The West Commences: February 3, 2014

I Skyped with Jay as usual this morning and heard the details, as many as he knows, of a story he had mentioned in one of his Kakao Talk messages this week. It’s about the birth this past Sunday of a child who was probably not immaculately conceived, but whose birth certainly seems to have surprised even the mother. As far as Jay knows, she had the first hints of her pregnancy about a week before the event. She ultimately required a caesarian section, but in all other ways the birth was normal and the baby is great. Jay is the step uncle because the baby is May’s brother’s child. Jay, May and the girls had attended the wedding just three weeks before the birth and nothing was evident to them at that time. May’s mother and aunt were also there; they had spent the two months prior to the celebration with Jay and May, visiting, getting to know the new Korean in-laws and waiting for the wedding. They flew home to the Philippines two days before the really big surprise. Jay said this morning that he had seen a documentary about a similar case, and I remembered that when I was in grade 7, the mother of a girl I vaguely knew had a child all of a sudden, twelve years after having had her ‘last’ child. Everybody was surprised because she hadn’t looked pregnant. I, of course, was not privy to any information about whether or not the mother herself was shocked, but the erstwhile baby of the family and her friends certainly were. We were at the stage when the subject of sex trumped all other topics, and this event, although it diminished her sibling status, inestimably elevated her standing among the girls. Her presence was required in all discussions for at least a month. Then she became normal again and ran the risk we all did of being excluded from some secret discussions or of not being invited to a sleep over.

I guess I’ve become a Vernonite. It’s -7 in town and -12 on the hill today, and I didn’t wait for Jane to call me to cancel our proposed ski. I e-mailed her right after Skyping with Jay and suggested that maybe it was too cold to ski this morning. We were going to meet at the usual place at 9:00am, but it seemed too cloudy and cold, and we haven’t had any new snow in a while. I couldn’t get excited about it. And I used to go on about Thunder Bay and Wakefield and skiing in -25 or -30c. I’m sure my friends here will be happy not to hear any more on that subject.

Tonight I will finally see ‘Philomena’ at the Vernon Film Society’s showing of it. That, together with ‘American Hustle’, brings the total of potential Oscar winners that I have seen so far to two.