Dance Like No One's Watching

There are many, many reasons I married my Nicolas; 

his prowess on the dance floor, however, is not among them.

But he should dance anyway. 

Everyone should dance!

And laugh

and sing...

Sounds like Home

(Flashback to sometime in the 1970s:)

"It's working! Wake up! Can you hear that?!"

My mother was running from room to room, gathering us out of our beds and herding us into the family room and it was true: the whole house was filled with music. For three years my father had spent his free evenings soldering tiny resistors, transistors, capacitors and other tiny gizmos onto green circuit boards, and when her skirt hems weren't being tugged by one of us five kids, she'd help him solder and sort - without, as it turned out, ever truly believing it would become a real, music-making organ. She also watched as he cut a massive 6'x4' hole in the drywall behind the organ so he could work on the electronics from the furnace room on the other side. Good sport.

My father was sliding back and forth along the bench reaching for pedals with his feet while pulling out stops and fingering the keys with his hands. My mother was beside herself. And singing her heart out.

What an amazing night!!

Countless nights thereafter his playing and her singing filled our home, no matter where we lived. That organ moved to Portugal and then back over the Atlantic to Miami, up to Montreal and cross-country to Calgary. Our new houses weren't homes until Dad started playing. Then it didn't matter where in the world we were, we were home.

If you have a moment, turn up the volume and click play. This is what home sounds like:

Doe, a Deer, a Sweet, Sweet Deer

Crack! Her head and neck were lit up by the front left headlight, which smashed to pieces after she hit it, and I can't get that image out of my mind.

I was on my way home from a hockey game, just two cars on the dark road. I'm always on the lookout for deer as there are many around here, but at this spot - with a high, steep hill on the left and a tall, solid wood fence on the other - I've never seen one, and I glanced at the radio for a second.

Crack! I can still hear it. She jumped right in between the only two cars on the road, hit mine, bounced back and landed in the median, twitching until she relaxed. No movement at all. Noooo! I killed her. I pulled over in the next parking lot, let my adrenaline calm down a bit, and went back.

But she was gone. She had gotten herself back on her feet and hobbled away. I've heard of this happening and was very worried she was going to make her way to a spot no one could find and die slowly from her internal injuries. I drove back and forth ten times and couldn't find her anywhere.

I drove home, shaken. I called Nicolas and then the non-emergency 911 to report it and they said it had already been called in, an officer went out to find her, and shot her. Because I looked down at my radio. I felt sick for days and still do every time I pass that spot on the road.

They sent a policeman to the house to make a report and when he was done he said, "I won't give you a ticket because the wildlife jumped out at you, nothing you could do." I was like, "Duh you won't give me a ticket. I don't think I would've called you to my house to give me a ticket." Hello.

That so little damage could take a life...

That so little damage can cost $2200 to repair...

(Insurance paid, thankfully.)