Spreading the Light

Edith Wharton wrote “there are two ways of spreading the light, to be the candle or the mirror that receives it”. I think both ways are positive though there are many different ways of interpreting this quotation. A person can be a role model for others to emulate; or a person can follow the path of an admirable person. To be a role model is hard work because you may have to break paths along the way; to follow the path of someone admirable would at first appear to be easy but if that person were Jesus Christ you know the path will be hard to follow.

You would think to simply get up, go to work, do the job and come home would be easy enough to do without getting into any trouble but if you set your target of right conduct high then it isn’t that easy. You have to learn not to curse if you stub your toe or cannot find your shoes. You have to not speed, be forbearing with the non-signalling drivers on the road; be patient with colleagues; be tolerant of failing systems and at all times avoid negative talk. And that is just the first two hours of the day! There’s still 7 more to go. If you cannot do the simple curbing of self, how can you control the harder things?

I hope that the harsher behaviours are easier to resist, such as contemplating murder or highway robbery. I am pretty sure that those things wouldn’t seriously cross my mind even when I was in a real fit of anger. Perhaps it is because I am well into menopause that my patience is simply not what it used to be and so I find myself getting irritated by others less than perfect behaviour a lot faster than I used to. After all human nature doesn’t really change much from generation to generation, we only think it does as we mature. How different is the world of Charles Dickens from today, really.

All the same, I’d like to be a spreading light of positive things. I’d like to see only the good in people and bite my tongue at the negative words. Practice, practice, practice.

Hamstering

In Danish one calls hoarding “hamstring”. I must admit that I have a tendency towards this and it seems to be getting worse. I am looking around my office and I see 4 boxes of new Christmas cards. There was a sale and I couldn’t decide which ones I liked best. Never mind that I still have leftovers from years past. I know that isn’t a huge thing, after all they will get used. But on Saturday I unpacked my groceries which included new storage bins. I then sorted out all my dry goods, that is all the pasta, rice and dried peas and beans in my cupboards. It filled two containers.

Now I think I may have a problem. I have told my mother that I blame her for this because she gave me “Gone with the Wiind” when I was only 13 years old and it seriously impacted me. The fear of war, starvation and clothing issues still sits in me. Then there is the little story of my father talking about bomb shelters and what a person should have in the house that won’t go bad. Maybe I should have been Mormon, they apparently have food for two years stored away.

I don’t watch reality shows but my sisters and mother have told me about the one on hoarding and then they give me the look. Don’t get any ideas, you can still walk around my house in a normal way. I don’t have stacks of newspapers and rolls of string but I do get worried when I start looking in my tool drawers and see weird things that I have no idea what they are for and wonder why I am not throwing it away. I have fantasies of creating an attic in the garage and putting weird things up there.

The good news, before everyone starts thinking I am a completely deranged person, is that I did clean out the tool drawers and I have big plans for the long weekend to throw out pretty much everything in the basement (well, lots of stuff from the basement)! I have bags of old clothes that I have full intensions of taking to the used clothes store, as soon as I find one. I don’t even know one at the south end of Calgary. If there was one in High River I could go there but the Salvation Army burned down a few years ago and I don’t think it has been rebuilt.

Oh dear, I just looked down at the floor and there are stacks of books beside the book shelf. I need help!

This is the wallpaper from the room in San Francisco. I am in warrior mode!

Sharing Life Experiences

Have you ever gone down the aisles in the `Self Help` or non-fiction section of a book store? It is amazing how many people have advice to share. I have some favourites that I have really enjoyed in this past decade; they are “Simple Abundance” “The Four Agreements” and “The Art of Being”. Not every word of advice in these books is valid for my life at this moment but all of it is enjoyable and insightful. One of my favourite pieces of advice is “it’s their poison, not yours” when you experience negativity from someone. Push it away from you. Simple Abundance suggests keeping a gratitude journal to keep yourself mindful of what is great in your life. Being “mindful” as part of the art of being is a valuable daily lesson.

When I was in school The Lord’s Prayer was said every morning as part of our Opening Exercises. I often dwelled on “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” when I was young and again in these last few years. It may sound arrogant but one does expect to gain a little respect with age and yet it seems it is not so. Is it this generation of younger people who appear to be “care for nobodies” or is it just the folks I encounter? Whatever the case may be I find myself examining my behaviour and questioning my conduct. I dislike being negative. I dislike bad behaviour more. And yet I find myself reproachable and therefore requiring forgiveness.

It’s complicated.

So I have books on forgiveness lining my shelves and residing on my bedside table. There have been a lot of people writing about forgiveness so I am not the only person looking for answers. I think it’s terrific that there are people who have a desire to write about their experiences, their little bits of knowledge and are willing to put themselves out there to share it with their fellow humans. We all just want to be the best that we can be and sometimes it is nice not to have to reinvent the wheel!

Renaissance Man

I have been thinking about the renaissance and the meaning of a renaissance mind lately. The renaissance is my favourite historical period and in my late teens and early twenties I did a lot of studying of that period. Although I have not kept up my intensity of study I would still say that I am an expert on the Tudor period notwithstanding my lack of memory of dates. I was particularly interested in Jane Grey and her pursuit of learning; her mind was likely superior to her cousin Elizabeth’s. I began to study Latin on my own as a consequence of reading so many biographies of renaissance personalities.

The renaissance period is filled with interesting people from many countries but notable renaissance minds include Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Copernicus and Francis Bacon. The term polymath means someone whose expertise spans a significant number of subjects. It is rare to meet people who have interests in more than one or two subjects and even rarer to find someone who excels in one or two areas as well as having multiple other areas of interest. The pursuit of knowledge is something I think is invaluable to a person who wishes to live a full and interesting life. The first step is certainly to have a love of reading. Being open to new experiences is also a way to pursue knowledge, as is the love of travelling.

I think it is fantastic that once we reach 65 we are eligible to enter university to pursue a degree – for free! I can hardly wait. I picked up a booklet on Einstein and I am seriously thinking about studying physics in my old age. E=mc2 (to find Energy, you multiply the Mass by the Square of the speed of Light). If I wrote this on my bedroom wall and looked at it every morning, would I remember it? Maybe after 10 years! Yes, it will be a challenge but I am up for it!

Back up plan – Latin?

At the equator

A Deer in the Park

I was standing on my front porch early this morning with my two cats when they got startled by a deer. She was running, bounding really, around the side of the house. I laughed and said good morning and she stopped and turned to stare at me. We stood looking at each other, me on the porch and her on the front lawn. I spoke gently to her, asking her if she was the mama or the baby, asking her if she was lost. Her ears twitched slightly but she just stood and looked at me. Then she walked slowly to the young poplar and started to chew a leaf. I raised a finger and said “uh uh” and off she went again, bounding to the apple tree at the corner of the lawn. She stopped again, looked around and then bounded and leaped over the broken part of the front fence. Harold and Arnold were in the sunroom and missed the whole story.

What a lovely morning experience just as dawn was breaking. I have deer in the yard several times over the summer but this is the first time I actually talked to the deer and she stayed still to listen. Charming. But I know I will be unhappy if she comes back to nibble up my roses and larch trees! One can only have so much bliss with nature before the shotgun comes out!

I am off early this morning to get my sunvisor replaced in the car. They are promising it will only take half an hour but I feel dubious. I think it should take 5 minutes but I won’t be surprised (only annoyed) if it takes an hour. The trouble is that one simply has to sit there and wait, there is nowhere to go as the dealership sits in an isolated situation. They are so reluctant to give one a loaner or even a ride to the shopping centre that I no longer ask. I will read my book “The Red Garden” and think about my Bambi in the yard.

Just breathe.

Courage

What are virtues but the values one most admires. Above all others the most commonly admired virtue must be courage.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.

(Mark Twain).

I think this is quite true, there are many “every day heroes” who do quite amazing things and this is a laudable character that is honoured publicly. However those with moral courage are frequently ridiculed or despised and only when it is too late are they respected for their strength of character. It is not an easy thing to refuse to back down from a principle when a whole crowd is against you. Frequently people waffle when too many speak against their position rather than defend bowing out in defeat.

There was a Stephen King mini series a few years ago called “The Storm of the Century” where the devil comes to a small town and starts terrorizing it until the townspeople give him one of their children to raise as his own. Now here’s my thought – if you are a religious person (or not), if you are confronted by a demon, wouldn’t your immediate thought be “if there is a devil there must be a God”? Ergo, why in the world would you be afraid to die if there was a god? That was what I thought without having to think further about good and evil and what is the right thing.

One would always hope to do the right thing if put to the test but to cave under taunting is sad. Remember “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”? Yet adults appear to be as afraid of ridicule as children.

How is moral courage attained? I think to some extent one is born with a certain amount of inner courage but ultimately I believe that moral courage comes from having a true sense of oneself and that sense is nurtured by loving parents. If one is raised with a solid foundation of principles, values and common sense then one ought to have the strength of character to hold fast to them in the face of “modern times”. What is true, right, good and honest will never really go out of fashion with those who really are worthwhile.

Justice

“Let us keep our mouths shut and our pens dry until we know all the facts.”

That was A.J. Carlson’s comment and I confess that I am not sure who he is (Google search suggests this quote may come from a physiologist). I do think it is a worthy bannerhead for journalists though. I was thumbing through my book of virtuous quotes and this one was in the Justice section, interestingly enough. Frequently we think of justice in the legal sense or as part of a fairness equation but there is the other type of justice, as in “doing justice to a person”, doing the right thing.

I thought it would be a good quote to use this morning so that I wouldn’t continue on a prissy line of thought. A couple of days ago the media started feeding us a story about Will and Jada Smith “Another Hollywood Couple Bites the Dust” which turns out to be untrue. I’ve written before about gossip media and the peculiar things we humans seem to be interested in. How can we evolve into civilized and better human beings when we feed on scandal and disgrace? Have you seen the little monkey statuettes “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” and sometimes the last one ‘do no evil”? The statuettes may look cute and funny but when you study them and think on them there is really meaning in the simple picture. Before we open our mouth we should count to ten and as we do think about the hurt we may cause another human being before we repeat some gossip. If we counted to ten we could very easily change our minds and stop ourselves in time.

Years ago I worked for a lawyer who was very involved in politics. During the heat of an election he became very incensed about a particular article published in the Calgary Herald and he fired off a letter. As I typed away I came across the term “yellow journalism” which was unknown to me. I asked Darrel what it meant and the answer was succinct “sensationalism”. Then he went on to say that it is little or no well researched article, seeking only sensational headlines to sell newspapers. Ah. That was back in 1979 and thirty years later “legitimate” newspapers have deteriorated even further. There is a lot of gossip in newspapers and even if the stories are true are they edifying the public? Do we need to know what politician is sleeping with his housekeeper? (which reminds me, I was watching a One Life to Live episode where David and Dorian had a hilarious conversation about her being a senator and him spending time with the housekeeper; they are a great humorous couple! I’m going to miss this show,) Is it important? Really?

It is one thing to discuss a person personally known to you and who is irritating the life out of you; then it is fair enough if you need to talk to someone to vent your feelings. We are human and things come out which may not be nice. But sensational gossiping simply for the sake of conversation is wrong and it is hurtful not only to the person being gossiped about but to yourself. Every time you indulge in mean gossip you are damaging your grace. Think about that next time you feel tempted to discuss Jane Doe’s bad hairdo.

Goodness

“Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are. To be good is the great thing.” So said Edwin H. Chapin and this is a thought that I respond to.

It is very easy to show off being kind and thoughtful to others but it is what springs from the heart that really matters. The proverb “to forgive and forget” is actually very deep in meaning if one really ponders it. I am a very literal person and when I am asked to forgive and forget I have a hard time with the process because I feel that one must truly forget what happened and that is really hard for me. So inside myself I will feel like a hypocrite or a bad person because I cannot go that extra bit to forget even though I have forgiven the deed.

One sees celebrities associated with one cause or another and that can be a great thing, when it brings awareness such as Elizabeth Taylor’s championing of AIDS awareness or Audrey Hepburn’s work with UNICEF. But oftentimes celebrities are actually paid to make appearances for charities and then it is just an outward show of goodness. Quiet acts of kindness are more genuine because they spring from a generous heart and require no fanfare.

Interestingly there is a campaign running this summer on radio and television about doing one act of kindness every day. I wonder what the success rate is? I remember as a girl guide we had to do a good deed every day and I freely confess that has gone by the wayside a long, long time ago! But the advertising on the radio talks about a little thing like holding the door open for someone and isn’t it sad that we have to be reminded to do something so simple?

It’s a wonder we have any claims to civilization when I contemplate the enormous amount of excuses a person can come up with for not doing the right thing, the kind thing or a good thing. As a child one seems to be naturally good but as we grow into adulthood and beyond we become hardened about the little courtesies of life. Once we start to lose good manners the next step is to lose the sense of being good. One loses a generosity of spirit.

So if we lose the outward signs of goodness, will it reflect on what is inside that is good?

Principles

George Benson wrote

“Great ideals and principles do not live from generation to generation just because they are right, nor even because they have been carefully legislated. Ideals and principles continue from generation to generation only when they are built into the hearts of the children as they grow up.”

Yesterday I spoke of discipline and how different the world appears to be today from yesteryear. Since the 1960’s our society has gradually become a two income family. As my mother frequently says the only winner in this paradigm is the federal government with the added income tax. We are a society of instant gratification and our children have suffered for it. As a consequence of mothers going out to work there is little doubt that not all the morals and principles that she wishes to convey to her children are instilled in them. Parents wish their children to have these values but how easy it is to forget the bed time stories, the formal dinner time and the games night in the haste to get home to housework, homework, hockey games and what have you.

My concern is that there doesn’t seem to be enough opportunity for some parents to build ideals and principles into their children’s hearts consequently they may be lacking strong moral fibre. I tremble for a society that seems to be losing the strength of our forefathers to withstand hardship. It seems today we medicate rather than overcome and that cannot build character.

Wouldn’t a solid family life where parents actually communicate with their children go a long way to create understanding, manners and values? This world just seems too fast, so instant that it is hard to keep pace with everything; I say just breathe, get off that frantic wheel you are treading on and think about what you really want for yourself and your family.

Carpe diem, my friends, carpe diem.

Discipline

Monday morning starts the new week and as every week I have great plans for starting over, whether it be diet, exercise, mental regulation, housekeeping. It really doesn’t matter other than a fresh start on something. This week I thought I would start the blog along a line of theory thinking and what better way to start than working on discipline.

A man without self-restraint is a like a barrel without hoops, and tumbles to pieces.

Henry Ward Beecher

I think we are living in a society today that has little self-restraint and one of the prime examples is the fact that we actually have to have a law to keep people from texting while driving. One would think that common sense ought to tell a person not to risk their life as well as the lives of others but apparently not.

A more burdensome proof of self discipline is the spiralling debt people get in to. The advent of credit cards has made it so easy for people to buy whatever they fancy without regard for the fact that they have no money to buy their desires. I was fortunate enough to be raised by European immigrants who still maintained their rigid and frugal mentality and thus had a horror of debt. We were in Canada for 10 years before my mother eventually got a dryer (after her sixth child was born). Even then she still had the old fashioned wringer washing machine until we moved to Winnipeg when she got a more modern one. My father drove his vehicle until it finally gave up the ghost, and the car had not been new to begin with. That’s what he could afford. My parents didn’t just sit down with us one day and lecture us about the evils of credit. Rather it would beginning at the dinner table as part of the daily anecdotes my father would come home with from his job. He would tell a story about John Smith’s wedding costing so many thousands of dollars which had to come from a bank loan. Then it would progress to his purchasing his new appliances on the Eaton’s credit card. And now Mr. Smith couldn’t afford all the payments. From there it would progress to the wisdom of self denial until one was actually able to buy “cash on the barrel head”.

One ought to exert self restraint more often than we do today though the examples set before us in these modern times are scanty. Just cast your mind over the celebrity list, I shudder as I do so; let’s see, Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton, Mel Gibson, Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton. Alright those are obvious bad choices. Let’s try again. Jessica Lange, Betty Ford, Elizabeth Taylor. These were women who made dubious choices but somehow managed to rise above it and go on to nobler things. I am casting about for someone who exemplifies self restraint in today’s celebrity world and I am having a hard time with true personification. Mother Teresa was a few years ago. Paul Newman?

You see what I mean? It’s hard to come up with someone current.

Ah, how about Richard Simmons? He’s a little over the top but he does keep his weight trim.

Security 101

There has been some exciting things happening in the news the past couple of weeks, though “exciting” is probably an inappropriate word for either the London riots or the rollercoaster ride of the stock markets. Fortunately for me, despite the fact that I am a real worry wart I have learned to ignore the markets and not check out my lack of fortune obsessively every morning. Others meanwhile are having heart attacks looking at their mutual funds and so forth. It’s like picking up the phone when you know you are going to get irritated by a telemarketer or picking at a scab. Just stop it.

On the other hand, I listened to the news of the London riots with growing alarm because I recalled my brother telling me about this book written in the late ‘90’s which predicted a civilization meltdown that would start with riots. The author envisioned that our homes would not be safe to live in because people were out of control. Sure I have a security system but I know that the foolproof way to deter intruders is to have a dog. So I went out and got a couple of Dobermans who can bite the feet, arms and head off of anyone. Thank goodness for animal shelters. Harold and Arnold are adults and already trained.

My brother got a bit of a shock the first time he opened up the door to the sunroom but lucky for him I was already home and was able to keep Harold and Arnold at bay. So my advice to you is to be sure to let your family know what you’ve done with your security systems as soon as possible because it can lead to hard feelings.

Dog Days of Summer

It’s August and we are in the dog days of summer. Remember “To Kill a Mockingbird” when the rabid dog comes down the street? If I’m remembering correctly Harper Lee wrote something about the dog days of summer but as my internet is down I cannot do a search on it so you will just have to believe me.

It seems to be true though, August is a lazy sort of month; traffic is less, people at work seem to slow down and basically things are a lot quieter everywhere. At home I find myself looking anxiously for yellow leaves, signs of dying and the first signs of fall. It’s August and should be the height of summer but I fear frost (we are in Southern Alberta after all), tornadoes and hail. You’d think I was a farmer with all my anxious concerns about the weather. A part of my anxiety also comes from the fact that I am missing out on all the nice summer weather by having to go to work. Already in the tail end of July I notice the sunrise is later and now it is dark right until I reach my carpool destination. That is depressing.

When I was a little girl August was also a lonely time for my siblings and I because all the rest of the neighbourhood kids disappeared. The Rolstons always went to Nova Scotia in August and the other kids went to their relatives or to camp. We were left with each other to play with for at least part of August and we were just lucky that we had siblings to play with! When you don’t have any relatives in the same country in the ‘60’s you better get along with the ones you do have!

The good news this week is that my favourite weatherman tells us that the next three months are going to be awesome – warm and dry. Oh yes, won’t that be wonderful? Summer extended? Dog days, go away!

Sleep (and 300 posts)

I am one of those fortunate people who can hit the pillow and fall instantly asleep. Even going through menopause I have only had a handful of restless nights and when I hear the horror stories of other women laying awake for weeks on end I count myself lucky.

I am also one of those people who dream almost every single night and wake up remembering them even if it’s only momentarily before I get on with my day. Now this morning I woke up wondering what the heck my dream was about. Oh I remember what I was dreaming but I have no idea where it was coming from. I was dreaming about some fellow (me I guess, unless I was “watching a movie” so to speak) who goes in to a car dealership that looked more like a mechanic shop looking for the fleet dealer. What I found interesting was that the faces did not look familiar at all, they looked like they were coming out of a sleazy Hollywood movie. I just wonder where in the world do I pick up these faces and enter them into my dreams? It’s very odd, don’t you think?

I’ve had dreams that I can’t seem to shake off all day long while most dreams seem to slip away from me upon waking. Sometimes that can make me crazy too and I spend a good chunk of the morning wondering what I was dreaming about because something in the dream tweaked me. I hear people say that they never dream but I find that hard to believe. They probably do only they shake it off immediately on waking therefore remembering nothing.

Now when I say that I hit the pillow and fall asleep that is true almost every night. I do, however, also on occasion wake up around 1 or 2 in the morning and can spend some time falling back asleep. The other night I had the misfortune of not being able to get back to sleep at all and that was a consequence of having, for the first time in 9 years, over sleeping the night before! But I’ve had a couple of nights of really good sleep, so good in fact that I am walking around with that Sleepy Face. You know that beatific face that little kids have when they wake up? Yep, that is me this morning. Nothing grumpy about me at all.

My cup runneth over.

Food, Food, Food

Lest ye think I have gone mad let me hurry to say that I just finished reading Julia Child’s “My Life in France” which has prompted me to write about food this morning. That and the fact that yesterday I had two catered affairs, a breakfast and a lunch, at work. There is always a lot of food at our place of work. We have fresh fruit brought in once a week for each kitchen (two on each floor). We used to have a bunch of snacks as well but all snacks our now up in our brand new “bistro”, the communal kitchen. As well many of our departments have standing lunch meetings where food is brought in and leftovers are always standing in the kitchens.

Yesterday I was in an all day meeting so I did not have control over what occurred with our leftover breakfast. There was a whole pan of hashbrowns which were not eaten and when I stepped into the kitchen over the lunch hour I was shocked to see they had been dumped into the garbage! What waste! Why had the hashbrowns not been taken up to the bistro so those enjoying lunch could have taken some hashbrowns on the side? I will get to the bottom of that today but meanwhile I just want to say that here in Canada we live with so much plenty that we take food for granted. Unless you were raised by parents who told stories of lack of food during WWII or, like me, read Gone With the Wind at a tender age and became forever scarred with thoughts of starvation and lack of clothes, you probably don’t think about food except to say “I feel hungry, let’s go to MacDonald’s”.

Julia’s book starts with her and her husband Paul arriving in France in 1948 to take up a position in the US embassy. Like all of Europe France was still recovering from the ravages of the war but somehow Julia and Paul managed to discover “food” and by that I mean food that tasted wonderful. Julia’s first meal was fish and she discovered that fish could have a magical taste! The way she described the fish made me want to get out of bed and start baking in the kitchen at 10:00 at night. Julia’s enthusiasm for food, and for life, leaped from the pages of her book. It was a pleasure to read and for the last two weeks I have been in France with Julia and Paul.

Needless to say when I saw the hashbrowns in the garbage not only was I outraged by my own personal sense of frugality but I was still in gourmand mode due to the book. I am sure everyone has heard “there are starving children in Africa” [and who hasn’t heard it lately with all the news coming from Somalia and elsewhere over the last couple of months?] so I was shocking to see the food there in the bin.

We should never take food for granted because this is what sustains our life. Even in it’s simplest form food is wonderful. Fresh baked bread with butter and sugar, hmmm mmm good. A fresh picked strawberry or apple, perfection. A sprig of parsley straight off the plant in the hanging basket, refreshing! Here in Canada we can go to a grocery store and see aisles and aisles of food, fresh, frozen, packaged. Imagine going into a grocery store and seeing a couple of crushed boxes of shreddies lying on the floor and nothing else? It could happen. Think about that next time you throw away perfectly fine food.

A New Leaf

It’s the middle of August and already I am anticipating autumn. The Labour Day weekend brings on the sense of fall preparations for winter and at the same time “new beginnings”. I suppose this feeling that one is starting over is a carryover from school days. In any event I have vague plans that are slowly shaping in my mind on what I want to do over the next four months. Of course there is the usual, better diet, more exercise, keep the house clean but the big agenda is to write, write, write. Second on the agenda is to keep my temper and I am grudgingly grinning as I sit here with a ball cap on my head trying to keep a pesky mosquito from stinging me! I’ve lain awake since 2:30 a.m. with nary a bug in sight or sound and now as I try to remain tranquil I have this nasty little creature flying into my ear!

That’s it, now I have the mosquito net my friend mailed to me over my head and ears, I look quite charmingly grotesque. There I think I got it, it was a big one!

So what was I saying, oh yes, staying tranquil. Once upon a time I was a mild mannered, gentle little thing and then I turned 43. Suddenly my father started calling me The Rattlesnake which I suppose meant I had been laying in the sun dozing away quietly and suddenly rose up and hissed. Yep, that would be me!

In any event, I am trying to earn the new moniker The Pussycat or The Bunny or something else quite mild and innocuous. We’ll see how far that goes. At work one of the VPs actually appears to run away from me and I keep asking Wendy “what did you say that makes your boss runs away from me?” and she smiles. Then she gives in and says “I just said you would chew him up and spit him out”. “Wendy, for heavens sakes!” and I laugh.

There is a little known movie called The New Leaf which stars Walter Matthau and Elaine May. Walter is a bankrupt playboy and Elaine is an heiress who also happens to be a biologist. In order to save his fortunes and his corvette Walter decides he must marry an heiress and then kill her for the inheritance. Elaine is oblivious, awkward and really charming as this dedicated biologist looking for a new species. Eventually she finds one and names it after Walter’s character. The New Leaf – I won’t spoil it for you if you should get a chance to see it but it makes me smile.

Sears Saga

If you will recall my lovely episode of my credit card nightmare with Sears from a few weeks ago I just want to warn everyone again. Do not, I repeat, do not, exchange your department store credit card for a Mastercard. Not only does Mastercard not care about you as a customer, but they screw everything up so badly that your personal credit may be affected (mercifully mine was not). As well, my experience with Sears has been less than stellar. They have left me to messages on my voicemail advising me that they would “check in to the situation”. The second one advised me that they had reversed my late fees – well thank you very much for nothing. I shouldn’t have had late fees if they had transferred my credit from the old card when I first instructed them to do so. Furthermore, they should never have been harassing me at home with numerous, I mean numerous, phone calls about a non-existent outstanding balance.

I am not impressed. What did I expect from the Sears head office? I think a proper apology would be in order. I think reinstating my store credit card would have been nice. Failing that, what about the fact that I still don’t have the supposed Mastercard?

I’m sorry but I have no plans to shop in Sears anymore and their catalogues will be going straight into the garbage can at the post office.

Sears shoppers out there take warning, don’t be fooled by the cashier who tries to switch you to a Mastercard – the 10% saving is not worth the aggravation I have had to go through, that is for sure.

Sears really has no idea of the kind of customer they lost in me. I have been such a strong advocate of shopping at Sears because they do have a lot of products that are Made in Canada and I used to tell my girlfriends about it since many of them prefer buying Canadian products.

And one last thing – do I feel sorry that American companies are taking over our Canadian businesses? Not one jot. Both Lord & Taylor and Macy’s customer service departments have been fantastic. No attitude, no belligerence, just a very nice person who helped me through the exchange dollar situation.

Mind Plateau

I think I must have reached a mind plateau as I have been struggling with various themes to get back into my blog. This morning I was reading the latest O magazine; there was a section on women who had lost an incredible amount of weight and one woman talked about a mind plateau as part of the weight plateau phenomenon. Well, that resonated with me and opened up a window of thoughts and conversations in my mind.

The truth is that we can get stuck in our own conversations and that can be a dangerous thing. It’s important to hold on to one’s belief and essential truths, of course. However, we are not evolving as civilized, educated human beings if we don’t move past our initial learnings. Now for those who know me that may seem a little ironical because I certainly have some long held beliefs that anyone would have difficulty shaking out of me, such as my left leaning political beliefs. But I think no one would say that I don’t listen, and I mean really listen, to people spout off their own opinions. (poking fun at myself in case you don’t “hear” it). I listen to folks talk about their alien stories or their conspiracy theories and later I will mull them over to see what merit I can find in their beliefs.

Yesterday I had a discussion with my sister and my nephew which was voluable even though we were all three on the same side of the discussion. The discussion was centered around university students who parrot their parents’ political leanings without in any way understanding what they are saying. This astonishes us because being “university” students one would think they had an open mind. We are fooling ourselves because even though a person enters the “hallowed halls of learning” it doesn’t follow that these individuals are above average in intelligence nor does it mean that they are actually open to learning outside their comfort zone.

When an individual says “that’s the way it is” to end a discussion one wonders why he has even bothered to show up for the exposure to ideas in the first place. Yes, I am delusional if I think that education will necessarily open up a person’s mind to the idea that she is their to help make the world a better place! (Lest ye think we were wanting to "convert" anyone to our political thinking, it was simply an example of the way the discussions were going. People like these still think Darwin was crazy).

Oh dear, really? I thought I was here to make buckets of money so I can buy a BMW.

Once these people have received their degree, diploma, certificate or whatever they have reached a plateau in learning that never moves forward. That would be one of the reasons why the Teaparty is enjoying such success. The flower children and hippies have bred a couple of generations of right wing Republican rednecks that scare the beejesus out of me! The other day I was a captive audience in listening to a right winger nutbar inciting his audience to hate. Yes, to hate. Right on a Canadian radio station. We are to hate the uneducated and unemployed. It’s their fault they can’t get a job. And apparently there has been 40 years of left wing, bleeding hearts causing this sense of privilege and entitlement in the lower classes. Lower classes? Did he actually say lower classes here in Canada? Wow. Aristocrats. We have aristocrats in Canada?
I think mind plateaus are real but for some people the plateau only leads to the edge of a cliff.

Back in Business - at last

Well, my service provider is here working on my PVR after getting my internet up and running. Brace yourself for tomorrow's installment!

Internet Down

Sorry folks, my internet has been down for a couple of days so no blogging possible. This is a quick sneak-in from work just to notify you that I will be back in business (I hope) tomorrow morning. I may post several blogs as I have still be writing every morning, just unable to upload. :)

Fireworks in Town

It’s Sunday night of the roundup days weekend here in town and I’m sitting up late waiting for the fireworks to start. I get a grand view from my house which is fun because I can sip some wine, nibble on cheese and basically hide indoors if the wind comes up, which seems to be the case this year.

I’m not really sure why we have fireworks on this particular weekend other than the fact that it has become the traditional reunion weekend for folks here in town. I believe a great many of the small towns around Alberta do some special event on a particular weekend and this just happens to be the one for us.

I remember when I was a kid we had firecrackers going off on the Victoria Day weekend although my parents never allowed us to have any. We enjoyed hearing them go off in the night but rarely did we see any fireworks. Towns didn’t have money for those kinds of things I suppose. When I think about it WWII was only 18 years in the past when I was 10 years old. We were very fortunate to be living in Canada and just getting into the age of prosperity but there were still a lot of things that were special. Not everyone had a telephone in their home, in fact we didn’t get a telephone until I was 7 years old and we kids weren’t allowed to use. I was a teenager before I ever used the telephone to phone a friend. Can you imagine how kids would feel about that today? Amazingly I’m living proof that one does not need a cell phone to survive childhood.

In my neighbourhood we had sidewalks on both sides of the street and we also had boulevards separating the sidewalks from the road. Nowadays only one side of the street seems to get a sidewalk and boulevards seem to be a thing of the past. Both sides of houses had a side yard and it was mandatory that everyone had a driveway. There was no parking on the streets and homes only had one car, if they even had a car. Most of the families in our neighbourhood had more than two kids in the family (and they weren’t Catholics). Mothers stayed home; there were no working mothers in our neighbourhood. We hadn’t heard of divorce and everyone had a father.

It was a huge event when the area got a public swimming pool and then a skating rink. And girls actually got to skate in the rink any time they wanted to. Organized hockey for boys hadn’t evolved yet. In those days, boys played hockey on the ice on a natural pond. Parents never came around to interfere in games. We made up our own games of scrub and British Bulldog and kick-the-can. Parents weren’t referees. We didn’t want to go in the house except to sleep when it got dark.

P.S. The fireworks didn’t start until 11:00 and they were spectacular. This is my shot.