Carole’s mother catches her flight from Timmins to Whitehorse today. Unfortunately, she’ll have to wait in the Vancouver airport overnight before boarding the plane for that last leg. They also make you claim your checked luggage for evening layovers, but at least YVR has some pleasant waiting areas — including benches that don’t have armrests all the way along so that you can actually stretch out — and lots of West Coast First Nations’ art to admire.

If colouring books actually contained drawings of mothers-in-law, I'm sure they would look something like this, but perhaps even more spangly.

Once she arrives, she’ll have a chance to rest and recover in the room we formerly called “the office,” but should be properly named “the how-high-can-we-stack-unnecessary-possessions room.” This week’s task is to convert those two things into simply “the guest bedroom, filled with bright blue bins that are, yes, stacked to the ceiling.”

Then comes the awkward decision of what to call my mother-in-law: Mom? Lorraine? La belle-mère? That lady trapped under the fallen bright blue bins?

I think I’ll skip the French option, as the various forms of address for types of mothers is confusing to the English speaker with only high-school-level bilingual credits:

I believe I’ll stick with trusty old “Lorraine.” Bienvenue au Yukon.

Unlike many, I’m averse to writing about personal matters on my blog. For the most part, I stick to jargoned wisecrackery.

I’ve been in Toronto for the past two weeks to be with my father, as has my brother, Iain, who flew in from Korea. My father, Henry “Hank” Rogers, died last night as Iain, his spouse Dennis, and I stood around his bed in the living room of his Scarborough home.

We are well prepared for the flurried activity that will occupy us throughout the coming week. Following that, the schedule is less certain.

While my cooking style tends toward the lowest end of the cuisine spectrum, I recently pulled off quite a dish in an effort to use up all of the fresh smoked salmon that we had in the freezer (Carole knows a guy). Of course, it’s hard to go wrong when cooking with salmon, butter, and whipping cream.

A-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Start water boiling and add:

• One pack fettuccini or linguini, or whatever noodles you like

Sauté, in a largish pan:

• 1/2 of one of those large garlic thingies, minced
• 1/4 cup butter

Once the garlic starts to go translucent, add:

• 2-3 cups of shredded and deboned fresh smoked salmon

Reduce to medium heat, and cook for another two minutes, stirring frequently, then slowly add:

• 2 cups of whipping cream
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan or, better yet, asiago

Keep stirring for another five minutes or so. The sauce won’t thicken appreciably. Once the noodles are done, mix in all of the sauce. Serve in big bowls and top each with:

• dash of fresh parsley
• warm diced tomato
• freshly cracked pepper

Buon appetito! Non è raccomandato per coloro che sono intolleranti al lattosio, sperimentando la sofferenza coronarica, o con i cibi kosher.

You won’t find “fifi-i-nini” in any dictionary, not even one for crossword puzzle aficionados. Suffice to say, it means “finished” in some French Canadian vernaculars. Also, it’s a terribly satisfying way to announce the completion of a lengthy challenge:

Hey! No peeking.

Carole and I slaved away into the wee hours Saturday night, but it wasn’t until this afternoon that we pencilled-in Calder Trophy-winner “rookie” for the final clue.

The solution will be published in The Globe and Mail on January 2nd.

I’ve spent the past hour virtually touring Prague. Much more interesting and seamless than Google Street View: www.360cities.net/prague-18-gigapixels

See if you can spot:

• smoking dude with lemon drink and little white dog (hint: circle to the east),
• smiling boy hanging from bars surrounding the ball court (due west),
• garden oasis above the abandoned and graffiti-splattered tour operator (just past the hanging boy), or
• sweethearts gamboling through the park (forested park to the north).

Sorry, no prizes for finding any of that, but there is some sort of treasure hunt going on within the photograph.

I love the central courtyard design of housing blocks in Old Europe. Must be noisy though. I wonder if they outlaw elevators to limit the building heights. Shame about the satellite dishes everywhere.

While I am not a credentialled electrician, I have been playing with electricity since I was a young lad, and have installed breakers, wired stoves, and even mastered the four-way switch. I have also electrocuted myself on at least a dozen occasions — one time waking up across the room from the clothes dryer.

Just yesterday, I rewired a couple of sockets in the living room after a 70s-era loose connection took out half of the circuit.

Therefore, it is with no little authority that I proclaim the following hard-earned lessons.

• An electrician’s job is one part welding (whoops, forgot to open the breaker) and two parts nicking fingers on sharp metal edges.
• Don’t twist the wires together before screwing on the wire nut.
• Plastic electrical boxes with friction Romex stops are crap.
• Electrical tape conceals all sins and binds all wounds.
• Blacken the neutral wire leading back to the switch so that the next electrician will know that it’s “hot.”
• Lamp cord has ridges on the insulation marking the neutral conductor.
• Think twice before licking those terminals.
• Leave no less than 6″ of Romex sticking out of each junction box.
• Always use screw terminals instead of friction-fit wire clamps.
• It takes an average of four different screwdrivers to install a simple outlet.

To usher in the Christmas season, I took a swig of egg nog last night, only to notice that the expiry date printed on the carton was “10-01-09.” Assuming this was Canadian nog, that means it expired on the 10th of January, 2009, and I should probably head on down to the hospital for the stomach suck special right frickin’ now. But if it was of American provenance, then it went bad on or about October 1st, 2009, and I should merely plan to spend my day within range of the commode. However, if this was old-country nog from Europe, then I can safely continue nogging it up until the 9th of January in the new year. (Unless the 10 actually refers to 1910 and I have in my possession a very rare and valuable nog — and am also dead before arrival.)

This is a very bad decade for date formats, and the next won’t be much better. How much cumulative brainpower will be wasted attempting to parse inscrutable noggy dates? I’m nearly to the point of patronizing only those establishments that issue receipts using the “17-DEC-09,” or “2009-12-17,” or even “Thursday, December 17, 2009″ formats. Few do.

But if I can just make it to January 13th, 2032, the ambiguity of dates will finally cease, if only for a few weeks. For, on that date, and no earlier, all formats will be clear:

• 13-01-32 (Canadian)
• 01-13-32 (American)
• 32-01-13 (ISO European)
• 13-32-01 (Mystic Order of Nog)

Assuming Arabic numerals, the twelve Gregorian months, and a Common Era that commences approximately with the birth of an influential east Mediterranean prophet, then there can be no confusion: the year must be 32, or 2032, and once that is chosen, the day of the month must be the 13th, leaving only the month, 1, or January. Ta da!

I should be just shy of retirement on that glorious day — assuming that Extra Foods does import its nog from overseas — and still competent enough to enjoy the rush of unequivocalness.

Update

Okay, well I suppose the earlier January 31st, 2031, is also unambiguous, since you wouldn’t need to know which 31 was the year and which was the day of the month.

Nothing more need be said…

And the original…

Few thrills surpass the washing of an 85-pound dog. Smidgen was unusually cooperative this past Saturday, leaving our tub area reasonably unscathed:

Post traumatic bath debris

It took us just as long to clean up afterwards as all the brushing, combing, lathering, rinsing, toweling, conditioning, combing, blow-drying, and combing yet again, put together.

Evidence of prior bath trauma, now skillfully concealed.

And now she should be good until next spring’s melt.

I’ve been “driving” around Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver today on Google’s Street View. Just visit an address in a city down south in Google Maps and then drag the little orange man icon over to the street of your choice.

Apparently Street View in Canada just went live earlier today. I had heard that the Street View car had toured Whitehorse back in the spring July, but it doesn’t seem to work up here yet, dagnabbit.

My high school looks pretty much the same as it did in the early 80s, and the financial heart of our country seems calm (they must’ve taken the picture before the start of the Great Recession).