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Regina Public School Board not being very strategic

Gotta love administrators suddenly finding themselves in several thousand dollars’ worth of a money jam and choosing to get rid of arts teachers to reduce the deficit. If there’s truly a deficit of $600,000 The Regina Public School Division’s Strategic Plan lists the following strategic priorities:  engaged and successful students Equitable & safe environments Healthy & Skilled…

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Grief

There is an intercession in Anglo-Catholic services that ends with “…and anyone else for whom our prayers are desired”. I’ve always liked this bit because it drives home what my understanding of prayer should be: a personal conversation between you and whatever you need to be talking to in that moment, with the support of others. It’s a time when it feels like there’s truly a community behind you…

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Unity 1918

Our little town’s arts council has been extremely fortunate to have drawn the interest of some brilliant young folk. They wanted to do drama. Dinner theatre, they said. We were excited, they were excited… The play they chose to put on is Kevin Kerr’s Unity 1918, about a small town (in this case, Unity, Saskatchewan) in the days and weeks leading up to the end of the First World War. I thought it…

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Catch-44

Photo by Tara Winstead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-coins-on-a-yellow-paper-7111600/ Let me tell you a harrowing story. It’s not a story for the faint of heart. You may want to sit next to a loved one, turn on all the lights, wrap up in a fuzzy blanket. When our eldest turned 18 and was therefore required to file taxes, we signed him up with a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)…

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Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane

I dreamed of dancing. Here’s the thing of it: although the makeshift stage were small and we had to move through nervous event-goers and stacked crates, the music was good. Despite there being only two other folks up there, when certain songs come one, you have to move. It’s got to be some kind of universal rule (looking at you, Boney M). I don’t now remember whether this was some kind of…

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What's a little child labour among friends?

Local businesses: “we can’t find employees!” Chamber of Commerce: “how ’bout child labour?” L.Bs: “Do we have to pay, like, benefits and shit?” CoC: “Not if you only give them like 10 hours a week!” L.Bs: “We can hire SIX part time kids who don’t even NEED benefits!?” CoC: “It’s foolproof!” The Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce (and/or one of its affiliates) is recommending the provincial…

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Don't Look!

This morning on my way to work, I was part of a traffic stop/diversion by city police doing a sweep for lapsed licenses/registrations. It went smoothly and I was in and out in about five minutes. The officers who were checking my deets noted my phone mounted to my windscreen/dash (the phone was turned off; I only use it for listening to books/music and sometimes navigation, and I don’t need to…

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The People Upstairs

The house was old; the house was big – bigger in fact than it had ever been. Not much happened upstairs, in the attic, because the attic was full of dust and discarded building supplies, crumbling plaster and lath, and so many spiders. It wasn’t that the upstairs had never been used, but rather it hadn’t been used in decades. From time to time you’d pop your head up there to make sure the noises…

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The Kids Are Alright

This is what it is to have children: When The Captain was just only three, we took him to see Monsters, Inc.. His da was concerned it would be Too Scary for him, but I was confident it’d be okay. A little bit scary is good for you, I always say. The Captain was always a ridiculously happy kid. I think the first tantrum he ever threw was when he was eight. We never had the “terrible twos” (we…

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This Blessed Thing

This is a Very Long Post. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about identity. About how it may change as we age, as we emerge into our society, as we redefine ourselves, as we learn more about who we are or about who we were meant to be. This will be a very self-indulgent post, because it’s entirely about me. In this post I’m going to talk about my own sexual identity; if this isn’t your jam, that’s…

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Karaoke and Grief

Here’s the thing: I don’t remember how it came about but we were at a football game and in one end zone there was a stage. Supposedly for the half time show, because it would be irresponsible to just leave a whole stage in the end zone during play. //Irresponsible//. It was a lovely summer day, with the sun shining and just enough of a breeze to keep the wasps at bay under the shade…

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Bring Out Yer Band! *clang* Bring Out Yer Band! *clang*

It’s no secret (and possibly no surprise) that the public education system in Saskatchewan (and other parts of the country) is under attack. While governments have been claiming to increase funding to the sector, the truth is that education (and I’m mostly talking about primary and secondary education, because post-secondary is a whole different kettle of worms) has been underfunded for at least…

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Small Kindnesses

When my mom died, we asked people to bring rocks (she liked this Jewish tradition of remembrance) to put in a basket in her memory. Some folk painted rocks, some folks brought little ceramic knickknacks and gewgaws, others brought rocks from their gardens or farms, or maybe just from out in the parking lot. I don’t really like boneyards and columbariums; these places are soulless and strangely…

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Displacement

When I was in high school, I had a friend whose family home was just a few blocks from mine. Three generations of their family had lived there, which, to me, was wild. Nobody in my family had lived in the same house (or even on the same land) as their parents. I remember meeting my friend’s mum and dad, and thinking it must have been very cool for them to have lived in the mum’s childhood home,…

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School's Out

School’s Out

I was going to make this big ranty post about the SK provincial government’s attitude toward education, citing the absolute farce of our premier scolding school divisions for instituting or increasing school fees for parents while at the same time his government has been underfunding primary and secondary education (and likely post-secondary as well) for the past decade, but then it occurred to…

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Burnt Out

I woke yesterday, or maybe the day before, and heard the Radio Doctor (as in, the physician who is often interviewed on radio, and not the person who repairs ailing radios. Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter; radio repair is a noble profession. It’s just that in this instance, it was the physician who…oh look what you’ve done. You’ve got me stream-of-consciousness rambling again.…

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Iskocēs Tipiskak: A Spark in the Dark - Book Review

Iskocēs Tipiskak: A Spark in the Dark – Book Review

Have you ever had one of those experiences where something comes at you out of the dark and ends up being a pleasant surprise? A time where you weren’t expecting anything but something happened anyway? Or when a complete stranger found you and you ended up kind of grokking each other? I think of the story of the woman who called her friend or her kids or something and was asking them what their…