Another year and the most obvious observation that I can make is that I pretty much wrote nothing last year from a “blogging” perspective. Although I wrote plenty from a professional standpoint - branching out from photography into the world of freelance writing - somewhere between being a partner in a new life, keeping the phone lines of the north running smoothly, and clicking images here and there my time has mysteriously disappeared.
Proclamation: in 2008 I will write more. I have to. How else will Luke be able to call me out on all my fatherly lies when he’s sixteen?
Luke: “Dad, at what age did you have your first beer?”
Dad: “Son, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Luke: “But, dad, according to archive.org you wrote on your blog…”
Dad: “Hogwash. When I was a boy, we didn’t have the Internet…”
Seriously though, I always preach to anyone who will listen – which is admittedly a really small audience – that I think it’s so important for people to write, if not publicly, at least personally (in the form of a journal, or even just random notes). Why? Well, think about how sad the whole business of living would be if the sum of your life – what people remembered about you – was what they read off the standard obituary, or funeral card:
David A. Brosha (1977 – 2090)
Born in Alberta, lived in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Taiwan, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories before passing away in Punta Cana of acute hemorrhoids. He is survived by his wife, Erin, his son Luke, and his 14 grandchildren, which were for the most part named after the 1986 Edmonton Oilers. He will be sorely missed.
You get the picture. You live, and I like to think that one of the few things that we can offer to the bigger picture is a small picture of who we were. I know next to nothing about my deceased relatives, which is really a shame. I would love to know if my great-great-great-Grandfather had the same giant forehead as me; it would give me a focal point for my anger (“damn you Hamish – and no disrespect – but where did you get that mellon? Did you piss off a horse one time causing him to extract his revenge by kicking you in the head?). Similarly, if one of my great-great-great-great-great-aunts had an aversion to turnips, eels, and ants, it would explain a whole lot.
As for me, I would be tickled pink if one of my future grandchildren, little Jari Kurri Brosha, was able to look me up on whatever form of internet is floating around in the future (likely a wireless connection directly into the brain) and understand that I wasn’t just a born-and-died-date, but rather a strange guy who wrote way too much of his love of cheeseburgers and The Libertine’s “Can’t Stand Me Now” (great tune, by the way).
Here’s to 2008: May my next “post” not be the 2009 New Year’s summary.
January 14th, 2008
Posted by Dave
So, I have entered the realm of fatherhood with a bang.
It’s amazing that despite all you hear about having a baby, nothing really prepares you for it. It’s - at the same time - way harder and way easier than anyone ever described it.
The biggest thing is just the weird little things that you thought, oh so innocently, that you would never have to deal with in this life:
1. Your son scolding you through a series of violent scowls and roundhouse punches that you even joked about calling him Joe Louie and that you posted a video of him farting on Facebook. (I’m sure retribution will come sometime waaaay down the road… “ha, ha…now look who’s wearing diapers! Suffer, old man!”)
2. Being peed on. I really think he makes a game of it… “Dad, please change me”, he pleads. Me, being the good father I am, willingly oblige. Dirty diaper comes off and all of a sudden he’s smirking, “dad, you’re such a sucker!”. As soon as that diaper comes off, my shirt, my shorts, my change table, and anything else within a six-foot diameter is soaked. Who would have thought that someone so small could have such powerful aim.
3. The fact that you can watch television for four hours and not see or hear a single thing. Nope, too busy watching the thousand faces of a budding comedian. “Dad, and this is my ’stretching’ face….and this is my ‘I wonder what I’m going to do today’ face…and this is my ‘damn you, you don’t have a boob!’ face. He gives me the last look a lot.
4. The fact that you all of a sudden find yourself laughing at potty humour, and telling all your friends about his “accomplishments” in that department. As well, there’s nothing like the special bond formed between father and son when his doctor says something like “I’m sorry little Luke for having to check out your bits…” and you can see the twinkle in his eye, “ha ha daddy… she called my giblets bits! What kind of weirdo is she…
July 21st, 2007
Posted by Dave
Be sure to check out this month’s Reader’s Digest (July, 2007) for a great article on Yellowknife, my humble hometown.
Besides learning about a really interesting northern Canadian town, you’ll have the opportunity to see one absolutely fantastic image of two locals atop Pilot’s Monument, taken by um…some handsome guy. And if that’s not reason enough for you to purchase the magazine for yourself, nothing is…
June 30th, 2007
Posted by Dave
One of the most common questions we get these days, besides the “are you excited?” (um, yes), and “do you know the sex of the baby?” (there’s a fifty percent chance its a girl!), is the doozer….”have you picked out names yet?”
Yes, we’ve tossed around names. Many names, actually, as all parents-to-be do. So many names that I’ve started to forget which ones we consider “great” and which ones we consider “piss poor”.
One of the interesting things about picking out baby names are the names that quickly jump out at you in the “not a chance” category, either through the guilty-by-association or the way too trendy biases. To wit, some random conversations at our house over the past couple of months:
———————————
Dave, what do you think about Johnny Bob?
Johnny Bob? Hell no… that was the name of the kid who pushed me head first into the locker in the third grade. Not only that, he had a mullet. Erin, do you really want our kid to be a mullet-headed doof?
———————————-
Erin, what do you think about Sandra?
Sandra? Dave, you’re still thinking about Sandra Bullock, aren’t you? You’ve really got to get over that obsession….
———————————–
Erin, what do you think about Kristin?
No way… she shot J.R.
————————————
Dave, what do you think about Seamus?
Um, hello….every kid in his class would become a poet. Think about the rhyme. No way.
————————————
Erin, if the baby’s a boy… what do you think about naming him after one of our fathers? Better yet, what about naming after both our fathers? That would be cool…
Um, Dave.
Yes, babe?
Think about that.
I am… I think it’s cool.
Dave, you’re not thinking about it. My father’s name is Joe. Your father’s name is…Louis. Do we really need a little “Joe Louie” running around? That would be great, just great. Oh, there’s the little vachon running around… oh, look, there’s the little pastry. That’s setting our child’s future up for a great start.
Seriously, get a grip.
June 27th, 2007
Posted by Dave
I’m only slightly embarassed to admit that I’m a Canadian Idol fan, although I must say that we need a True North version of the Rock Star series that’s been running the past couple of years (with two Canadian lead singers winning!), because if I have to listen to one more schmutz sing Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” I swear I’ll put my size 10 sandals through my television.
Seriously, what’s with contestant’s thinking that they’re cool and original singing either this ballad of sap, Luther Vandross’s “Superstar” (there’s versions from about a dozen artists, and all make my ears cringe), or “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. That’s why the second that I heard that dude sing a really cool Canadian rock song, “Stereo”, by The Watchmen, he instantaneously became my favourite. The Watchmen rock…their song, “All Uncovered”, ranks as one of my all-time favourite songs.
As mad as I get watching dolt after dolt singing sickly pop songs, I can’t help but laugh, both hysterically and, um, sympathetically at my wife’s anger when she watches Canadian Idol, although it’s entirely of a different nature. You see, my wife has a gripe with Sass Jordan.
Sass Jordan was at one time a pretty decent Canadian music artist of her own right. She had, like one CD with five or six hit songs with “Believe” in the title, and I will be the first to admit that I got her CD free off the Columbia Record Club’s “11 CDs Free!” offer, along with other masterpieces, like Vanilla Ice and the soundtrack to the television show The Heights (think “How Can I Talk To An Angel?”). But, as quickly as the Columbia Record Club faded with the advent of MP3s, so did Sass Jordan, until we had to endear her every summer on Canadian Idol.
Anyways, back to the point: my wife thinks Sass Jordan has the commentary skills of a tick-infested rooster. Seriously. She (my wife) turns visibly upset as Sass offers yet another masterpiece of music analysis, like “wow… all I can say is, like, you’re the MAN”, or “you’re a smoking FIRE! Wait, you’re smoking hot and all the fire hoses will want to spray their water on YOU!” (those aren’t real quotes, but they sum up what my brain translates her saying). As bad as Paula Abdul is on American Idol, Sass is that much worse on Canadian Idol. If they put them in a room, together, for an infinite amount of time typing on an infinite amount of QWERTY keyboards, the chimpanzees would still beat them to punch (for a coherent thought).
The only remedy for my wife’s pain is to turn the channel. We turn the channel a lot… exactly 11 times tonight (the number of contestants with Sassy commentary).
Have a wonderful Tuesday.
June 26th, 2007
Posted by Dave
After living in our own house, now, for the past year and a half, I was thinking the other day how I would never live in an apartment again.
The apartments we’ve had have always had balconies, but there’s no way a little 5×8 balcony could ever take the place of a nice, expertly-constructed deck, or the pleasure of talking on a daily basis to your front lawn, the lawn that you planted, encouraging it, “come on, little blades… spread. I command you to spread!”
Another distinct benefit of having your own house is that you no longer have wish that your upstair neighbours would invest in a case of WD-40. Seriously. The only moans of your neightbours that you should be subject to on a regular basis is the moans of why your yard looks better than theirs.
Personally, however, the single biggest benefit that I see in having your own house is the music. I’m a man of music, and I love blasting it. Which is why it really sucked when I lived in an apartment, always having to be considerate and either keeping my Radiohead and Pearl Jam below “1″ on the volume scale, or confine my ears to little grubby headphones. It doesn’t sound like anything that painful to have to content with, but if you saw the painful looks that Erin would give me when she would walk into a room, see me rocking out all airband-style, and not even hear what tune I was expertly rocking out to for context, you would know that my pain is real.
Having a house is so sweet - as you can see - for the sake of music, if nothing else. Now, when I scream (sing?) “fallen leaves….fallen leaves…. fallen leaves on the ground!”, blasted at a 55-level on my Bose, the only pained looks I get are more of the why? variety (as in, “why do you continue to make a fool of yourself?), as opposed to “why are you rocking out to no music?”.
Peeshaw, says I, as I have to enjoy my house-and-music freedom while I can. In only days (hours?), there’s going to be a new boss in town, and I have a feeling he or she won’t appreciate my musical stylings as much as I do.
June 24th, 2007
Posted by Dave
Erin and I were sitting this evening talking about, again, the dogs in our little section of the “Niven Basement” and how none of our neighbours seem to appreciate the concept of leashes or cleaning up after their pets after they do their business on our lawn. That, I just discussed in one of my last blog posts, and I don’t mean to rehash that, despite the fact that it’s a constant source of annoyance.
Our conversation turned towards how things would have been “handled” in the old days, which brought up some fond memories of my mother when I was a child growing up. Now, before anyone associated, related, or connected in any way, shape, or form to the SPCA start writing down details and building a case, let me just offer the disclaimer that this was in the 80s… and people were weird back then. The following story does not reflect one ioda my mother’s opinions towards animals at large, as she currently owns somewhere between one and three cats - depending on which one of my brothers and sisters are over to visit - and she’s done a wonderful job of raising us six animals over the years. Always with love.
Back when I was a boy, every two or three years our family - living in the dusty confines of northern Alberta - would all pile into our 1979 Vanguard motor home, bought second hand from someone for a small bundle of cash and a rusty Pinto, I think, and head on off down the road on a six or seven day epic journey to the East Coast, where we would spend several weeks splashing around the Atlantic ocean in our family’s cottage in Bayfield, Nova Scotia. To say that we resembled the Clampetts wouldn’t be an under-estimation.
The journey itself was full of lots of tales; I can remember the time we pulled out of a gas station in Saskatchewan and only realized, after one of my little brothers or sisters looked out the window and saw this angry woman chasing after the motor home, that we had forgotten my mother. But the journey was only half the tale.
Once we arrived at the cottage, things were even more chaotic. We spent our days torn between digging up piles of cohaugs (insanely large clams) to be eaten later with butter and a mouthful of sand and begging our parents to bring us to the Snow Queen, which was a small amusement park that combined the pleasures of the best feed of liver and onions on the East Coast with Go-Carts. Times couldn’t have been better.
Our parents also enjoyed the cottage, with the exception of two things: we drug enough sand from the beach into the motor home to build another island in the Indonesia archipelago, and this had to be eventually swept out, and, well, the squirrels.
Yes, the squirrels, those cute little furballs of fun and destructions.
Our breed of Bayfield squirrel was unlike the “nice” squirrels that you see at parks and try to crack acorns with their chattery little teeth. Oh, no… these Bayfield squirrels were trained and organized like a Al Queda terrorist organization. Just when you weren’t looking they would sweep into the cottage, in small kamikaze teams, and wreack havoc on anything and everything in their way. A box of Cheerios…gone. Well, not gone. More like ripped and spread out across the cottage in precise little piles; small cairns of “eff you, big hairy people”. Couches were like dental floss to these monsters; full garbage bags like cotton candy.
In any case, my mother got pissed. Really pissed. And I can’t say I blamed her.
Yes, my calm, loving, nurturing mother who loves to laugh, and you really couldn’t see her hurting a fly (it was always the threat of the wooden spoon that made us such wonderful children…she never actually used it), got pissed at a bunch of organized and evil squirrels. And I’m proud to say that she “took matters into her own hands”.
For matters of protecting my mother’s good sense of dignity, I won’t elaborate further, but if anyone ever strolling the Bayfield road comes across a rusty pellet gun, my number is 1-867-92………
June 21st, 2007
Posted by Dave
I know that we’re all supposed to be “nice people”. You know, the whole “be good to thy neighbour” speil that instructs us to carry bags of groceries for little old ladies, hold the door open for a delivery driver precariously balancing boxes stacked higher than his head, and let smelly little kittens lick your hand when you would rather, quite frankly, not.
And really, I do consider myself a good person. I’ve donated money to charity, I try to lend a sympathetic ear when I know someone is going through hardship, and I always, always share my good taste in music with those who will listen.
But really…wouldn’t you - just once - like to gently nudge, with the shiny bumper of your Ford Escape, the beligerant scrub that jumps out into the crosswalk when you have the green light and then gives you a dirty look, and perhaps a timely flip of his middle finger, when you’re doing nothing more than waiting for the moron to get out of your way?
June 20th, 2007
Posted by Dave
The one thing that I’ve noticed as I get closer and closer to fatherhood, besides the fact that there’s now packages of wet wipes and Huggies in my office where there wasn’t, before, is the fact that my wife is getting more and more stubborn.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “well Dave… that’s certainly not a very nice thing to say about your wife, the future mother of your child, the woman with the patience of Job who has put up with you all these years”. All things in the previous quotation marks being true doesn’t take away from the fact that she is still stubborn as a mule.
She’s pregnant, for crying out loud. 38 weeks pregnant, at that. Yet I still walk around bedroom corners to find her doing things like standing up on a chair watering plants. Or down on her knees dusting some corner that hasn’t seen the light of day since we moved into this place. Or carry big loads of groceries into the house. Basically, just things that I don’t feel a pregnant woman should do…and things that I think that she should get me to do. I mean, I don’t make these kinds of offers very frequently.
I said to her tonight, “Erin… are you going to be this stubborn when you’re a mother?”
She looked at me, and then looked at one of my favourite t-shirts, the one that says “Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult”, the t-shirt that I love, and replied “…only if you stop wearing that ridiculous t-shirt”.
Get rid of my t-shirt? I would never….
June 18th, 2007
Posted by Dave
The one bad thing I’ve come to notice about having a lucious, golf course-grade lawn oozing with soft blades of sweet green grass is that Erin and I are not the only ones who appreciate it.
You would think - naturally - that having others appreciate your lawn would be a good thing: I mean, why go through the obvious embarrasment of trucking around your yard in cargo shorts and gum boots, spending the time to pick up every dime-sized piece of fluff and neighborhood garbage, if it wasn’t going to be appreciated by the masses?
Our problem is that our lawn looks too good to too many, both man and beast. Man, I have no problem with… unless it’s a kid on a bike; it’s the beasts that bring me to those times that I come home from work to find my wife with her fist in the air, screaming “damn youuuuuuuuuuu…….”
Yes, the dogs in my little section of down see the bright green of my front yard as an open invitation to squat and do their “bidness”. If I really thought about it, I wouldn’t blame them: squat down on dusty, dirty sharp gravel or rub their haunches on pristine softness. But my logic goes out the window when I see my sea of green interrupted by piles of brown. Seriously, I don’t do my business on their territory… I would appreciate the same respect.
June 17th, 2007
Posted by Dave
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