19.4 YEARS TIL DEATH DO US PART

ACCORDING TO THE LATEST STATISTICS CANADA NUMBERS, I HAVE 19.4 YEARS TO LIVE.

That's right, less than two decades.

Yep, by around 2027, at least based on 2005 stats and current health technology, I'll be little more than a pile of ashes inside some little dusty urn in my daughter's or son's attic.

Or wherever they decide to put me.

Here's the briefest of details on the story:

Average age at death rising in Canada: StatsCan
Updated Mon. Jan. 14 2008 10:11 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
THE average age at death for Canadians is rising and the gap in the annual number of deaths between men and women is narrowing, reports Statistics Canada. In 2005, the average age at death for the overall population was 74.2 years.
The average varied widely across Canada, peaking at 75.6 years in Prince Edward Island. The lowest was Nunavut, with an average of just 47.8 years. (Manitoba came out at 74.6 overall; males 71.6, females 77.6).
In 2005, a total of 230,132 people died in Canada, up 1.6 per cent from 2004 -- the fastest annual increase since 2002. The long-term upward trend continues in the wake of a growing and aging population, says StatsCan.

So if I'm 52.2 years old now, I'll live another 19.4 years by my calculations (based on a 71.6-year lifespan), which would bring me to death's door (in 2005 numbers, remember) sometime in April of 2027.

Maybe they'll be jettisoning our corpses into outer space by then. Perhaps they'll come up with some brilliant health-care advances that will be able to extend my existence.

Or maybe they'll put my body into deep-freeze and bring me back to life a few hundred years later, when such technology exists. Or, possibly, they could extract DNA from me and clone me every 71.6 years in perpetuity.

Or...maybe not.

One for the Boys (The Exploding Egg Caper)

I'VE NEVER SEEN MY SON LAUGH SO HARD FOR SO LONG.

And I've never seen my daughter roll her eyes with so much disdain for him and for me...and then refuse to look at me as I tried to take her picture after the fact. She even tried to hide from the camera lens in embarrassment.

My only regret is that I didn't actually see it happen.

Let me set the scene:

Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008, 9:08 a.m.

Daughter, 19, wakes up before dad, 52, and son, 16. Takes her usual place as Queen of the Planet on the couch, turns on TV, hides remote control inside blanket on top of her, knowing how much we both hate her shows.

9:18 a.m.

Dad wakes up, scratches self, crawls out of bed, turns on kettle for coffee, says good morning to daughter, gets paper from mailbox, starts reading with coffee in hand.

10 a.m.

Son awakens to extent he ever really awakens. Immediately commandeers computer to play Final Fantasy game. Hair all amok, as usual. Mumbles something that resembles "I'm hungry."

10:22 a.m.

Dad starts preparing standard homemade egg and bacon with melted cheese on muffin for son. Asks daughter if she would like egg/cheese with mixture. "Yes, please," she orders. Continues to watch innane TV shows.

10:45 a.m.

Daughter has now disappeared into room and closed door, leaving mindless TV crap blaring. Talks to boyfriend on phone. Son finds online Final Fantasy player from UK who needs his help battling bad guys.

Attempts to have Dad reverse cooking process so he can be Mr. Superhero for UK neophyte. Dad glares at him threateningly. Son says: "OK, Dad! OK!"

11:03 a.m.

Dad, reckoning he must feed beast first, shouts out "Evan! Breakfast!" Sends son off to living room with food. Son promptly changes channels on TV, thankfully.

Dad starts cooking daughter's egg, throws muffins in toaster, slices cheese.

11:08 a.m.

Dad calls daughter for breakfast. Recommends V8 high-fibre/low fat juice as culinary accompaniment. Is politely ignored by daughter, who trapses off like princess into living room and assumes control of TV remote.

11:15 a.m.

Dad, now in computer room/bedroom, hears son roar with laughter as daughter almost screams in disgust. Son bursts into my room in hysterics and falls on my bed.

"Monica's egg exploded! The egg yolk's in her hair and all over the place! HA HA HA HA HA!!!

11:15.09 a.m.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!," Dad says as he and son resound together in revelry and merriment.

11:15.18 a.m.

"You guys are such morons," daughter exclaims as she brushes yolk out of her hair with fine-toothed comb, ignoring Dad's reminders that she had whined about him always overcooking eggs in the past.

And then they lived happily ever after.

Long Distance

Oh boy.

And I do mean boy.

But boy means male, and a boy can be any age, really.



I thought my son, 16, was over his long-distance relationship with a girl who used to go to his school and who moved about seven hours north of here.



In fact, it was only Thursday night that he told me thought he would end it, acknowledging that he thought I was right. That's now changed again because she'll be able to come and visit every once in a while.


I had been gently trying to tell him that, well, long-distance relationships don't work, or at least rarely can.


See, there's this problem.



You can get emotionally attached in a beautiful way. But how can you really know who or what you are getting attached to? I mean, totally?



You're getting attached to something or someone you can't see, can't feel, can't touch.


You can't see their eyes when you say something, you can't be mesmerized or repelled or whatever by their body language and little nuances, can't see how they are at 6 a.m. or 11 p.m. or in between.



Emotional attachments, don't get me wrong, are spectacular. They're the foundation, if they last, for amazing relationships. Those kinds of things can't be denied and they're what we all seek the most, I think.



But emotions are just part of the equation, and even then, they can't be totally believed if they're just by email, text messaging, IM or whatever. There's chemistry and intermingling and other neat stuff that no electronic medium can replicate.



There's a look in the eyes, a recoil to the touch, a turn of the cheek towards or away, a whine or a frown or whatever that makes all the difference...smells, unique features or ways of doing things...



A hand placed on the lover's lap that just isn't visible or possible from hundreds or thousands of kilometres or miles away, no matter how passionate you want to be.



I have had, or have tried to have, such relationships. And the results have been, to use a cliche, close but no cigar.



There's a reason why we are creatures who have evolved things like dances and other social occasions to meet members of the opposite sex (or whatever sex we prefer). It's called reality, which includes using all of our natural senses.



My son's decided that because she can come here and visit a few times, that he won't split with her. He knows what I think, because I've told him, but he's going ahead anyway, which is what I've told him he's got to do.



I want him to learn on his own, without me dictating to him, and I want him to make his own mistakes, if that's what this is, and I think it is. We've gotten past the issue of long-distance telephone bills and that stuff.




Now it's just about him and her. I think he'll eventually figure it out himself, but for now, some girl 700 kms. away is almost all he's thinking about.



There's something lovely about that, but also tragic in the sense that the prospects are dim.



But life's prospects are always dim, if you look at it in a negative way. He will learn. And I want him to learn. And to love.

Cold Climate Car Calamities and Other Nerdy Newsbriefs

SO YOU WONDER WHY US ADVANCED INTERPLANETARY BEINGS FROM OTHER SOLAR SYSTEMS VIEW EARTH AND THE HUMAN RACE AS DOOMED TO EXTINCTION?

Here, in no particular order, are three random samples:

WINNIPEG -- A 52-year-old man, raised on the frigid Prairie landscape of Canada's Great White North, committed the ultimate winter stupidity on Tuesday and paid for it the next morning when he couldn't get into his own car.

Mr. Within Without, dubbed "Four Eyes" by his 19-year-old daughter, told police he "had a brain fart" when he decided to take advantage of unseasonably warm temperatures and wash his filthy car Tuesday evening.

Unfortunately for Mr. Without, the temperature --predictably -- dropped so much on a January night that when he tried to enter his car Wednesday morning to go to work, the locks to his car were frozen and he couldn't get in.

Witnesses say he spent the next 15 minutes using knives and other instruments trying to enter the car and appeared to be a thug breaking in, so they called the police. (OK, I'm just kidding, but bear with me; or bare with me)

Sirens blaring, the cops descended on the unsuspecting and frustrated would-be motorist, whose request that the police draw their guns and shoot him was rejected. After explaining the situation, the stand-off was resolved.

"D'oh!" said Mr. Without in an expression of pure intelligence. "I hate winter. It freezes my brain."

The police, scuttling their laughter, let Mr. Without off with a warning and passed him a copy of "How to Survive a Winterpeg Winter" by Homo Escapeons.

*****

*****

AN incident in which a Fijian soldier urinated on a Japanese woman on a plane has ended up doing "untold damage" to Fiji, the country's main daily says in a strongly worded editorial today.
It was commenting after the international carrier Air Pacific published its annual report saying its Fiji-Japan route was performing poorly.

The report made no mention of the incident in March last year when a drunk Fiji soldier on a flight from Japan exposed himself and then urinated on a Japanese woman in her seat. The incident made major headlines in Japan.

In its editorial today the Fiji Times said it was an "appalling incident" that was an urgent reminder to every person in that country.

"This unforgivable offence has caused untold damage in Japan a market which Fiji has strived for decades to cultivate," the newspaper said.

"All it takes is one moment of stupidity to paint a black picture of this nation and her people in a lucrative market. The incident has generated widespread, negative publicity at a time when we need it the least."

The newspaper said the whole country had to "share in the shame he has brought upon his uniform and to this country. Urinating on a tourist on an international flight is a high-profile incident which gains global notoriety.

"It is a brief moment which brings unwanted exposure (eds note: HA HA HA!) and deprives the economy of millions of dollars in revenue."

*****

Kuala Lumpur -- A Vietnamese tourist got more than he bargained for when he patted the buttock of a policewoman on New Year's Day.

Vu Minh Vinh, 44, committed the offence while the 27-year-old police officer was standing in front of an outlet at KLCC in Jalan Ampang at 10pm on Jan 1.

The officer scolded him, showed her identification papers and arrested him.

Vu, of Ngan Son Hai Duong City, admitted to the molest charge at a magistrate’s court here yesterday. The court set Feb 13 for sentencing. No bail was offered.