Fog and Clarity

At 9:10 p.m. last night, they booted me out of a department store. As I left, I mused about making the exact gifts I want to give, instead of searching for them, but then I remembered the unfinished gift from last year. If I really worked at it, could I finish it before her birthday rolls around a second time?

Speaking of second times, last night was the second time in a week that I drove home from Regina in fog. The first time was the kids' shopping day, and yesterday was mine.

Last week, the fog was fairly continuous until around Francis, where it broke up into great skeins illuminated by the headlights and the rising moon. In some places it was still a continuous sheet, but elevated a little, and when a slight rise tilted the headlights up, that layer of fog looked like a giant tent.

Last night, the entire 200 kilometres was fogged in without a single break. The towns passed as faint glows in the periphery; often I didn't even glimpse their names on the signs. At one town - was it Osage? - I had a momentary vision of a deer, standing right in the bottom of the ditch next to the pavement, with its ears pricked towards my passing car. It reminded me of the sight from that morning, just outside Creelman, of a moose loping across the highway right in front of the car ahead of me, and then turning just beyond the ditch to jog along parallel to the highway, beard flapping, legs lifted high. With thoughts of deer and moose, and frequent false alarms from frost-crusted roadside weeds emerging out of the fog, I cruised at 80 to 85 kph (where the posted limit is 100). Several vehicles stayed behind me; I recall only three that dared to pass.

One good thing about that fog: I had Country 100 FM coming in clear to Forget. (That's FOR-zhay, around here, although when the highway sign flashed out of the fog, my mind noted the coincidence with the song I was hearing at that moment, about forgetting - something, but I forget what.) Usually I lose the Country 100 signal somewhere around Francis - one-third of the way, instead of over three-quarters. I actually got enough of that station yesterday to start to notice the repetition. For me, that benediction from Rascall Flats ("My Wish") is not holding up to frequent airplay the way Lee-Ann Womack's did a few years back ("I Hope You Dance").

But that new one from Martina McBride - "Anyway" - they can play that again. Wow. Any volunteers to sing it in church?