Milking the Cash Cow

I got a speeding ticket today. In the mail. For doing twenty-five miles per hour.

Yes. I am serious.

This is the fifth speeding ticket I’ve received in the thirty-five years I’ve been driving. That averages one ticket every seven years. Not a bad record, right?

Except that four of the five tickets were issued since we moved to Canada less than two years ago.

Think about that. In twenty-five years of driving, I got one speeding ticket. And in fact, when I got that ticket, I was clocked doing seventy, but my speedometer said I was doing fifty-eight in a fifty-five zone (which is speeding, granted, but not by much). Later we had the speedometer checked, and sure enough, it was off by exactly that amount due to oversized, after-market tires.

Then I moved to Canada. And I’ve gotten four tickets since then.

No doubt the RCMP thinks I’ve suddenly begun driving at crazy-mad speeds, but the truth is: I never speed. In fact, I’m a bit obsessive about the speed limit. Unless the road is icy, I set the cruise control to make sure I don’t speed. And if it is icy, I drive much slower (this might, coincidentally, have something to do with the fact that I have never, not once, not for one second, lost control of my vehicle here).

Actually, my tendency to drive the speed limit has gotten me into trouble because probably three-quarters* of the drivers around me speed, and they get seriously annoyed when I slow them down. I get honked at, brights flashed at, flipped off, and (most notably) twice run off the road precisely for driving the speed limit.

Saying Goodbye

Today the children of my friend Kris Williams have to bury their mother.

Kris was my first friend in Canada. Desperate to find my tribe, I started a critique group on Meetup and prayed someone would see it. Kris was the first to respond, and for several months, she and I were the critique group.

She was one of the most gifted emerging authors I’ve ever worked with, and much more experienced with publishing than I am. She saw holes in my fiction when I believed it flawless, and my writing is much stronger as a result of Kris’ influence.

Her own writing — pretty much always dark or erotic — was not for everyone, but it was extremely powerful and evocative. Whenever the subject of our crit group came up in front of other people, however, what she talked about was my crits. Always gracious, she praised my ability and waved aside praise of her own.

Choosing Battles

Well, that was no surprise.

Mars called Parkland Schools Monday morning. The woman he needed to talk to wasn’t available, so he left a message.

She called him back at 4:50 p.m. But then, I guess she knew it doesn’t take long to say, “No. Absolutely not. No way. Huh-uh. Ain’t gonna happen.”

She said they’ll only sponsor children with certain types of disabilities (i.e. hearing impaired and severe behavior problems), and only to three specific schools. They don’t make exceptions, she said.

Mars asked who had the authority to make an exception, and she gave him a name: the name of our nemesis. She suggested we call that person.

My first response was a bad word, followed with, ”No. Absolutely not. No way. Huh-uh. Ain’t gonna happen.”

My second response, however, was more on the lines of, “Bring it on!”

Because here’s the thing: my daughter is gifted. She danced for years, and has a compelling presence onstage. She has an amazing imagination, and writes great fiction, with fascinating details and imagery. I think she’d be fabulous at drama — and acting or writing offer two of the few areas in which she has the potential to have a notable life by anyone’s standards.

If she were a “typical” child (I’m using “typical” in the American way here, to mean a child without an IEP/IPP, not the “Canadian” way in which “all” children are “typical, /sarcasm), her registration would have been accepted without hesitation.

Here is what makes me most enraged: My daughter cannot attend a performing arts school specifically because she is disabled.

How is that not discrimination? How can that possibly be legal?

Oh, I know, it’s not a rule, per se, that she can’t go, it’s just that the money (which she needs) doesn’t follow her.

But I repeat: how is that not discrimination???

Picture two children — exactly alike, except the first is disabled in one some way (a way that does not limit her art) and the second is not. Both are equally gifted in the arts (pick one: visual, music, drama, pottery, whatever). The first is not allowed to register because she is disabled.

It’s discrimination against the disabled population, and it’s not right.

This battle is worth fighting.

Oh, I doubt we’ll win, at least not in time for her to actually attend Victoria. My heart is broken — she was so excited, and now we’re back to wondering what to do and where to go. And even less likely to trust the administrators we’ll have to deal with.

But this battle is still worth fighting because this kind of discrimination should not be policy, especially not policy blessed by the provincial government.

 

The Case of the Missing Birdseed

Last Thursday morning, we got up to find the big pile of seed on the deck that had spilled from the hanging bird feeder was gone. Missing!

It was there when we went to bed. It was gone when we got up. And there were tufts of hair lying around the deck, centered around the railing.

We had seen an Arctic hare the night before, our first sighting at home. He was half white and half brown, and at first I worried that he’d been eaten by the Arctic Fox Mars saw dashing through the backyard Wednesday.

Then I realized … we’ve been studying Evidence and Investigation in science, and this was the perfect chance for the children to practice their skills.

Had there been a murder in our own backyard? Who had stolen the birdseed?

The Dangers of Googling

Oh, deepest irony!

I wanted to know the exact title of the Parkland County administrator who was so terrible to me last summer when I dared to complain that my daughter — who had full inclusion — was removed from eighty percent of her classes.

The second hit was her Twitter account.

Her most recent tweet was this:

“PSD70# looking forward to serving students and their families in inclusive# educational settings. Have a great year!”

It was posted just about a week before my kids started their Year From Hell in one of her schools.

At least she had the decency (and honesty) not to keep tooting that out-of-tune trumpet.

A Thing With Feathers

Remember that glimmer of hope I expressed five days ago about my daughter’s education?

Hope is a thing with feathers. Open your hands, and it will take wing and fly away. Hold it too tight, and you’ll crush it.

*squish*

All Are Welcome Here

Mars and I spent the weekend at a conference hosted by the Alberta Association for Community Living (AACL) to promote inclusion of people with developmental disabilities in all areas of community life.

It was … life-changing. And hopefully it won’t just be my life that gets changed, but that of my daughter and eventually other disabled people. And other vulnerable people in general.

What made it life-changing was that it was a Manifesto, a Manifesto I have always embraced: All are welcome here.

My Imperfect Loon

I signed the kids up for a soapstone carving class this week. I love that it’s both artistic and has a cultural and historical significance in Canada.

Turns out, I also simply love carving soapstone.

As I listened to the teacher tell my children how to carve the stone so they could do it at home, I could feel my fingers itching to try it.

She pulled out the blanks for them to choose from, shapes rough-cut with a saw to reduce carving time. There was a buffalo, a seal, a beaver, a duck, a whale, an owl … and a loon.

I love loons. We have a pair that return every year to the lake behind our house. In the summer, I lie in bed listening to the loons while I fall asleep and then wake to them in the morning. The first call of the loon each spring is a big event.

So the minute I saw that loon blank, I wanted it. I could feel my fingers reaching for it even though I didn’t move.

Unfortunately, the stone was flawed. There was a hole in the place that would be the loon’s back, a weakness in the stone that resulted in about an eighth of a teaspoon of material crumbling away.

Still, I wanted it. The teacher said I could fill the hole with a mixture of stone dust and glue, but it would still be visible. I said I would decide later whether or not I wanted to, and took home the stone and a file.

Five Signs that Spring IS Coming to Alberta

According to the calendar, it’ll be Spring Thursday, but it was sixteen below when we got up. And we’ve had a foot of new snow accumulation in the past two or three days.

In other words — it looks nothing like Spring here in Alberta. And we are sick of winter. Really not getting along with her anymore and trying to find a way to break it off permanently without hurting her feelings.

But we’re Canadians! We’re polite. We can’t say mean things like, “Get the heck out of my life already!” Not even to winter.

Instead, we stoically gird our loins (whatever that means), and just slog on, meticulously putting one foot after another in the exact spot in the snow where the person before us broke trail.

And we keep up the faith by looking for signs that winter will end. Eventually. Hopefully this year.

Here’s my Top Five Signs that Spring WILL Return.

Living In Snow, Part 3

(Note this is Part 3 of a story. Please start with Part 1 and Part 2.)

Our spacious little home felt decidedly less so once we got all of our gear inside — four backpacks, four rolled-up foam pads, four thermarest mattresses, and four rolled-up sleeping bags. The kids have down sleeping bags, which also had to be slipped into bivouac sacks to keep them dry and warm.

To make the beds, we had to move all the gear and bodies to one side of the tent while one person worked. Then we switched sides to repeat the process.

Girly Girl dozed off, sitting up, before her bed was ready. We had to wake her up, and then teach her how to lie down to remove her snow suit and how to slide into the bag.

But eventually both kids were tucked in. They were asleep before we even got our snow pants off. And Mars fell asleep seconds after he finally laid down.