Got the new car. First test drive is after we've paid for it, loaded it up, discovered it has a tape deck in it -- who still listens to tapes?? -- gone back to the dealership and had them pull the CD player out.
My little family must have music to travel.
I offered to sing. Apparently that wasn't an option.
So off we head, about two more hours till we get to the lake, sunshine, rest, no telephone, no TV, no Internet -- my idea of heaven.
And sure enough, we got there with little problem, just some tense nerves.
You see, we were also towing our boat and apparently the first time you drive a new car, it's not recommended you do it loaded up with suitcases (except mine, of course), kayaks, a boat on a trailer, kids, dog and no music.
But rest we did. The youngest fished every day, the teenager caught minnows, floated, swam, dad worked on his tan and mom -- well, I read a lot of books and did my best to avoid a sunburn.
(There's a reason for this. The first time the hubby and I went on vacation, I covered up, slathered on lotion, put on a hat, went down to the lake, put my feet in the water and promptly fell asleep. A few hours later, we were looking for a medical clinic to look after what we were eventually told were second-degree burns.)
Midway through the second week, confident in his boat-driving skills, the hubby, youngest and I headed up the lake to a bay that had been described as Hawaii-like.
Shoulda known then something was going to happen.
We're edging in to the shore and the hubby decides to hop off and tow us in with the nifty boat rope I was told to never lose.
Sounds simple? Should have been. Except for the fact that his trunks got caught on a cleat, he fell off the boat, went underwater -- and came up without his glasses.
Not cheap sunglasses that could be replaced. His I-must-have-to-read-see-drive-work glasses.
We looked.
And we looked.
The hubby didn't look that well, but he could be excused, since he couldn't see.
We looked until the hub and the youngest declared them gone forever and headed up a hiking trail.
I, however, had been re-reading a Jeffrey Deaver book with his oh-so-cool protagonists Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. The thing about Amelia, you see, is when she examines a crime scene, she walks a grid.
So that's what I did.
Walked one way for a distance, stopped, took a step to the side and walked back.
Did this for a long time, way past the time when the hubby had declared me nuts to keep looking.
Voila!
Found them.
Intact, fine, wet but at least we had them and the rest of the vacation wouldn't have to be done with me reading road signs aloud.
Later that day, we took the boys out tubing. We'd been doing it throughout the vacation, no problems, but on this day, one of those green cords (they all have different colours and, I assume, different functions) ricocheted off its hook.
Didn't seem like much; we stopped the boat, hooked it up again and the boys enjoyed the rest of the ride.
The next day, though, the teen said he thought the bilge pump was working overtime.
Sure enough, we were taking on water. Out comes the boat, back onto the trailer but no worries -- we were going home in two days.
So finally, the end of our somewhat memorable vacation. It had replaced the burned-feet-couldn't-walk vacation and had also surpassed the let's-go-camping-in-the-wilderness trip we took a few years ago.
The one where I forgot to pack a can opener.
And bug spray.
But I took my suitcase!
Anyhow, the hubby's packing up the car to get a jump on our final day. He's outside for quite a while when he comes stomping in, cursing up a storm.
Seems his glasses -- the ones I found in the lake -- had kept sliding down his nose.
He decided to rectify this.
He decided the way to do this was to bend them.
He came in holding one half in one hand, the other -- well, you get the picture.
Good thing we packed duct tape.
The teenager foresaw it.
He was the first one to note that the Bass family had actually left at the appointed time for two weeks at the lake. This never happens. He wondered aloud what it could mean.
Just outside Kamloops, the CD player died. Now, for a family that must travel to the strains of Steely Dan, CCR and Metallica, this was very, very bad.
If only we’d known.
Somewhere south of Clinton, the husband said he could smell smoke. Ever the intrepid reporter, I suggested there must be a wildfire somewhere nearby. But, being cautious car owners, we stopped in Clinton, looked under the car, saw a teensy-weensy drip that could not be identified and one bigger one, definitely cold water — has to be the air conditioning.
Right?
If only. Ten minutes north of Clinton, smoke is pouring out the back end of the car. We pull off into a rest area, wait for the white puffs to abate, put the car into gear — and don’t go.
I’ve never seen my hubby stand at the side of a highway, right thumb high in the air and it’s a sight I never want to see again. Fortunately, he looked so darn, well, out of place that the nice man whose car was the only one at the stop facing south took one look, sighed and told me not to fear. He’d rescue him and take him back to Clinton.
I got my first sunburn of the summer sitting on a picnic table with the kids, the dog — and a dead car.
It took more than an hour but eventually, the hubby was back with Joe the mechanic. Joe’s no slouch; he could see the trail of transmission fluid for a long ways back on the highway, curving to the right and stopping in a puddle under the car.
Up goes the hood, in go six litres of transmission fluid — and none comes out. This looks good, but no, Joe says we need to let the car cool off for several hours. So he tows us back to Clinton, we wait . . . and wait . . . and wait some more.
Sure enough, several hours later, the car’s got its gears back, we all pile in and off we go.
Made it about 45 kilometres when, somewhere on a two-lane stretch of asphalt surrounded by nothing but trees, we learned Joe wasn’t really right about that waiting thing.
This time, a couple in a truck — no doubt seeing the look of complete anger and despair fighting for space on my face, stopped and took the hubby off to the nearest town, 100 Mile House.
The boys, dog and I sat in the car.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
After about two hours, I couldn’t get the plot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre out of my head. Desperation took over and I decided there had to be some spot, some tiny piece of land, somewhere on that highway where cellphone service could be found.
Apparently it’s an area about one foot square near a break in the trees. Phone the hubby. Tidying up the language, the conversation went like this:
“Sweetheart, where are you?”
“I’m in 100 Mile House at the Ford dealership. It’s closed.”
“Sweetheart, where is the tow truck?”
“It’s coming. They’ve only got one and it’s somewhere on Highway 24 but the driver said he’d get to you soon as he could.”
“Sweetypiehunnybunch, might you have some idea how long we will get to enjoy the wonderful stifling heat here in this scenic area of our wonderful province?”
“No idea. So sorry.”
“Well, snookums, guess I’ll go back to the wonderful sense of heat and boredom that I so very much wanted to experience on this vacation.”
Another hour went by. We continued to wait.
And wait.
Tow truck arrived. Up went the car onto the back of the truck.
He looked at us.
“How’re you all getting to town?”
Well, gee, I thought you’d be driving us too. Apparently I have thought wrong. How best to express this concern?
“With you, I thought.”
“The three of you and the dog too? I don’t know . . .”
Those of you who know me can imagine the verbal debate going on in my head. This is a time that requires tact, diplomacy, a bit of dumb-blonde-please-rescue-me stuff that I don’t find easy to pull off.
Before the role-playing had to begin, though, the driver asked me if it was my cab pulling up behind us.
I thought he was being a smart-ass and was about to reply in an appropriate manner when . . .
“Daddy to the rescue!” the youngest yelled out.
And sure enough, the hubby — having heard the actual words that were spoken in the tidied-up version earlier in this column, was worried that perhaps mom was losing it a bit out on the highway with the dog, the kids, the dead car
Waiting
And waiting.
So, fulfilling his role as pater familias, he had hopped into a cab and headed out to rescue his family and get them to 100 Mile.
Dad and the dog were accepted into the tow truck. Cabbie, boys and I headed to the Ramada Inn.
Now, you’d think a hotel room in 100 Mile wouldn’t be that hard to get. Not for us, though. We chose to break down on the weekend of the annual show and shine.
The Ramada was full, the Super 8 was basically full — that last available room suddenly wasn’t when the desk clerk saw the dog — so off we went to the 99 Mile Motel.
New movie plotline popped into my head — The Devil’s Rejects.
But the place was clean and they didn’t mind the dog.
Time to unload the clothes since we’re gonna be there for a while.
Off comes the boys’ suitcase.
Next comes the hubby’s.
Mom’s is the beige one.
It’s not there.
Apparently it was never packed into the car.
The hubby looks at me.
He looks at the car.
He looks back at me.
Back at the car.
It’s hard to read what’s going through his mind but I’m sure it wasn’t eased when I broke out into that laughter that’s reserved for those times when you think nothing more can go wrong — and something does.
Sunday, we discovered The Bargain! Store, which had a sale of women’s summerwear.
Got some nifty shorts, tops, a bathing suit, all those things that were sitting at home, carefully folded in the beige suitcase.
Monday morning, 7:30 a.m., the hubby and I are at Sunrise Ford, peering in the windows.
The office doesn’t open until 8 a.m., so we pressed our downcast faces up against the door and stared until someone opened up.
“That’s our dead car over there. How much is a transmission?”
He told us.
“How much is that car in the used-car lot there?”
He told us.
Didn’t open a door, didn’t even test-drive it. Told the salesman — a former Kamloops cop, he said — we were trusting him.
“Sold,” my sweet hunnybunch said.
And then we were off for what remained of a peaceful two weeks at the lake.
No more problems could possibly happen, could they?
Ah, that, as they say, is another story.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
In our letters to the editor section on the next page, you’ll see one from a parent who waited for two years before his child was finally diagnosed with a learning disability.
The Grade 4 teacher thought there was something wrong and suggested testing.
The Grade 5 teacher agreed.
So did the Grade 6 teacher.
And now, as another school year ends, this family finally learns what has caused the child difficulties learning — something that comes in handy when you’re trying to help the child learn.
They were lucky. I started complaining in Grade 2 that my oldest son couldn’t read well.
The pat-on-the-head reply: It’s a new system of learning. It’s whole language. He’ll catch on.
He didn’t.
By the end of the year, the vice-principal was the go-between if I wanted to speak with my son’s teacher.
That routine continued for several years. We hired tutors for him, we spent hours working with him, we begged — we even bribed him to keep on trying but the love of reading had never been fostered in him.
Finally, a gifted Grade 9 science teacher at the former John Peterson secondary lent him a book he thought my son might like. The long bus rides home and to work gave him plenty of time to make his way through it and, for whatever reason, something finally clicked.
The words were finally worth reading, so he put in the time and effort required to succeed.
It’s not a matter of the march of time that’s seen the system improve somewhat.
When I was in kindergarten, my teacher noticed early in the year there was a problem teaching me and before the snow had started to flow, a bunch of suits had come in, played some totally stupid — to a five-year-old — games and declared me “different.”
They didn’t have all those cool terms to describe those “unique” students, like they do today.
Unfortunately, parents who find themselves tripping over every stumbling block the education system has within it aren’t that uncommon.
I have many friends who have found the system not particularly kid-friendly when it comes to putting away the cookie cutters and dealing with each student as the individual he or she is.
A couple of us have shared horror stories — our horror, not the teachers’ — about the times we’ve sat in meetings while the representatives of the education system tell us all the things that are “wrong” with our children.
He can’t do algebra.
He can’t handle French grammar.
He can’t sit still.
He can’t — fill in the blank. Many of you know how these sentences end.
At a recent such meeting, I listed all the “can’ts” a medical specialist had once given us to describe the future of our youngest child.
After each “can’t,” I pointed out that he now can — and then asked if we could spend the meeting time more constructively by identifying all those “cans” and determine ways to build on them.
It’s not that these teachers and support people don’t want to see each child succeed. It’s just that the system has to be quanitified and analyzed and justified and rationalized — and there must be standards established to help determine all those signs of success.
I remember my Grade 13 history teacher pushing me to join his profession when I grew up. It’s an honourable profession, he said.
Perhaps it was then, but now, it seems to be a profession where teachers can’t truly do the jobs they want to do, can’t ignore the bureaucracy that surrounds them and just teach the child — and can never do enough to satisfy many of us parents, even though we know they’re doing the best they can.
We just always want it to be a bit better.
So perhaps in today’s education bureaucracy, two years to diagnose a learning disability isn’t shocking to teachers.
But it is shocking — and we can’t remain complacent or even more children will lose precious learning years.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
Ya gotta love happyspeak.
It’s something that isn’t easy for everyone to do — that magical way of spinning words to make something that is really not so great sound absolutely spectacular.
Take the recent press release from the Interior Health Authority.
“Ponderosa Lodge to remain open to meet needs of Kamloops seniors.”
Wow. That’s super.
The facility they’ve been threatening to shut down for years is going to stay open. Reassuring, for sure.
Read a bit more and one discovers that, actually, Ponderosa is staying open with 42 beds for seniors.
Hmmm. Doesn’t it have more beds than that number?
Don’t expect to find the figure in the press release. Nowhere does it say the IHA is actually reducing the number of beds at Ponderosa Lodge from 114 to 42.
Shutting down 72 beds just doesn’t sound nearly as positive as “meet the needs of the local community, with 42 transitional beds.”
Read on and you discover Minister of Health George Abbott sees closing 72 beds and keeping just 42 open “will help ensure our seniors continue to receive the best possible care as they move into their golden years.”
Well, yes, that too is spinning the words. His quote was actually in reference to the provincial government investing in 5,000 new beds for seniors in the province, including 190 in Kamloops this year.
Those would be beds in residential-care buildings built and run by for-profit companies, including the one mentioned in the press release‚ Ridgeview Lodge at 920 Desmond Ave. in Brocklehurst.
It’s opening on Sept. 3 and, according to the press release, “current residents at Ponderosa will move to their new home at Ridgeview Lodge or one of the other residential-care facilities in Kamloops.”
Ridgeview only provides comprehensive care for seniors. That would include 24-hour professional nursing service, 24-hour direct care by trained resident-care aides, the services of a registered dietitian to develop menus, daily recreational and music therapies, services of a physiotherapist and occupational therapist to assess resident needs, and then all those other neat little things, like secured entrances and exits, lounges, an outdoor courtyard and a mini-bus for those trips off-site.
All for the nifty price of $4,500 a month. That wasn’t included in the press release extolling the value of Ridgeview Lodge, but a quick e-mail to Dea Godfrery, human resources co-ordinator for the Baltic Properties Group — which owns and will run the new facility —came back with that information.
Let’s leave that rental amount for now — although many of you may still staring at those numbers, and the comma separating them, in complete incredulity.
Beds are being closed.
What about the staff? How many will lose their jobs?
Nothing in the press release about that, either, although it does quote Claire Ann Brodie, IHA’s director of home and community care for the Thompson-Cariboo-Shuswap region, saying: “We are fortunate to have employees who have been here for a long time providing quality care to our seniors. Our goal is to work with these individuals to accommodate them at Ponderosa wherever possible. We are optimistic that remaining staff will be able to secure employment given the current employment environment.”
Got any idea what that means?
Call IHA’s communications office and get one of its staff, Erin Toews.
Apparently, no one at IHA has any idea how many staff will be out of work with this closure. They’ve got to work with the union representing staff “to create a transition plan. There are a lot of steps to determine what it will look like.”
And, Toews adds, they won’t have any firm idea until the end of summer, when Ridgeview opens.
Although, to her credit, she did acknowledge there are only so many staff you need with just 42 beds to operate.
So here’s a rewritten version of this happy press release:
“IHA is shutting down 72 beds, sending seniors out to find a place in a facility that’s run by a private company and where the rents are in the thousands of dollars monthly. Staff will lose their jobs but, heck, B.C.’s economy is booming so they’ll find something somewhere."
It’s not happyspeak — but this is not something that inspires happiness.
