Circle of Life

A week's vacation has come and gone.  Sigh.  I know that quite often people are actually kind of eager to get back to work after a week away.  Feel rested and ready to get back at it etc.  For me, not so much. 

On a brighter note, my life won't be completely devoid of meaning as long as I can keep drinking for one and a half.  The twins are now nearly two weeks old and their slug-like, squirming and leaking phase is in full swing.  What's so cute about babies?  Really, someone explain.

However, also feeling rather depressed.  With life, as usual, comes death.

First, Hazel, Chris' grandmother, died during my hiatus, leaving some to wonder (with perhaps some fear) whether either of the twins will grow up possessed by the spirit of an eccentric and sometimes surly old lady (RIP).  Newborns seem like such easy targets for a soul on the hunt for reincarnation.

Next assignment, therefore, is for me to enjoy a Tom Collins or two (Hazel's drink of choice in younger years), and perhaps progress to Freixenet (sparkling wine being her favourite in latter years).  I may also play Jingle Bells on a Casio keyboard (an accomplishment she took particular pride in after a couple of glasses of Freixenet).  And when I say Casio, I probably mean Yamaha, because that is the brand of keyboard actually in my possession.  Perhaps I can play Jingle Bells once through after each drink?  We'll see how it goes.  Would first have to pull some sheet music for Jingle Bells, and then learn to play it.  Reading sheet music and transferring it on sight to sweet melodies on an 80's era keyboard is not one of my skills.

All this in the hope that if I allow the spirit of our dearly departed to inhabit my body for an evening, perhaps I can release it somewhere appropriate rather than anywhere near the bodies of innocent babies.  I'm not really sure of an appropriate place to release the restless spirit of a woman who kept her underwear in the freezer to keep spiders out, but hopefully her loving grandson can offer up suggestions.

Hazel's death, however, has been somewhat trumped - at least for me - by Jack Layton's very sad passing.  In with one Jack, out with another.  Earlier today I read his final letter to Canadians*, literally weeping.  Not uncontrollably or anything, but there were definitely tears.  A grocery store clerk announced to me as I was buying some cereal that she didn't know much about politics but she sort of wished he would come back to life for a minute just so she could give him a thumbs up and say "Good job!" - which I thought was nice.  He was an inspirational leader and the embodiment of the possibility of positive change - and I won't say anymore because if you want to depress yourselves with detail there's plenty of newsfeed for that. There are leftist hearts breaking a little all over. 

I'm going to find some time over the next few days to hoist a drink or two in honour of the politician Canadians voted as the one they would most like to have a beer with.  I won't do anything to protect the twins from the possible proximity of his restless soul, either, because if a little of his spirit finds its way into either of them, it probably wouldn't be such a bad thing.  Which isn't meant as a shot at Hazel, but I'm not sure that she's the stuff that folk heroes are made of.

Anyway, his constituency office is only half a block from my apartment, so I'm off to sign the condolences book, and likely get choked up all over again.

*http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/08/22/pol-layton-last-letter.html