Amsterdam
I just found out last night that Iris has been asked to go to Amsterdam this summer. She and a few other senior girls have been invited to dance at a children's dance conference. Very exciting! I have few details at this point. I only know she'll be there at the same time Joe and I are in Spain. Today is her 17th birthday by the way. What a great birthday present!
The Definition of Stupid
OK, I've written about being a child, a teenager, a young adult and a professional. All that's left is wife and mother. Hmmmm - which to choose? I'll go with mother. This is a story about how seriously hormones can mess with a person's brain waves.
It was a cold February morning in 1989, and just the previous week I had returned home from the hospital after giving birth to Iris. I woke up around mid-morning to a freezing house. There wasn't even the hint of an ember in the wood stove.
Not a problem. Good Yukon woman that I was, I would just make another fire. I got some kindling and newspaper, struck a match, and waited for it to catch. However the kindling must have been damp, because it wouldn't burn. I tried for what must have been close to 20 minutes, by which time I was getting very frustrated and angry. I also knew I was running out of time...Iris would be awake soon looking to nurse. Alan? He must have been taking a nap too.
In an act of desperation, I decided to pour cooking oil on the wood. At first it looked like that was going to work, but then the fire sputtered out again. Now what?
Suddenly the image came to me of the red gas cans sitting in our garage. Aha! Time to bring out the big guns. I grabbed the jerry can that felt the most full, ran with it into the living room, thrust it towards the open door of the wood stove, and proceeded to pour a good helping of gasoline onto the kindling. A couple of seconds later, there was a big whoosh (a really big whoosh in fact!) and the wood was burning! Finally!
Then I looked down at the jerry can and with some horror saw that fire was coming out of the spout. It suddenly hit me that best case scenario, I was about to end up with third degree burns over much of my body. Worst case scenario: I was about to blow myself and my children into a million pieces.
I did the only thing I could think of...I raced downstairs with the flaming jerry can, through the garage and into the back yard. I deposited the can in the snow, as far away from the house as possible. Then I ran back and watched what would happen from the patio doors.
Miraculously, the can didn't explode. The fire burned off the gas around the spout; then went out. I was burn-free. Trembling, yes. Shaking violently in fact. But burn-free. And my babies were burn-free.
I don't know what else went on in the world that day. But whatever it was must have happened without the aid of angels, because all the angels in all the heavens were with me and my kids that morning, working desperately to counteract my hormone-induced stupidity.
9:10:46 AM 
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