Ted and I have been on the west coast for two weeks. At Saltspring Island I spent a week as a ‘mentor’ in a retreat/workshop for mystery writers, and after that we spent some time visiting friends in Victoria and Vancouver. We came home to province with serious flooding problems, particularly in the southwest. Here in Regina, the rainfall has been benevolent – everything is very green and when we took our dogs for their morning walk yesterday, we saw pelicans swimming on Wascana creek.
My friend Marjorie, who lives around the corner, had emailed to alert me to their presence. The creek offers a congenial home to many creatures: ducks, cormorants, red winged blackbirds, beavers, otters, the ubiquitous Canada geese, but these are our first pelicans. Yesterday after school three of my grandchildren and I went down to the creek to check them out. We arranged to meet up with Marjorie on her way back from her work as a Court of Appeals Judge.
Marjorie and I have been friends for twenty-five years. She’s the smartest person I know, but much as I love her, she never struck me as being an adult to whom children would be drawn. I know many lawyers who hyperventilate at the mention of her name, but she is hands down the favourite adult of the young Bowens, so we were all happy to have her join us.
I’m always intrigued by the transformation in our grandchildren when Marjorie appears. The kids are with us every day after school, so much of our time together is spent in companionable silence. When Marjorie comes, everyone jockeys for position. The girls, who are 12 and 10 and ½ tell wickedly funny stories about school and boast of accomplishments. Yesterday, Lena had been in a track meet for all the Regina Catholic Schools. She won a 4th in the broad jump and 8th in something else. She had ribbons to prove it. The ribbons plus the fact that, for reasons known only to Lena, she participated in her track and field events wearing dangling earrings, a tee shirt saying “I’m small but sweet” and pajama bottoms imprinted with doggy footrints and the legend “Bite Me”, gave her an edge in the Marjorie sweepstakes. However, Madeleine, Lena’s older sister is not without weapons. Her French is excellent, as is Marjorie’s, so Madeleine attracted Marjorie’s attention by expressing a longing to see Paris, one of Marjorie’s favourite cities. Ben, their almost five year old brother, had the most potent weapon, he simply grabbed Marjorie’s hand and talked non-stop for our forty minute walk.
We took the kids to Mac’s to get slurpees. Marjorie was wowed as Madeleine made her brother his favourite ‘swamp slurpee’ – comprised of shots of each of the fifteen slurpy flavours. Refreshed, we went home and Ted and Marjorie and I had a glass of wine out on the deck. Then it was Ted’s and my turn to compete. I told stories of Saltspring; Ted told stories of Victoria (where Marjorie spends three months every winter). Ted was in charge of the wine so he won easily.
We all had a great time.
No one spoke of pelicans.