Fire in my blood

50

March 30, 2016 – When Kirk picked me up at work yesterday, all I said was “I really need a drink”….

Have you ever really regretted the decision to do something that you know will take work off others, make life easier for others and harder for yourself, because someone somewhere made a shitty ass decision to foist something on others with an unrealistic timeline?

I did. A few weeks ago. We got hit with some unrealistic reporting. Really a case of the left hand forgetting about the right hand and then shooting the right foot while the insult was fresh.

I offered to take on the task of collecting and compiling everything to meet a compliance deadline and take the task mostly off of 19 others.

Today I was almost in tears of frustration after one of the people I was trying to help was pretty much yelling at me on the phone and saying “I don’t care, they can arrest me!!! I won’t do it, I don’t have the time or the staff, take it to the Directors. I don’t care.”

Fuck.

All I wanted was three relatively easy numbers…how much of X, Y, and Z do you estimate you used in 2015 so we can report it? And I pretty much got a “Fuck off”.

I wanted to tell him that I was trying to do him a favour, that the expectation is that all facilities have to file on their own, but that I took it on this year to reduce the load….but thanks for the abuse.

I called another staff member there and (after she said she’d heard him raging at me) she said she’d try to get me the numbers I needed, but I have a hunch the fellow above her will know I called her and she will get shit on too.

Perfect lead up to my performance review.

Here I am feeling happy that my paperwork came through and I signed my letter of offer yersterday, I am officially employed for another year.

I’m happy about that….right? There are those moments that I wonder if I should be…

I should be….right?????

I reminded myself that one person doesn’t colour a program.

On the upside, I managed to get what I needed, with a few arguments and a bit of cajoling, from the other 18. There was some luck involved, and I might just get all this crap filed by the end of the day tomorrow, in time for the regulatory deadline.

No good deed goes unpunished.

So when Kirk picked me up, he did take me for that drink. And when we came home he went out into the courtyard with some crumpled paper.

I asked if we were having a BBQ, he said no.

I asked if he was cleaning the BBQ, he said no.

I asked if we were having a fire….he smiled…..and I lit up.

Fire scares some people. It holds a dear place in my heart. I have so many good memories that include fire.

When I was very little I remember going ice fishing. The fire would always be burning at the edge of the lake, ready to warm me after laying on the ice staring down the hole, dropping corn kernels in to attract any fish….I usually ended up eating most of the corn, but oh how I loved seeing those fish drift by in the cold and gloomy waters under the ice. Eventually I’d become cold and run back to the shore to melt my boots against the fire.

I used to sit in the backyard, on the brick patio under my bedroom window, and stack matches in a little tiny bonfire, then I’d use a magnifying glass to set the teeny pyre alight.

My grandparents used to have an old oil drum in the yard behind the kitchen on the farm. It was the burn barrel and whenever Granddad went to light the fire to burn the waste, I was right on his heels, seeking the heat of the flames on my face.

My Mom used to love a good burn. When we’d go to the cabin she’d practically drag trees out of the forest and dad would dutifully build her a fire, which she’d sit and gaze into happily for hours. Poking and prodding, adding logs and keeping it going.

My Dad BBQd year round when I lived at home. I used to offer to light the thing, and I’d go out, close the lid, open the gas, and then open the lid and toss a match in. It’s a wonder I never broke the windows….

I remember going out to “The Burnout” out of College Heights. A clearcut a little bit out of town, huge bonfires of slash would be set alight and the kids would drink and party. The police would sit at the road out and monitor those driving out….I usually went out in the back of someone’s pickup. I wonder if kids still do that. Probably deemed ridiculously unsafe now.

The best fire ever was one at my brother’s place in Cranbrook. He had been clearing some of his land over the summer and fall and creating a massive pile. When the snow began to fall he tossed a tarp over it. When we came for Christmas he dug it out, poured starter over it, and shot a bear banger into it. It practically exploded into flames and it burned for 24 hours or more. I’d never seen my Mom so happy with a fire.

So yes, fire is in the blood of my family, at least it was in my parents and it certainly is in my brother’s and my blood.

When Kirk started that fire in our courtyard last night, it didn’t take 20 minutes before I owned it and he just sat back and smiled and said, “I’ve never known a family with fire in their blood like yours”.

I just smiled and adjusted a log.

(116 Photos in 2016 – 110. Something that makes you smile)