Hello all....

So I have been receiving some interesting e-mails over the last few days, ranging from those referencing the fact that I have stopped answering the phone, to those accusing me of blowing off my previously arranged social outings. People, people- hold up! There's a perfectly good explanation for all this!

I've been abducted.

Well, that might sound like a bit of a stretch, but it sure felt like it. It happened like so:

After the STIR potluck on Saturday I ended up hanging out with a friend, which resulted in me arriving home at the wee little hour of three AM. On my way to my bed for some much-needed ZZZ's, I happened to glance over at my answering machine, which was displaying an ominously blinking "4". Hmmmm..... FOUR whole messages? That's so unusual! We're usually so unloved! And FOUR whole messages that Heidi missed and didn't happen to check? My curiosity was piqued, and I unknowingly unleashed the chain of events that would lead to my abduction.

3 messages from my mom, and 1 from my uncle later, and I was waking my mother up at the unholy hour of 3AM (which she NEVER lets me do!) to discuss the mayhem in which I was about to find myself. As it had happened, my aunt who lives in Ontario had needed to go and be with her father, who was quite sick and for whom this week might be the last. This left my uncle with 3 kids and a full-time job. Which just isn't gonna work. Oh yeah, and he leaves for a business trip on Saturday... in Germany.

He was ready and more than eager to have me on the next plane out to Ontario, which was leaving in less than 9 hours, to be an impromptu mom/nanny for the week. Problem: I have no licence. I was stupid enough to let mine lapse and, apparently, you can't fix that at 5AM on a Sunday morning. "Not a deal-breaker," my uncle insisted, "besides, you won't have a vehicle anyways." Alright. So, 6 hours later, instead of being en-route to Riverwood's second service, I was en route to the Winnipeg airport, on 3 hours of sleep and jacked up on coffee.

[Note: I think I've been borrowing a page from Julienne's book, as I had been idly wondering what I should do with my week; with exams over, I had no excuse to stick around in Winnipeg (other than my thrilling social life), and yet I had this nagging concern that going home so early in December might be a recipe for disaster, as at this stage in my quirky life I think I might be easier to love from a distance. Without the mess and disaster that constantly surrounds me. My mother thinks otherwise, but give her 2 weeks with me, and we'll see who's sick of who.

ANYWAYS, apparently idle wondering sounds dangerously like prayer (especially aloud), and so God solved my "what to do this week" problem in His most unconventional manner yet.]

My life for the past three days has pretty much been the equivalent of Mommy Boot Camp. Rigorous. And challenging. With early mornings. I mean early mornings. As in between 6-6:30 (at this point, if you know me very well at all, you're not even reading because you're too busy rolling around with laughter at me and screaming "THERE IS JUSTICE IN THE UNIVERSE!" if you happen to have it out for me for something).

And cooking. I've been cooking. Oh, the things I've cooked. So far it's been pot roast and meatloaf. Both of them turned out pretty well to my wonder and amazement! Although that doesn't mean the kids will eat them...

Speaking of kids... who are they?

Well, first up, we have Ben, the eldest at 7-going-on-8-this-month. He's in grade 2. Ben is a strong-willed child, who is, for all intents and purposes, a vegetarian, as his circle of liked and edible foods continues to dwindle on a weekly basis (though, apparently he eats chicken nuggets). Solution? Milk with egg-yolks sneakily mixed in, seeds, nuts, and toast... lots of toast.

Then we have the twins, William and Leah, who are 4, in junior kindergarten, and, let's be honest.... adorable.

William has pretty much the biggest and cutest eyes I've ever seen, and he can work it. He's pretty much the only person who actually EATS all of the fantastic meals I've been whipping up, and still goes for seconds. He's also the one who unknowingly has me in stitches with some of the stuff that comes out of his mouth.

As heard Monday morning over breakfast dishes: "I always have my cereal. Even on Chinese New Years." (you're going to need to imagine that said in the most solemn and informative manner, and with all those R's sounding like W's. Yeah, NOW you get it. Awwww!)

And on Tuesday afternoon while I was mixing up some meatloaf.

Me- "I bet your mom makes a pretty mean meatloaf."

William- "Yeah... without looking on the computer!"

(Alright, so it's a sign of my generation that I google recipes... sue me!)

And then there's the dear and darling Leah, the other half of the dangerous duo. She... reminds me a lot of me. Or how I imagine, and all reports confirm, I was as a kid. She's always got her nose in a book, although she can't read. But that doesn't stop her from reproducing the general gist of the pages, with some colorful variations and an adorably business-like tone. She tends to eat fairly well, although on Tuesday I made the oh-so-fatal error of putting her meatloaf too close to her rice, not knowing that "separation is key". This resulted in my meatloaf getting the cold shoulder from 2 out of 3 cousins, although Ben wasn't even really a contender. Whatever, I thought it was hella tight. 1

Anyways, all three of them are pretty darn good kids, and if there's anyone you should be concerned about, it's me. Although, yesterday was the big day... Kelly on her own from morning till night. No dad to help with bedtime and reading and brushing teeth and tucking in. It was all me. (Dad, or Uncle David rather, had to work late.)

Surprisingly enough, the day went off without a hitch. No big fights over homework; no big fights at all, actually! Supper was, in my opinion, an unparalleled success, as everyone ate more than milk and there were no glaring errors in my food preparation or plating choices, which is borderline miraculous, as trying to navigate the food preferences of my cousins is, as my uncle describes it, a minefield.

Having, in my humble opinion, passed this ever-essential life-skills test, I can only reflect on the day's work, and echo my mother's wise words that children are, indeed, the best birth control. That's right folks, you read it here first: I don't plan on spawning any young Kellylings in the immediate-to-near future. But it's good to know that when they say "little anklebiters" they aren't being literal- I don't think.

The moral of this story is: kids are wonderful, entertaining, and a blessing. But do not awaken love until it so desires. Or you'll have them running around sooner than you know what to do with them. Which is fine for a week, but let's not go biting off more than we can chew just yet.

Everything in time. For me, my week in mommying will soon be coming to a close, and I look forward to returning to the university student lifestyle I know and love, which consists of sleeping through every morning religiously, microwaved food, being too poor to eat meat, and my pesky roommate (who's the closest thing to a child I have!)

It's now time to go pick up William and Leah from school, so that's all for me. In conclusion, keep your pants on, folks! 2

~Kelly in Ontario

There are points, I presume for every commuter, when public transit just gets old.

Those points might occur more frequently in a city whose flatness, windiness and all-round coldness is world-renowned.

I reached one such point today.

I should explain:
The onset of winter always makes me somewhat bitter. I can recall with twisted humor my delighted reaction several weeks ago when we recieved our first grand and glorious snowfall; I couldn't wait to get out and frolic in that refreshing blanket of white! And frolic I did! (Subtly, though, on my way to class). But my true colors showed when I left the school that evening, in the darkness of a wintery 7:30, and waited a full hour to catch a bus home, as the roads were a zoo and apparently even the all-powerful Winnipeg Transit can't hack it in a pseudo-blizzard.

I've never claimed to love the winter. I've always maintained that the only thing it's good for is snowboarding. And EVEN snowboarding may not have what it takes to justify four months of this beastliness. Uugh. After a year of escapism in Seattle, this just bites.

Tonight I spent 20 minutes standing on the street corner outside my house waiting for a long-overdue bus. My toes had frozen to the point of painfulness, and my kneecaps had long since ceased shivering and now were unresponsive. I had that inner ache going where you're carrying a bookbag and trying to somehow conserve internal heat, and you tense up a particular set of muscles to the point of irritation.

After 20 minutes of staring oh-so-bleakly up darkened streets, peering into indiscriminate headlights looking for a glimmer of hope, finally a bus arrived. Actually, two buses simultaneously arrived. One was, I presume, the one I'd been waiting for for twenty frostbite-inducing minutes, while the other one was happily on schedule. I picked the latter out of bitterness to the former (and also because it would take me about a block closer to my final destination). A swell of injustice rose in me as I sat down on the bus, realizing that it would take far longer than the 3 minutes of relative warmth I would be recieving from this bus ride to thaw out my toes. I settled for waving and banging my feet around in an attempt to restore vitality or at least basic responsiveness. The trip culmintaned in a straight-legged run (due in part to the unresponsiveness of my kneecaps and in part to the stiffness of my jeans), and a good 5-minute curl-up-in-a-blanket-on-the-couch-and-whine-fest, before assuming the duties of the evening.

Later, after a study pow-wow at my friends' place, I set out to make the return trip. The ever-so-gentlemanly Chris Stein walked me to the bus stop, where I peered around, surveying my options and the likelihood of a bus coming in the near future at 1AM on Pembina. After bidding Chris goodbye, I decided to just walk, gauging that perhaps my legs might freeze slightly less while walking than they previously had while waiting inanimately for a bus.

So walk I did; and it wasn't that bad! It seemed to have warmed up some since my previous trip, and either way, my motivation and longing for home and warmth kept me going.

As I came off the other side of the Bishop-Grandin overpass and neared my apartment, I heard a car slow beside me, and some male voice addressing me. "Oh goody," I thought, "just what a girl needs a block from her house at 1AM on the streets of Winnipeg in the dead of winter.... creepers!" So I tried to ignore this voice, but it re-addressed me and in the end I decided that I would simply have to look over, as the "creeper" was not discouraged.

To my great relief, coasting beside me was not the drunken, lame loser "cruising" in his Chevette that I'd expected, but rather two gentlemen from the Winnipeg police force (on-duty), whose idea of a good Monday night shift is offering chilly young women on foot a ride! I smiled and responded that I was very nearly home, and for the first time that night, I felt warm on the streets of Winnipeg.

I have a feeling that my on-again, off-again love affair with public transit will experience many more ups and downs before this winter is through, but we'll make it out alright. Someone as richly blessed as I am in so many small and large ways can't hold out against my affection forever, and it seems that just when I am tempted to give in and grow cold, get jaded or give up, along comes a little nudge in the right direction, something or someone that brings me just that much closer to being back to my more open-hearted and optimistic self.