all of the struggle, I have two wonderful sons. One just took more out of me than the other.
Well, he isn’t always wonderful. I went out last night and Oliver wanted to sleep in his brother’s bunk bed. He had slept downstairs the night before and Mark was frustrated with how bad he was. Oliver basically saw this as an opportunity to stay up all night and play with Mark. He could not understand Mark’s desire to sleep and did his best to keep waking up Mark. So when Jordon said, “No” to him, he went apocalyptic with his rage at Jordon and Mark. They responded by watching another episode of MI-5. As Jordon told me this morning, “That is what Harry would have wanted us to do.”
When Mark said that he didn’t want Oliver in his room, Oliver threw a fit and yelled at Jordon, “My brother’s breaking my heart!” Because Jordon and Mark and more or less immune to manipulation, it didn’t go far other than evoking snickering and laughing downstairs which I think made him even madder. If anything, what bothers him most in this world is probably what bothers most five year olds, they can’t always get their way.
So today was spent with Mark at A.H. Browne park testing out his new kick scooter and then with me as we ran some errands together. Tonight is pizza, cake, and just being together as a family. We’ve come a long ways since I was told that Oliver and I might not make it. It’s a nice night to celebrate.
It’s been fifteen years since I had a pleasant conversation with my dad and mom. They met Mark once and have never met Oliver. We went through this with Mark but at the time there was still a chance that things would get better but now Oliver is asking why he doesn’t have a grandmother and grandfather.
It’s a weird discussion to have. He understands that Jordon’s mom has passed away and for some reason gets that his dad doesn’t like Jordon or his brother Lee. It never really gets brought up and he is distracted by the fact that Jordon and Lee are brothers (“Dad and Uncle Lee are brothers? Whoa.”) but it really bothers him that my mom and dad don’t have anything to do with me and by extension Mark and him.
He has been trying to process it and tries to justify their actions by asking questions like, “Do your parents hate you because you won’t clean your room?” to which the answer is a) no and b) I should put away the laundry in there. He also can’t figure out why they don’t want to be around Mark, him and the dogs. Oddly enough my mother has said that she will mail a letter to Mark when he is 16 years old to explain their side of the story. Unless it is a heck of a letter, it’s hard to explain a 16 year absence.
The good thing in all of this is that he has a great Aunt and Uncle in Brittany and Lee and we have some awesome friends that Oliver loves as well. He’s a lucky kid in that regard but I’ll admit, I miss having parents around too. That being said, it’s not going to change. A year or so ago I wrote something here that displeased my mother and she said, “If you write those things, we’ll never talk anymore.” I was kind of like, “and that is different from today how?” They have never realized what they have missed and the impact of them being gone. Maybe it is harder to realize that when you live in the same city and see the same people. You never realize what has changed.
The funny part in all of this is that some of Oliver’s explanations for their actions are pretty funny.
Maybe it’s all of the above.
Well the boys surprised me with a new patio table set for the cabin. It’s small but we only have a 8×8 deck and of course we are a small family. We also have a picnic (or picinic if you are Yogi Bear) table and some other chairs if more friends drop by so we will be okay. We already had a base for the umbrella so we are good to go. We have a matching side table which complements it nicely. I can’t wait for the weather to be consistently nice enough to use it. Of course Jordon, Mark, and Oliver already ran the deck box up to the lake so we have a head start on outdoor living.
They also gave me a stacked drink dispenser which we will keep at the cabin.
Jordon picked me up a cookbook called Complete Comfort Food by Bridget Jones.
We tried this Whiskey RIbeye Marinade Recipe and didn’t like it. Tender steak but whiskey taste. Not a good combination if you are not a whiskey drinker. While we were there, we were able to stop by Dennis and Wilda Camplin’s place where I was all inspired by their painting (I need to do more of it this year).
I haven’t posted much lately about life. Maybe because until this week it was still winter in Saskatoon and I was just tired of it. That being said, we have been busy around here.
Over at the cabin blog, Jordon posts some advice on how to grill up the perfect steak.
After wanting one for a couple of years for the cabin, we finally picked up a deck box today. After looking around at a bunch of places and finding ourselves unimpressed with what $100 will get you, we decided to get a Rubbermaid Roughneck Jumbo Storage Tote for $20. I realized that I didn’t want the kids to get into it and the racoons often wreak havoc at Arlington Beach. The last thing I wanted to do was buy $100 wicker deck box and have something eat through it. It’s big enough to keep balls, nets, and outside stuff out of the way and organized and cheap enough that if it gets wrecked, I won’t feel bad about it. Plus, this is water proof and the fake wicker boxes are not.
Once we close the cabin up for the winter, it will come inside so as long as I can keep Oliver off it, I can’t see it taking that much abuse. Of course the bad part about not purchasing a fold down box is that it won’t fit in the trunk of the Mazda and has to go in the back seat. I have to work on Saturday so the guys plan to take it and a load of clean bedding up to the cabin on Saturday and start the process of opening it up.
It’s hard being my kid.