Crooked in Canada

As mentioned earlier this week, I did a few Ukrainian Christmases; having spent 10 years shacked up with a Ukrainian woman from Foam Lake, Saskatchewan the reason.

Yeah, my ex common-law wife loved to those 8-9 hour drives from Calgary to Foam Lake on Christmas Eve day. She slept most of the way, waking up to tell me to slow down, or ask me to stop at the next service station so she could tinkle.

I didn’t mind them either, just as long as I had a six-pack for the journey and Zoria didn’t mind me stopping at all the fast food outlets along the way.

I don’t know why she would have minded; after all, it was the perfect opportunity for her to empty her bladder. Man she drank a lot of water on those Christmas Eve road trips.

Yeah, Zoria and I went on some good Christmas road trips back in the day, the longest being from Calgary to Ajax, Ontario. What a f***ing nightmare that was in my beat up old Camaro Berlinetta. The -30C to -40C through Saskatchewan not making that trip a whole lotta fun either. We did it though.

That Christmas by the way…Well let’s just say that it would be the first and last one Zoria would spend with my mother, her new husband, my grandmother and my brother. Yeah, my brother and his whatever she was to him, kinda ruined that Christmas for us. Good thing there was a lot of whiskey and rum to pacify us though.

We actually had to call the cops on my brother. He got real stupid and he could have killed somebody when he got into his semi-truck and decided to head off for a bit of a drive in the intoxicated state he was in. I remember pinning him against the wall when he returned. Nope, that wasn’t a very pretty Christmas.

The Ukrainian Christmases I spent with Zoria’s family though, they were the best ones and quite amusing at times too. I remember one Christmas Day where Zoria and I had to follow an ambulance into Regina. It seems her soon-to-be ex-brother-in-law had a little too much to drink and might have had a heart attack. I say might because I think the only thing that was wrong with him was that he drank way too much. Nevertheless, Christmas dinner that day came out of the hospital vending machine.

That was I think, the last time I ever say Michael. He should count his blessing that I never ran into him again, because he got up to some pretty nasty shit with Zoria’s nieces when he was drunk. Yeah Mike was a drunken idiot that’s for sure, and an armed one from time-to-time to.

I remember he once fired a round into the floor of the kitchen in his home in Veregin, Sask. when he was drunk. I wasn’t there, but I heard all about it after it happened.

Yep, Christmases in Foam Lake were never boring, always something to do.

Lots of grog, lots of food, but no meat. That’s why I stopped at all the fast food outlets I could between Calgary and Foam Lake, to load up on read meat.

I enjoyed spending Christmases in Foam Lake, but the menu, naah-ah, it just wasn’t for me. They had this rule at the dinner table though where I had to try a little bit of everything, including the pickled herring, the prune perogies, the wheat soup (kinda like a porridge and very rich) and a few other Ukrainian traditional Christmas fare.

I hated that rule.

I’m a turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy kind of guy by the way.

Of the eight or nine Christmas road trips Zoria and I took to Foam Lake, once with our foster kids Jared and Billy Jack and a brain-injured fifty-year-old David, there really isn’t anything bad I can say about the traveling except for the wintry weather. Hey, but what’s Christmas travel without a snowstorm along the way, right.

In case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t take a six-pack on that one road trip with David, Jared and Billy Jack.

Actually, that drive was a pain in the ass, and I couldn’t get to Kamsack, Saskatchewan (Zoria’s sister’s place) fast enough. When we finally arrived in Kamsack, which was about 9:30PM Christmas Eve, it was my job to go downstairs and beat the shit out of a pillowcase full of wheat for that porridge like soup we would be eating Christmas Day.

Beating the shit out of the wheat made up for not being able to do anything about one of the foster kids constantly kicking the back of the driver seat I was sitting in. Little f***er, no matter what I said or threatened to do to him, he kept at it. He said he wasn’t doing it intentionally, but I beg to differ on that one. Jared was a little bit of a shit.

I took him on one other road trip during the time he stayed with us. He and I hit the highway for a trip to Sarnia. Calgary to Sarnia, it was a nonstop drive to Sarnia, but coming back it was a different story, blown tires, shitty weather and all. Our drive back home started on Canada Day 1992 I think it was, and ended a couple of days later.

What another nightmare of a road trip that was, but it was nice having Jared along for the ride. He was a good kid. Don’t know what he is doing in his life now, but I hope he is doing well. He’d be in his twenties now, late twenties maybe.

Christmas Eve with Zoria’s family…Food and drink before going to midnight mass, but not before opening one gift. Sitting in the church being forced to listen to people who couldn’t sing worth a shit and standing up and sitting down like every 20 seconds. After mass it was back to the house for more food and drink, and the customary well-wishers who dropped by. After they disappeared it was downstairs for more gifts and grog, and then it was off to bed around 4am.

Zoria and I slept in separate rooms when at her parent’s home–that living in sin thing not exactly something her parents approved of. That’s another story for another day though.