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Monday, March 26, 2007

An occasion to kvell

Next week, I’m going to hear one of my grandsons participate in a public speaking competition. In a world where “fear of death” comes in second to “fear of public speaking”, this young man shows no fear in this arena. I had to chuckle, because when I told him that I, too, had done public speaking, but in high school, he said, “Oh, so that’s where I get it from” as if it were hereditary. (Hmmm, maybe I could impress upon him that at age 12, I became a neat freak?) So hats off to a bright, courageous, and articulate 11-year-old!

Monday, March 19, 2007

Celebrating Holi

I was fortunate enough to be invited by the Shree Mahalakshmi Temple - they are part of the MultiFaith Action Society, as is our synagogue - to represent Ahavat Olam at a Holi celebration at the Michael J. Fox Library in Burnaby. Some twenty years ago, when I did community radio, I was introduced to this holiday, and ever since, wanted to be part of an occasion that celebrated colours. At this event, there was no throwing of colours, so I was slightly disappointed about that, but there were wonderful dance performances that demonstrated various aspects of the holiday and culture. And as a representative of the synagogue, I was honoured with a gift of flowers and a beautiful shawl, and a book about Holi and Hinduism which, it turns out, has many similariaties with Judiasm.

Though my social comfort level is generally awkward when I’m left on my own in a room full of strangers, I enjoyed myself immensely, and in that “small world” kind of way, ended up talking with two women, only to discover that we had friends in common, kind of - one of the women’s sons works with a friend of ours. These small things make us come away a little less feeling like a stranger in a crowd. I may just return next year, with a friend or two in tow.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

And life goes on

Well, it’s over - the child has been taken away to live in a trailer park in rural Alberta, leaving a wake of devastation behind. I keep telling myself it’s not as bad as it sounds for the child - at least, I’m clinging to that hope. [Tangent: A friend and I had a long talk about adult responsibilities and choices of lifestyle, and I kept coming back to my position that children should not be treated as possessions; they are people, and they have emotional needs, and they should not be moved between the ages of 1 and 3. You want the child? Come back when he can talk and you can explain things to him. Moving children between 1 and 3 is otherwise job security for the juvenile detention system twelve to sixteen years out.]

Anyhow, once I’d wrapped my mind around the actual law and accepted the fact that the case would be lost, my focus snapped to how to make the transition as palatable for the child as possible. Doing so began my entry into a Kafkaesque existence for a couple of weeks, and I still find myself replaying scenes as I drive or cook or work, trying to make sense of the entire series of events.

The sad part was that by the end of the saga, it felt like the impact on the children had taken second (or third or maybe tenth) place to the adult drama going on. It was a little like watching a car wreck happen in slow motion - you watch the interpersonal dynamics happen, and you scrunch up your face as you watch the inevitable crash, helpless to change the course of events. And here are two predictions I wouldn’t have bet on at any odds: (1) that by the end of the saga, the weeks on end of neglecting our home and businesses to try to support people we’d come to consider close family would end in us being villified and my wife being slagged, not only behind her back but even to her face, for the efforts we decided we couldn’t sacrifice, and (2) that the single call of thanks we got, at the end, for being the voice of reason during the whole ordeal was from one of the social workers, who I came to respect for her stalwartness in the face of some pretty incomprehensible events. By all accounts, neither the child nor the sibling was adequately prepared for their separations, and I’m suspect that while the blame game will be popular for quite a while, the responsibility game won’t be cracked open quite so frequently.

I fully expect to get villified all over again for calling it as I see it and not taking sides unconditionally (even when that act would call for me to abandon my principles in the interest of blind-faith solidarity), but I’ve always called a spade a spade and I’m too old to be a hypocrite now. So the child is gone - I didn’t get to say goodbye because of some unfortunately-timed business travel), and we’re scrambling to catch up with a house that looks like a tornado hit, and way overdue business tasks. At least it keeps our minds occupied.

Friday, March 09, 2007

So small a gesture, so large an impact

Was at a meeting last night, and my rabbi handed me a baggie with some Purim goodies - a belated treat bag - this year, I barely noticed that the holiday had come and gone. I burst into tears at the unexpected kind gesture.

Another day, another social worker

Really, I don’t know how some of these social workers get to stay on in their jobs for so many decades. Their idea of a “transition plan” for a child, about to be taken away from the only family he’s known, is to get a schedule of his daily activities and arrange an visit so the birth parent and his live-in girlfriend - in reality, they’re like adoptive parents, because they’re taking a kid who has never known them into their home - to show them how the child has been living. That will be the contrast between “before” (detached home, stay-at-home mom, lots of attention, enriched environment) and “after” (trailer park, competing for attention with girlfriend’s “real” baby, dad and gf doing kid duty in shifts to coincide with work down at the plant). Yep, and the social’s idea of the visit is that the new girlfriend “gets to watch the baby being bathed, and then the next visit, she can bathe the baby herself.” HEL-friggin-LO!!! The girlfriend has a year-old kid herself, and she doesn’t know how to bathe it? Or is the social worker just too daft to realize that she’s spouting rubbish?

I suspect it’s the latter. After all, the same social worker has spouted off on other flights of fancy over the past 16 months. Like “what should the birth mom be called by the child when he gets older?” And then wasting everyone’s time and patience making up little nonsensical honorifics. The birth mom doesn’t see the four kids she has now, and the odd time they refer to her, they call her by her first name. So why would this kid do anything different? Why waste her time on such frivolities? Anyhow, I digress.

Another day, another meeting. More tears. It was incredibly painful. It was even more painful after the meeting, having to think about the harsh realities of: OK, this child is going to wake up one morning next week in a strange house, with strange people, strange smells, strange sounds. He’s going to want to go to the people from whom he derives comfort, and they won’t be there. And he won’t know why, and he won’t know how to make it happen. And he won’t be able to communicate his frustration about that to anyone. So how do you make it as comfortable as possible for him? How do you make that happen? (Did the social workers address that? Nope. I was the one at the meeting who said, Look, let’s stop talking about the naive, superficial stuff like bathing the baby. Who cares about that. Let’s talk about the important stuff, like emotional support. Has anyone offered the other couple information and support around attachment disorder? Do they even realize that a couple of years from now, this little guy could end up showing certain symptoms and need therapy? Has anyone prepared them? Who knows? They claimed they “mentioned” it, but the Ministry has lied so many times that we’ve ceased to believe them.) So I’m thinking about which toys he’ll absolutely need to take, which stuffed animals he’s really attached to, which musical toys will comfort him and why. And praying to God that the recipient family realizes the importance of this, and doesn’t decide to throw the stuffies in the washing machine, or toss out the toys, or whatever people might decide to do for whatever reasons they may have.

And my granddaughter. My lovely, precious granddaughter, who is getting emotionally tossed about on a rough sea of emotional upheaval. I do so feel for her through all of this. I have to stop - it’s too hard to write any more.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Broken system yields broken children

OK, so the lawyer had bad news, really bad news, but I finally understood the legalities behind the bad news, in a way that none of the social workers could seem to explain it to me. [Aside: I was given information about how the legal proceedings would go, by various director-level officials from the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and all of it was wrong. The lawyer brushed it aside, saying that they don’t get the law, they always botch up the message in the transmission, and they do this all the time, so just don’t listen to anything they say about the law. Doing a check against my personal experience: she’s right.]

Given that children’s attachments are critical to healthy development, then it would make sense that preserving healthy attachments would be of the utmost importance to a child’s emotional growth. (If you look at the symptoms of attachment disorder , it’s no bloody wonder that our penal institutions are filled with kids who had shaky starts.) So there’s lots of evidence to show that children should stay with their “psychological” parents, not necessarily their biological parents. Taking a pre-verbal child and moving them, particularly when they can’t comprehend why this is happening, is definitely not in the best interest of the child.

So why isn’t the decision between a loving foster home, where a child has been since day 1, and a birth parent who comes forward when the child is a year old, based on the child’s best interest, but on the DNA factor? Well, generally, it would make sense to have a 1:1 comparison of environments to determine “best interest of the child.” But the entire foster system would collapse if you did that, because the idea is that parents are supposed to be able to give up their children voluntarily while they fix themselves during a rough spot, and know that they can get their kids back. But if you let kids stay with who they get attached to, the foster parents could apply to the courts, and in many cases, they would win because the children had become attached. So to keep the system intact, the courts decided that “for the greater good”, foster parents could never apply for custody or adoption of a child.

While this makes sense from a system point of view - you want to keep a system where parents won’t hide their children instead of putting them in care when necessary - it focuses on the system and the adults, but not on the children themselves. The only people who end up without a voice are the children themselves. So while the system stays intact, the children coming out of the system are coming out are scarred from having been there. This is a huge intractable problem that definitely needs fixing, and not in the usual “let’s have an inquiry” way, but in a Cognitive Edge way that really turns the problem inside out and looks at it through a completely different lense.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Padded behinds and cotton wool brains

OK, so last week’s meeting with the social workers was a bit of a farce, although I’m sure it didn’t seem so on their end. They wanted to communicate their position, and the wronged party wanted their position heard, and I could see the transmissions going back and forth [from communication theory: the communication is only complete when the transmission has been heard and confirmed - one-way transmission should not be confused with communication] but not actually making the loop.

They seemed way too concerned that they were being tape-recorded. Hell, I think that THEY should be the ones doing the tape-recording. You know, those messages you get when you call a customer service desk: This call may be monitored for quality control purposes. I think that the Ministry should be required by law to record ALL their conversations with clients. Not to protect the social workers, but to protect the clients. And for that very reason, that’s why they would never do it. They were very clear that there are privacy issues - which, in the Ministry’s case, doubles for issues known in the vernacular as CYA. So that’s how the meeting started.

The Ministry’s position, in a nutshell: Here is how the court proceedings will go, and you’re going to lose. It’s a tough spot, and we’re sorry you’re in it, but the court will rule that the child is going with his birth dad and we can’t do anything about that, so face facts and let’s get down to scheduling for when the child is taken away from you because it is happening.

The mom’s position, in a nutshell: You created the problem, you fix it. My family - me, my spouse, this little guy, and my other child - shouldn’t be victimized because of your agency’s incompetencies for the past 16 months. I don’t care about your procedures, just fix it. My heart is breaking here because I can foresee the emotional damage to all parties involved, and I can’t stand that you’re sitting across the table, emotionless and worried about your forms and bureaucratic nonsense while your own agency’s actions caused this in the first place.

[Aside: I noticed that in response to a statement I made about possible family breakdown in response to this botched-up situation and potential lawsuit, the social workers made notes, which I think said something like “offer counselling” or similar (it was hard to read surreptitiously upside down) as if they think that some little checklist can fix the mess they made. It might assuage their guilt, but I doubt it will do much else except let them go back to their office and sigh a breath of relief that they can move on and ruin someone else’s life.]

At one point, the social workers asked for a schedule, which I thought quite laughable. The mom couldn’t seem to make the point that the request was a bit absurd, so I took a shot at getting through to the social workers. I said something to the effect of: We can draw up a schedule, sure. But let’s be honest - it’s only so that you can tick off “done” on your little checklist. Because the child is going to a home that’s a 14-hour drive away, into a home with another child in the same age range, where the parents will be caring for the kids in shifts while working shift work which is, in effect, single parenting. I’ve been there, done that. I had two little grandchildren - and I am super organized - and the schedule that worked so well for me with one completely went out the window with two. The schedule will last for three days, tops, and then it will be all the parent-at-home can do to keep up with the two of them. So I can draw something up that shows the child has music play from 10-12, and lunch at 12, and nap from 12:30-2:00, but honestly, the kid is going to have the jolt of his life to fit into whatever routine will work, given one adult and two toddlers, so who are you deluding, other than yourselves, when you ask for a schedule? Seriously, do these people have children of their own (that weren’t nannied through infancy)? Do they have any connection to the real world? 

Saturday, March 03, 2007

I’m not a gambler but when it comes to social worker

OK, here’s a hypothetical back story: The Ministry hands you and your spouse a kid to take home, lends you a car seat, and says, “here’s your son.” They promise you that everything is hunky dory and in a couple of months, adoption papers will be processed, no problem because you’re poster children for what the Ministry stands for, yada yada, and then everything explodes a year later, and now the Ministry is backpedalling faster than Lance Armstrong and your life (and your kids’ lives) are going to hell in a handbasket, courtesy of the infamous Ministry of Children and Family Development.

And then one day, the Child Protection branch of the Ministry says they need to visit.

Wouldn’t that raise the hair on the back of your neck? I am so wondering what their motive could possibly be.

Now, I’m not a betting woman but here is my suspicion - I’ll make my wager - anyone want to raise me a 16-month-old? (OK, really bad joke - just because the Ministry moves kids around like poker chips, I shouldn’t be emulating them.)

My bet is that the will come in and find some reason - even if they have to manufacture it - to remove the child and place him elsewhere. Likely it will not be a concrete reaon that could be proved wrong, because then someone could prove them wrong. It will be one of the nonsense reasons that I’ve seen them pull out of their butts when they want to do something but can’t find a way to justify it. (I can even think of a manufactured reason, but I wouldn’t want to give anyone ammunition.)

And then they will move the child out. Why? The big reason will be that if the child is picked up by the “duh, geez, lez go git that there kid I sperm donored” birth parents from the current parents’ house, there is the possibility of the media there to show the child being ripped away from his loving family, and people will see the effect that the Ministry is really having on the child and those around him. But, if they take the child away quietly and place him elsewhere, they can hand him over, quietly and anonymously, to the other party without anybody watching. There will be no news bites and no scandal on the news. And that’s the Ministry’s big concern: optics! So ... who’s in the betting pool?

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The mess called Ministry of Children and Family Development of BC

There is a messy situation going on right now, around the bungling of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and then - when they realized their procedural bungling - how they are ready to sacrifice the well-being of two children because they have rules to follow. And while they know their voice is powerful and could influence the outcome by making taking a stand that is in the best interest of the child, they are, instead, taking a stand that is in the best interest of the Ministry.

Of course, they’re claiming that the rule is in the best interest of the child, but when you actually talk to the folks at the Director level about their reasoning, you get “juicer” answers. (Juicers are what, in the HR industry they call companies that treat people like widgets. These companies are intereted in production, so they hire people, squeeze everything they can out of them, and then toss them out and get new ones, to keep the production line moving.) The Director of Child Welfare, for example, told me that the Ministry has a “policy” (I put this in quotation marks because a policy is supposed to be a guidelines that has exceptions made when the policy doesn’t fit, but she kept talking about it s a hard and fast rule) that all children are better off in the care of a biological parent. One her reasons is that “otherwise, you’d have all these kids stuck in foster care.” Ah yes, if the production line stops, it would cost the Ministry a lot of money. So we have to move these widgets out of the system to a parent. If we call it “in the best interest of the child”, we can save the province lots of money.

Never mind that in some cases, the child will be heartbroken to be ripped away from the only family it has known. Never mind that the child risks developing attachment disorder - and later taxing the social system as home becomes various juvenile detention centers, and later on, the adult penal system. Never mind that the families left behind (in some cases, having been promised that the placement was foster-to-adopt, where they’ve become firmly attached to the the child) are heartbroken, and the Ministry has also broken the hearts of the children that they may have even previously placed in that very home.

No, the Ministry has widgets to move along, to get out of the system, and when they’ve goofed up - say, when they’ve sent a two-day-old child home with a family and basically said, “here’s your son, take him home” and then when he’s almost a year old, the Ministry comes back and says, “oops, there’s a problem” and “well, we never really said he was yours” and “don’t go getting a lawyer, now, because it will piss us off and we’ll take the kid away from you” and at the line staff level (where no one ever, ever, ever takes the blame for anything), they say, “we go home and cry at night, this is such a travesty but there’s nothing we can do” and “this is beyond unethical and it’s so awful but this happens sometimes” and such inane, condescending platitudes that it makes me wonder how taxpayers can support such a corrupt system and let them get away with it.

It shocks me that people who can’t tell the difference between rules and guidelines, between client interest and system cover-your-ass thinking can rise to director level. It disgusts me that social work supervisors use intimidation tactics to keep a client population (adoptive and foster parents) in line. It appalls me that they blatantly manipulate the people they are supposed to serve, and tell outright lies when it suits their purposes. (In the eleven years I’ve been dealing with the Ministry, I’ve caught them out so many times, this allegation is not lightly made.) What’s more is their unwillingness to break ranks and fix themselves - they cover for one another’s incompetencies, and the good ones, who have the brains and willingness to try to make a difference end up leaving to become consultants, or blacklisted and having to find work in another province, or having a breakdown and going on stress leave. A strong few leave and become Ministry combatants - such as lawyers who take on the Ministry and all their insanity.

Everywhere I go, I hear stories about the Ministry, and not one of them good. Walking the hall in my office building, a CEO from down the hall asks how I’ve been, and I say I’m frustrated because of “an entanglement with the Ministry” and his reply is, “They seem to screw up a lot, don’t they?” A technology VP associate of mine, as it turns out, has his own entanglement with the Ministry, and he relays that he and his [also professional] wife are getting “sleazy” vibes from Ministry staff. The stories compound - everywhere I turn, the Ministry has involved themselves, and the way they’re handling things is an embarrassment to the province and to the most vulnerable citizens of the province.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Social worker arrogance in British Columbia

Was just told that three years ago, when my granddaughters had been moved into the adoption stream, where they were adopted by a fabulous couple who have made us part of their extended family, the girls’ profiles had a note added to them in the “Special Needs” section. This is the section where you list the burdens that prospective parents should know about, such as Autism, ADHD, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and so on. Evidently, the social workers had labelled the girls as having “grandmothers.”

So ... advocates or burdens? I suppose that advocating for our children’s well-being impedes social workers from operate their little fiefdomswith impunity, and as such, we are burdens to them. What saddens me is that so few children have such advocates.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Family drama strikes

I haven’t been posting lately because I’ve been too caught up in trying to support family members who are facing a heart-wrenching dilemma. I can’t go into it (yet) and hope I will never have to go into it in a public space like this, though I will if I must.  But let’s just say that there is a certain government ministry, that I’ve been dealing with for some ten years now, that is once again showing me how their need to cover their own bureaucractic bungling surpasses (and by far) the emotional needs of a very vulnerable client population. If you know anything about my life, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Fortunately, I’ve learned a thing or two from my three previous dealings with them: (1) document everything because they will “lose” things when it suits them, (2) make secret tape recordings of conversations with them because they will lie when it suits them, and (3) be prepared to have to think for them, because those that aren’t busy scheming won’t be able to reason their way out of a paper bag. (Email me for a link to my old blog for some rollicking good laughs about where your taxpayer dollars go!)

Gentle readers, in anticipation of your next question, yes, I was led to believe that there was a new sheriff in town who was changing things. No, I haven’t heard back yet. No, I am not ready to sit back and let this travesty of justice happen without exposing some pretty embarrassing incompetencies. Stay tuned - it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. And if this goes on much longer, I’ll be much fatter (though I doubt my singing will improve much - I’ll still be offkey!).

Friday, December 29, 2006

Communicating with cats

We have a cat named Sam. It’s a long story, but basically Sam is a Persian rescue cat with a snaggle tooth. He is very smart, quite talkative, and more than a little neurotic. When he started having less than pristine litter-box habits, I started to worry. But his “accidents” were irregular and erratic. We tried cleaning the litter more often and watching for all sorts of other signs, but no luck. Eventually, I reached my limit, and said, “We’ve got to call in Lydia Hiby.” I’d heard about Lydia on a radio show a number of years ago, and we’d used her to communicate with a previous cat who had some issues. She was so successful in her diagnostics that we thought we’d try her again.

To make a long story short, in the new place, we’d put Sam’s litter box in the laundry room, and Sam was so freaked out by the vibrations of the washer and dryer that whenever we did laundry, he couldn’t bring himself to go into the room. And when we were away and my son would come over, he would do marathon stints of laundry, so the cat would sneak into the den and pee there. When I finally went into that room to unpack, and found little puddles, I started keeping the door closed. Then, he’d go on the bath mat, but one day I caught him doing it outside the closed door of the den and when I yelled at him, he disappeared under the bed and didn’t come out for the better part of the day. After the consultation, we moved the litter box, and Sam hasn’t had an accident since. Unfortunately, the only other place we could fit a litter box was just inside the front door - not a very nice welcome - but I suspect we’ll have some custom cabinet built that can hide a litter box beneath it it, and everyone will be happy.

The odd thing is that at the end of the 15-minute consultation, during which time we discussed all sorts of things (Lydia used to be a vet tech, so she can discuss health issues as well as psycho-social issues), I asked if there was anything else that Sam would like us to know. She said that Sam asked to have a bandana. I have no idea how he knows about such things, but we did get him a little cat bandana, and from the time we put it on him he has liked it. Now, I was prepared for her to relay answers to the questions about whether Sam was lonely (no, he loves being the only cat), why he doesn’t like to sit on our laps (he has some arthritis in his feet, and doesn’t like to have to jump up quickly, so prefers to sit beside us), why he is so fussy with his cat food (as a kitten, he was given baby food because he was so little and sickly), and did he mind when we went out of town and left him alone (no, but could we leave a t-shirt on the bed for him). But a bandana? Go figure. But I did notice that since the session, Sam and I seem to be getting along a little better. Or maybe it’s just my imagination.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

The un-holidays

This year, I chose not to write about my birthday because it was really combined with our other celebrations, and there seemed to be little to actually write about. We did have a cake and, when we couldn’t find a birthday candle, someone rustled up a full-sized dinner taper. I got a bracelet, which I discovered scratched up my computer case, so I took it off and put it with the other bracelets I don’t wear. Today I bought myself a late birthday present: the smallest photo printer I could find so it would fit on the little desk in the den. I did this after packing up the inkjet printer to take back to the office, after realizing that though it seems smaller enough in an office setting, at home it would take up te entire desk.

Yesterday, we had an un-Christmas day at home. Everyone does something a little different on the 25th of December - a day with the family, dinner with the folks, a frenetic day spent ferrying children in a sugar-induced high between variuos relatives. We said that any of our friends feeling the need to escape from relatives, take a break between sets of inlaws and mincemeat pies, or just wanting to come by for a visit, could feel free to stop in for some decidedly un-Christmas hang-out time. What they’d find at our place was us, in sweatshirts and slippers, playing ABC (anything but Cristmas) music and movies, and serving up comfort food (chicken soup, split pea soup grilled cheese sandwiches, or home made mac ‘n cheese), and a hot cuppa.

We had a small but steady stream of friends who came by to say hi, have a cup of soup, hang out for a bit, see new pictures of the grandkids, and ten go of to their next engagement. It was wonderful - perhaps we’ll make it an annual tradition.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Christmukah, West Coast style, part 2

What is a West Coast Christmukah without adaptation, otherwise known as compromise? If you don’t have sufganiyot, those little jelly-filled doughnuts, you go to Tim Horton’s and get an assortment of Timbits. If you don’t have traditional potato latkes, you make a low-fat version in a cast iron frying pan on a BBQ. We lit Chanukah candles and played Chanukah music, but also had a Christmas tree and played Christmas music. We exchanged Chaunkah gifts on Friday night, and Christmas gifts on Saturday night. The children enjoyed the gifts equally, not matter what type of paper was used to wrap them. The older kids entertained the middle kids, who entertained the younger ones, and a good time was had by all. Grandson #2 (designation by age) had a soccer game and his sisters formed a cheering section. The baby had great fun walking around the great glass windows, leaving little baby prints behind him. (I felt I should have chipped in for a big bottle of Windex.) I got to know grandson #1 a little better, and appreciate him a lot more. I can’t remember my password to upload photos here but I did put some up as a Google web album.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Christmukah, West Coast style, part 1

Last Thursday night, Vancouver suffered a terrible storm that knocked out some 3,000 trees in Stanley Park, downed power lines all over the city, and created all sorts of other urban havoc.

Needless to say, Friday morning’s carefully choreographed trip to Vancouver Island was not destined to go smoothly. It was supposed to go something like this: Finish printing corporate holiday cards by 6:45 AM. Granddaughter and grandson #1 (designation by age) gets dropped off at 7 AM. Son arrives at 7 AM. Load up car with luggage. Drop cards in mailbox. Pick up potato latkes and sufganiyot order at Solly’s bakery. D rive to home of granddaughter #2. Transfer everything and everyone into their family van. Son takes my car away. Drop off other car at the airport Park ‘n Fly (for the wife, when she arrives from Europe the next day, as she has no car keys). Continue to ferry terminal and get onto 10:15 ferry, crossing to Vancouver Island, crossing over to terminal where we drive north to Nanoose Bay, home of grandson #2.

Well, grandchildren get dropped off - 10 minutes early, even! - but the schedule goes downhill from there. The power lines are down between their house and mine, so my son’s alarm hasn’t gone off and his car is locked in his underground parking garage. So we have to drive over and pick him up, which is in the opposite direction of where we’re going, and the traffic lights are out everywhere, and the city crews are out everywhere, clearing fallen trees from the road, and it takes a very long time to get onto the highway. So we load the kids and luggage into the car and send them off the to ferry while my son and I head to the bakery. But between the traffic and the lights out ... well, we never do get to the bakery - thank goodness they were gracious enough to understand - because we’d miss the ferry otherwise, so we turn down a side street and head to the airport. Except we keep hitting traffic jams, so we alternately speed and crawl to the Park ‘n Fly, and then boot it to the ferry terminal. I jump out of the car with 10 minutes to spare (they’re supposed to cut off ticket sales 15 minutes before sailing) and plead for them to sell me a ticket because my grandkids and my luggage, even my reading material, is on board, not to mention that I’d have to wait for hours for the next ferry. The kind fellow lets me through, and I hoof it to the ferry, where the staff are waiting for me to board so they can close up the boat and pull up anchor (or whatever they do). I should know by now not to choreograph things so tightly.

More about the weekend later ...