A view from the sky tram in Jasper on a family holiday
It was a normal Thursday morning on a lovely April day. At nine the doorbell rang, interrupting my morning plans. I grabbed my mask and hurried to answer the door. Who could be coming so early in the morning? Because of Covid restrictions, we weren’t getting much company so I had no idea what to expect. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door and no one was there, but our front landing was covered with parcels. I looked out to the road to see if the delivery truck was still there so I could stop it before it drove off. Too late, it must already have driven away. All was quiet. No sign of anyone. Upon checking the top boxes, I noticed they were all from Amazon. They must have been delivered by mistake, but they were addressed to us, some for me and some for my husband. We hadn’t ordered anything recently, let alone a front porch full. How are we going to get them returned? I immediately called to my husband, 'Hurry, come here. You’ll want to see this’. We were more than a little concerned. We must phone Amazon and get this straightened out. First we had better check our credit card statement and see if there were any unexplained charges. I hurried inside and quickly turned on my laptop to go to the bank website. We had recently dealt with a credit card fraud of several hundred dollars against us. Now this. The phone rang. I answered it to find one of our sons calling. Usually, I am delighted to talk to any of them, but I was anxious to get back to the computer. He asked if I had seen his post on our family group chat on Facebook Messenger. I wasn’t wanting to chit chat about our Messenger page. ‘No. I hadn’t seen it’ I quickly responded. He explained that he had posted that a hacker had broken into Amazon’s files. I wanted to get off the phone and get back to checking out our credit card. Even if a hacker might be at the source of our problem, we still had to get it straightened out. I told him about the unexpected deliveries at our door and our concern. We needed to see what we could do to straighten things out. I don't remember how he suggested it, but he thought I should check again for something outside. Still anxious not to be detoured from checking our credit card, I agreed to take a quick minute and look again as he was asking. I guess I could do that for him. As I stepped outside, he (the son who phoned) stepped around from the side of the house with his video camera. Oh boy, I should have guessed this was one of his gags, but why? And then it hit me. It was a lovely April day, April 1st to be exact. It was his April Fool’s joke and this was one of his best, and we had fallen for it ‘hook line and sinker’. And if there was a hacker, we know who he was. This son stole our peace. He confessed that he had planned it for about a year (probably from the last April Fools Day). I remembered that some months before he had asked if we had any empty boxes we could spare. I handed over some boxes that had come with Amazon orders. He had taped them back up and used them for the top of the piles. For the rest of these props, he had ‘begged and borrowed’ boxes from other family members and even some of his employees. Who else might have known his intention or did he work alone? He does live on the other side of the city and had to drive over before work to set his game plan in place. He made a point of parking his vehicle down the street so we wouldn’t notice it. Had we gone as far as picking up any of the boxes, we might have noticed they were empty, but we were too caught up in his grand scale of delivery. Oh well, we all had a good laugh. What some people will come up with to have fun on a lovely April Day!
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My friend since childhood, Kaytee, just turned EIGHTY. Another long-time friend from a year or so later, Kathy, will be eighty in February. Myself, I will be eighty in the summer. This begs the question, ‘Are we there yet?’ For the last five decades, starting at age thirty, I have phoned Kathy around her birthday and made the enquiry, ‘Do you remember how mature we thought we were going to be at thirty?’ and we would have a good laugh together. This continued most every decade. I might have missed one, but we continued hoping that when we reached the next decade, we would have it all together (whatever that means). There is a lady that we know, Dora, who is fifteen years our senior. She turned ninety-five in August. For years I have been saying that I want to be like Dora when I grow up. She has traveled the world, ridden a camel and she swam off the coast of Spain. By the way, friends took her canoeing for her ninety-fifth birthday. I saw a picture of her paddling her own canoe. Who knows what else she is going to be up to accomplish. She is socially active, as much as you can be during Covid. Apparently, she says she is not ready to move on to the next life because she still has much she wants to do. She keeps very busy with doing family history research and related activities. She has many strengths and qualities that I admire. I would still like to be like Dora when I grow up. Don’t tell anyone, but among other things, I am studying European history in anticipation of traveling around Europe with one of our sons whose heart is there. Back to the question, ‘Are we there yet?’ it is much on my mind. There is just nine months left for me to reach the next decade milestone. I have my own definition about what it means to be mature. For me, a lot of it means to be self-disciplined in many areas that I feel are important. You probably have your own ideas. I have been working hard to close the gap from where I am now to what I want to achieve in maturity. Don’t imagine for even a minute that I intend to stop living at eighty. Like Dora, there is still much I intend to do. I must warn Kathy that I plan on phoning her by her birthday and I hope this time we aren’t laughing, rather rejoicing. I know she has accomplished much over the many years I have known her. We both want to leave a legacy worth remembering that will strengthen our families from the past, in the present and for the future. But, We Are Not Quite There Yet. |
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