Hallowe'en

Hallowe’en was never a favourite holiday with me.  In fact when my father first told me about Hallowe’en I thought it sounded like one of his jokes.  I was seven.  I refused to get all dressed up to go knocking on strange doors but my sister and brother went out and was I ever sorry when they came home with a pillow case full of candy.  After that I felt I was not too mature to go into costume!

 You see Hallowe’en is not a holiday in Denmark and so we didn’t know anything about this event.  When we first immigrated to Canada we lived in Little Italy and for whatever reason we were not exposed to it there.  It wasn’t until we lived in Grimsby in our own house that my parents learned about trick or treating.  So I never experienced it until I went out for the first time at the elderly age of eight.  I went out as a witch.  There weren’t very many homes in our neighbourhood but we were allowed to go along Applebyline on “our” side which had a sidewalk so we managed to get quite a bit of candy.  In those days it was safe to eat homemade candyapples or popcorn balls.  I loved the old-fashioned molasses candy which I believe is now banned.  We didn’t start getting mini chocolate bars until I was maybe 11 or 12.  Mostly we just got a piece of candy or 2 or some 2 piece boxes of chiclets.

            Hallowe’en  is my nephew’s favourite holiday and has been since he was a little kid.  He loved it more than Christmas which certainly is rare considering how much we all love presents!  Christopher had the greatest Hallowe’en parties which became more elaborate with each passing year.  I’m sure the whole town lamented when he went off to university and had to stop holding them.  Today I would give $50 to be a fly on his practicum classroom’s wall.  I can only imagine what sort of costume he will feel compelled to wear today and wonder how the children will react. 

            Happy Hallowe’en Everybody!

Wine & Words Writers' Retreat

What can I say except that Karen is a genius as a writing coach.  Having reviewed the work I have been doing over the last 6 months she set me down for a one on one session and gave me quality critique on my haphazard writing style.  During our pre-conference discussion I mentioned to her that what I wanted to take away from this weekend was a clear path to improve the quality of my writing.
 Mission accomplished.
I have a clear understanding of why I felt my writing lacked clear quality.  I was almost schizophrenic in my style and by that I mean I was trying to be a storyteller and at the same time be a teacher.  Drop the teaching, if you are doing your job as a storyteller the reader will get the lesson.  No need to insult them by pointing them in that direction.
Really?  That makes my work so much easier!  Thank  you!
The retreat hasn't been all work, although Karen has definitely been encouraging us to work in 90 minute increments but when Jane said "let's call it a day" at 4:00 I was the first to plunge into the hot tub.  I waited patiently for the girls to signal wine but they were soooo vanilla.  However we made up for it after our fabulous potluck dinner when  we truly made it a wine and words weekend.  What an interesting, fun loving trio of ladies I have spent this weekend with.
Karen, next retreat, I am so there with you!

Canmore Retreat

A woman owes it to herself to take a retreat from every day life at least once a year.  If you cannot afford a full out retreat away from home it is important to give yourself a timeout even if that means taking over the bathroom for an hour and shutting the family out.  

Women are the nurturers of the world and 99% of women forget to nurture themselves!  Isn't that an amazing statistics?  I just made it up.  But you can be sure that I am right on the money.

My mother gave herself a timeout during the summertime when we were children though she wold never have called it that.  She used to lock us out of the house when we went out to play and then she would get her major housework done,such as waxing the floors and washing the windows.  Once that was done I suspect she watched her soaps in peace and quiet, had a nice coffee midafternoon and perhaps closed her eyes for half an hour.  That is about as much meditation as a woman in the '60's ever got.

Today women are taking better care of themselves that is certainly true but unless you count exotic holidays they are not taking a retreat.  I have a friend who goes on an artists' retreat once or twice a year.I envied her the luxury hardly daring to think of such a thing myself.  Then out of my amazing NYC fashionista trip I discovered a treasurer amongst the group.  a writing coach of no mean abilities!

Karen has me delving deep into my past and pulling out some of the stuff I had been avoiding writing about in my "book".  Last night I got so much accomplished that I could breath a sigh of relief at the end of our session and go and enjoy wine in the hottub under the mountains.  It was a great day.

And let's just say "what happens in Canmore, stays in Canmore".

Why don't I have a middle name?

As we all know children are sponges that absorb all the things around them.  I already noticed when I was in Grade 1 that I was different from the other children.  Why?  Because they all had a middle name.

My teachers would always make a big point that I didn’t have a middle name.  Even visiting assessors who made us write all kinds of exams would put pressure on me to put something in for the middle assuming that I was mentally deficient sinceI didn’t know my middle name.  Jeanette and I used to talk about it and eventually we went to my parents and asked them why didn’t we girls have a middle name when all three boys did.  The explanation wasn’t satisfactory.  Danish people generally don’t have middle names, the boys got them because the first one had the name Jens and my father decided all of them would have that as a first name (rather like many Italian and French girls having the name Maria first and then a second name).  It was because Peter and Erik were born in Canada so my parents wanted to give them a Danish identity.

            Naturally Jeanette and I weren’t satisfied with that answer so eventually my father came up with a solution.  We could assume a middle name by assuming our birth month name.  Jeanette May and Susanne June.  It seemed like a good idea when he suggested it to us and we used it a couple of times but the time came when the pressure had gone .  By junior high they didn’t care any longer if I had a middle name or not so I entered as plain old Susanne again.

            In Denmark there are few middle names in our generation or older.  However there are a number of hyphenated names such as Jens-Ole, Anne-Lise (or Annelise), Ingemarie, Hans-Ove and so on.  Interestingly enough Norwegians frequently have double names (no hyphen) and they are used as a matter of course because there are a limited amount of names in Norwegian (apparently). 

            Names are very important in the evolution of personality, or so it is suggested.  Would Cary Grant still have been debonair as Archie Leach?  Would Doris Day still have been adorable as Doris Kappelkoff?  John Wayne as tough with the name Marion Morrison?  We’ll never know for sure but certainly the stage names are attractive. 

            Who needs a middle name when there are icons such as Elvis, Cher and Madonna?  They didn’t even need a last name!

Dorothy Parker's Wit

“I don’t know much about being a millionaire, but I bet I’d be darling at it.”

Don’t you love this kind of sparkling wit?  Dorothy Parker was a very interesting character whose wit lives on in our day to day lingo.  She was a poet, author, screenwriter, and critic but despite a very successful career she was a very troubled woman who turned to alcohol and attempted suicide on several occasions.  She also had the dubious honour of making it on to communist blacklist in the 50’s.

            “You can never be too rich or too thin.”  Yes, Dorothy is the culprit who brought us that one.  For all the women in the world who struggle on diets, here’s where you can point your finger!  Dieting is the bane of woman’s existence, challenging us to daily acts of will power that ought to win us a collective Nobel Peace Prize.  With all the willpower that goes into dieting, if we could harness that energy into peace think of what women could accomplish.  The discouragement we face when the dial on the scale doesn’t move, or worse, creeps up even as you have starved yourself and the brave woman grits her teeth dismounts from the scale and says “if I could only have a poo I know I would go down.”

            “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses”.  Remember the myopic Marilyn Monroe in “How to Catch a Millionaire” quoting this little number?  Yes, Dorothy again.  Once again think of the anxiety of women who refused to wear glasses and thus did miss out on the passes thrown her way.  We have to be glad that the marketing whores on Rodeo Drive have taken to designing "eyeware" along with every other item lbranded with names Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan and other fashion design icons.   

“I don’t care what is written about me as long as it isn’t true.”  Now this is brilliant because who can really say they don’t care?  But think about it, as my old boss used to say, and I paraphrase, “if you aren’t stepping on toes, you aren’t doing much”.  I certain type of person can become very jealous of one who works hard even without much financial success.  I’ve noticed that not just with myself but with other people also.  It’s sad because it must be really draining for that person. 

In her will Dorothy decreed her epitaph. 

Excuse my dust.

Wide Blue Yonder

Do you get concerned when you are flying on a plane that is less than a jumbo jet?  The first time I flew on a 20 seater was when I went to Grande Prairie to visit my best friend about 15 years ago and my heart sunk to my shoes when I saw how little it was.  Ever since Grant Notley, the NDP MLA, went down back in the early 80’s I have had  a fear of small planes.  Luckily the planes I fly on these days are thoroughly vetted by our company so they are as safe as the big planes. 

            Sometimes we get unreasonable fears stuck in our minds which are very difficult to overcome.  Are you the type of person who faces fear head on, getting back on the horse if you are thrown off, or do you have to rethink the program?  Most of the time I grit my teeth and go through with whatever it is that scares me but there are a few things that really freak me out.  I hate driving to a place that I don’t know, especially if it is dark.  The older I get the more difficulty I have with night driving so if I have never been to the place before my first reaction is “no, I can’t go.”  If I absolutely have to go, then I will try to take a trial run in the daytime so I have an idea of where I am going.  Anything to make it less painful.  That is probably my biggest fear, night driving to strange places.

            Some of the tricks I use to get over my anxiety is to tell myself that everyone else has to try it the first time, that no one is great at everything, that who is really watching.  The truth is that usually no one is watching you so whatever you do, you end up being your own worst critic.  When you are young you think the whole world revolves around you, maybe not in so many words, but you are obsessed with what everyone else is thinking about you.  No one is thinking anything because they are too busy thinking about themselves.  When I get stage fright I remind myself of these little tidbits of knowledge and it calms me right down.

            Karaoke, bring it on!  Ballet recital, go for it!

Sorting Things Out

The November issue of O has a terrific article about discovering what you really want to be doing with your life.  It even has a workbook to get you started on finding what you are really good at.  I took a quick look at it last night before I went to bed and I had the same freezing moments as when I get asked “put down your long term goals”.  Analyzing one’s self is not my strong suit, particularly when it comes in the form of a questionnaire.  Take stock of my strengths, eh.  Hmm.  Tap my motivaton.  I’ll do that as soon as I get unstuck.  Oh good, number for 4 - Go!

            I’m going to need a lot of time to study the questions and read the article thoroughly before I can even think to start the quiz.  Now you are probably thinking “but you love to write” and it’s true I love writing but is it what I’m really supposed to be doing?  How good am I at it really?  There are days when I feel drained of ideas and everything I write seems contrived or inarticulate.  I have doubts.

            It’s good to sort things out in your mind every once in a while but it can be such a painful exercise because it’s important not to lie to yourself as you are doing it.  It’s also important to be clear from other distractions and upsets while you are doing something which is essentially creative.  When one is burdened with the cares of life, with outside stresses, it’s hard to concentrate on being in a happy place.  For me it takes some time to shed the stress when the day to day cares become a bit overwhelming.  Once done I can shake myself off and start afresh.

            Meanwhile I hope you find your inner bliss!

Ten Eternal Questions

Some years ago I picked up a book of this title written by Zoe Sallis which poses the question to a variety of celebrities.  I look at the questions and wonder what my answers are. 

            1. What is your concept of God?

            2.  Do you think this life is all there is or do you believe in the afterlife?

            3. Do you accept the concept of Karma, in the sense of cause and effect?

            4.  What is your moral code, in relation to right and wrong?

            5.  Do you believe you have a destiny, and do you see yourself as here to fulfill it?

            6.  What has life taught you so far?

            7.  What advice or words of wisdom would you like to pass on to those close to you?

            8, Do you believe our survival on earth is being threatened?

            9. Who do you most admire in the world, historical or living?

            10  How do you find peace within yourself?

My best friend Silvia and I would often talk about fate, she believe in it and I didn’t because I felt that fate would mean you had no choices in your life.  We do have choices but now that I am older I can see that one’s character would in some ways push a person into a certain direction.  Nevertheless I don’t believe that we have a destiny in the sense that some of us are born for greatness while others are not.  Personality helps but there is also opportunity or luck if you will.  Are these opportunities pre-destined then?  I don’t believe so. 

A lot of the questions can go back to your concept of God.  Afterlife, Karma, Destiny, Survival of earth, perhaps also your moral code.  I don’t believe there is a right or wrong answer for God or any of the other questions because everyone has the right to chose for themselves what they wish to believe.  If a person wants to believe in Adam and Eve that is up to them.  If a person believes in reincarnation, that’s okay too.  I have often thought that what we personally believe may be what we ultimately live and receive.  Our brains are powerful engines and perhaps we create our own reality with our strong beliefs. 

What has life taught me so far?  Probably that life isn’t fair and that we have to make our own way in the world.  I read the celebrity answers and can agree with most of the comments made in the book as well.  We aren’t very bright if we haven’t learned a number of things along the way to 58 but choosing one lesson I think that of fairness is one of the most dramatic.  It’s simple but how many people still don’t get it.  I fight for fairness all the time so even though I realize that life isn’t fair I work to make it more so.  Is it a lost cause?  I don’t think so because for me this is part of the sense of right and wrong; then I just think I am fighting on the side of the angels.

What gives me peace of mind?  Doing the right thing.  How do I make peace with my inner self?  I’m still working on that one.

Car Pool Talk

Usually our car pool talk is based around work such as diet, drivers, holidays and other general topics.  Yesterday though we ran the gamut of homework for elementary school students,  evolution, abortion,  and homosexuality.  It’s interesting to hear other people’s opinions and I wonder why I am usually so far out in left field from others’ ideas.

            We talked about the young boy who committed suicide in Ottawa earlier this week.  I expressed my surprise that high school students in Ottawa would be mean to kids who were gay since there is so much exposure to homosexuality these days.  I suppose I fail to see the weakness of students’ sense of security with their own identities therefore they must taunt others to feel great about themselves.  I say with tongue in cheek.  We went on to talk about kids in grade 6 who call their classmates he/she or she/he if they are enjoying things perceived to be pursuits outside their gender.  I was shocked.  I was shocked that 11 year olds are defining “sports” as boy pursuits and “art” as girl pursuits.  So if an 11 year old girl likes to run, jump or play baseball she is gay?  If a boy likes to draw he is gay?  I look back at my grade 6 class and all the girls liked to run around and throw balls in the summer time.  A lot of the boys were really great in art class.  No one thought anything about it. 

            I was even more shocked that the mother thought it was okay that the kids were saying he/she or she/he and assuming the subjected child wasn’t hurt by it.  Of course the child would be hurt so why isn’t she stopping her son from saying such a thing?  I didn’t ask that question but I was thinking it. Can’t she see that if she doesn’t explain that it’s wrong to say things like that it will escalate into high school taunting that leads to suicide?  I shake my head in wonder.

            From there we moved on to “coming out of the closet”.  The rest of the car thought gay people should come out into the open on the assumption that they would be happier.  My thought was if the (adult) gay person doesn’t want to “come out of the closet” it is their business.  More specifically what I meant by that is that maybe the person is out of the closet in the sense that they aren’t hiding it from their family and friends but they don’t necessarily have to advertise the fact at their place of work if they don’t want to.  I really don’t think it is my business to know if one of my colleagues is gay or not.  I don’t care to know that any more than I care to know if they are married or not.  I want to make it clear that I am not saying they should suppress it, I am simply saying it isn’t other people’s business to push anyone for “information” that will boil down to gossip.  I regard it on the same level as when people ask me why I am single.  Who cares?

            Then we went on to abortions because the car was getting heated over the above topic.  Surprsing opinions here also.  One should have an abortion if health is an issue, if one is raped.  Not for birth control.  If a 14 year old gets pregnant she should “take responsibility for her actions”!  Are you from the 16^th century?  I was surprised.  Let’s just sew a scarlet letter on her clothes while we are at it.  Better yet, let’s tattoo it on her forehead now that we are in the 21^st century.  I expressed my opinion that statistically I was confident that women with multiple abortions were in the extreme minority and therefore not used as a form of birth control.  Apparently because one knows of one woman’s friend’s friend who had two it means it is widespread.  Hmmm. 

            What about the cost of the 14 year old having the child, going on social welfare and perhaps the child also ending up in that pattern?  What about her lost opportunities because she made a mistake?  Please don’t get into the arena of “a fetus is a human being”, that isn’t the point of this discussion.  The point is how people think about punishing someone for mistakes.  Be high and mighty because you never got caught in that predicament and are 40 years old.  Be righteous because you are now a devoted mother and couldn’t dream how it would have been if your precious little Johnny had been destroyed in the womb.  This should not be an emotional debate, it should be logical and sympathetic to the person in the world already.

            Now I have very decided opinions and I don’t back down.  Hence, the swinging away from the topics because we were always so far apart in our opinions.  I don’t get mad at people for not agreeing with me.  I just wonder what rock they crawled out from under.

            And yes, I like to have the last word.

What's Fair?

Goodbye to Carson Kressley.  Carson was fun to watch but he certainly was one of the most uncoordinated dancers I’ve ever seen on the show.  I enjoyed watching him dance but it is really confusing to see good dancers leave ahead of someone that isn’t doing so well.  Still disturbed that Chynna Phillips got eliminated so soon.  I really wonder sometimes if it’s true that it’s the fans that keep people on; can Carson really have had more fans than Chynna Phillips? 

            Fairness anywhere is very subjective.  Whether it is Dancing with the Stars, at work, family dynamics or anything else fairness is often in the eye of the beholder.  For instance, in the family each sibling is only looking at their own situation when they cry out “it isn’t fair” and until they are older and can analyze the situation it will feel like unfairness in the parents’ decision to let the brother play the accordion while the sister can’t have piano lessons.  A nine year old doesn’t understand that a piano costs thousands while an accordion can be rented for $2.00 (back in the day). 

            However in the working world we do find unfairness occurs more frequently than one would like to see but as adults we have to shrug our shoulders and say “c’est la vie”.  Now why is that?  It’s because if you cannot control the outcome there is nothing else to do.  Certainly one can whine and complain but the truth is that doesn’t make you look very good and it doesn’t change anything in the end.  Instead you either accept it or you move on.

            Politically speaking if one sees unfairness one can protest, or again, do nothing.  For many of us in North America we choose not to see unfairness until it strikes home.  Yesterday I read an editorial in the National Post and my thought to the writer is “you simply refuse to look at the issue correctly”.  The article was about the Occupy Wall Street protests and the “we are the 99%” posters.  The writer gave a slanted story which only looked at the world wide distribution of wealth rather than the wealth inside Canada and/or the United States.  So if the reader doesn’t know the rest of the story they would think the writer was right on the money (pun intended).  Ah, no.  

            There is unfairness.  And there is corruption.  Two different things entirely.

            So what is happening on Dancing with the Stars?  What is happening with Occupy Wall Street?

Daily Routines

Not finding stuff on the internet makes me crazy, not getting access to my site makes me crazy.  I can understand why people were upset when their blackberries weren’t operating.  When one had a daily routine and it becomes disrupted it can be irritating and throw a person’s whole day out of kilter.

Daily routines can become almost sacred even for a normal person not diagnosed with ADHD or another one of those compulsive disorders.  For instance if you are accustomed to a morning cup of coffee and suddenly you discover there is no more coffee in the house it can set you in a tizzy.  Who wants to drink insipid tea when strong java is the thing that gets you moving in the morning?  If a person has a dog they habitually let the dog out for its morning run and when you hear loud noises, yelping and such there goes the day.  You know the critter has got into some kind of trouble, either encountering a skunk, a coyote or a sharp stick that slices through her pelt.  Have breakfast, brush you teeth and your hair, get dressed, put on makeup, make lunch, start the car.  Regular routines for most of us.  When something goes out of kilter it can turn a person’s day around.

            Habits they say take 3 weeks to develop but I would venture to say that good habits take 3 weeks or more to develop.  A bad habit takes only a couple of tries and you are sunk.  Getting into the habit of exercising takes forever to become addicted, but discovering a new chocolate can take three bites and then you are hooked.  Gotta have that Toblerone.  Now.  Have you discovered a new licorice lately?  Are you still dreaming about it and wondering when you can get someone to go to Europe to get it for you?  You get the picture.  Food addictions are cravings of such magnitude it is amazing.

            I am on one of these extreme diets where I am fascinating by my body and mind.  I do not feel hungry at all because my stomach is not rumbling or telling me “feed me”.  But my brain is crying out for that habit of havarti on toast and a cup of coffee with two teaspoons of sugar.  I have a satisfying dinner of asparagus, tomato and meat but I am accustomed to a coffee and a couple of cooks for dessert.  Oh but it is agitating to have this craving that has nothing to do with hunger.  I sympathize with addicts of tobacco, alcohol or whatever.  If a person can get antsy for a sweet I can only imagine what a drug would do to a person.

            So I work with new routines to get over the cravings by breaking old habits.  Off the coach I get – which isn’t really such a revelation as it should be.  How often have we been told it is terrible to eat in front of the television.  And how many of us do it?  Shudder, I don’t want to know.  But when new routines are destroyed by unreliable technology, I feel like tearing the computer out of the wall and throwing it through the window.  Instead, I will pout for three days.  Now there’s a habit to put a frown on anyone’s face.  Maybe that explains the stoic looks people wear on elevators?  There routine has been disrupted.

Monday Morning Mish Mash

Richard Simmons’ blog this morning is right on the money – Read the Fine Print.  He ends his article with

            “You've got to eat less. You've got to vigorously exercise daily. And you've got to keep a positive ‘I can do it’ attitude as you work hard proving to yourself that you really can lose the weight.”

Too often we want the magic pill to fix our problems whether it be weight loss, depression or anything else.  But regardless of the problem, part of the solution is “doing the work”.  I woke up early this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep.  So I lay there thinking about my back garden because I had been working there yesterday and saw with sinking heart just how bad the weeds had gotten.  It’s going to take an awful lot of work to get it back in order which caused me to toss and turn thinking of methods that I could possibly use to sort it all out.  It is an overwhelming job when you don’t have the equipment.  I will have to find a solution by springtime which seems like a long enough time to solve the problem but here’s the next problem.

In a nutshell I am disorganized.  Yes, the organized, anal compulsive person that I once was has deteriorated into some crazy, lazy woman who can’t seem to stretch time to the limit and squeeze a dozen tasks into 10 ten minutes.  For some reason lists don’t seem to help because I still get distracted as easily as a chicken after a butterfly, no a bee, no a dandelion.  Hither and thither I go from one incomplete task to another.  What is up with that?  Where is my focus?  It seems to have disappeared with my hormones.

Some days are better than others and I feel exhilarated to have accomplished everything I planned to do.  Other days I lay my head on the pillow and realize that there were tasks I could have done but I had forgotten about until that moment.  Oh me oh my, what to do?  Is there a magic pill for focus?  The truth is that we are living in a world where everything has to be “high speed” this or that and we have got into the habit of demanding too much of ourselves.  Right?  If I think that way I don’t feel the pressure.  I can relax for a few minutes before I start running around getting dressed, getting on the treadmill, making my lunch, rushing out the door.  To work.

You see how it goes?

Whimsical Cats

I was in my favourite art shop yesterday and admired a picture of a cat lounging on a library shelf where the books had titles like “Holy Cats”, and “Tale of Two Kittens”.  It was by Charles Wysocki and the title was Frederick the Literate.  The picture just captures the whimsy of the lazy cat dozing away and has the charm of the classic books turned into feline literature. 

As I write this Thumper is lounging on my desk and occasionally he puts his paw down on the keyboard, not to type but to get my attention.  Cats are independent creatures who generally don’t listen to their mistress preferring that we are at their beck and call not the other way around.  However all of my cats, past and present have been very clingy cats.  They have all vied for my attention as I have almost always had more than one cat at a time.  Which is a story in itself.

The spring after I bought my home I decided to have a barbeque and invited all my family over to enjoy my new place.  Three little kittens came cautiously up to the house and my nephews, aged 2 and 4 were feeding them bits of hamburger at the instigation of my mother, no less.  The next day the three kittens were back again.  What could I do? I left them a bowl of milk.  They were back the next day and before I knew it I had been adopted by Patchy, Silky and Blackie (named by said nephews).  In the beginning I was quite firm about them staying only outside but one day in the fall my father came to visit and discovered the kittens shivering in a cardboard box on the back porch.

            “Sanne, you can’t let them freeze out there.”

Right, in they came, along with their little cousin Tigger who had been born in the next litter.  You can see where this is going.  My neighbour had a female cat that dropped kittens like rabbits.  For a long time I limited myself to the 4 cats but then one day a mini Patchy arrived on my doorstep looking so pathetic we had to let her in.  We called her LP (Little Patchy of course).  LP unfortunately was pregnant and low and behold I suddenly had little grey twins, Arrow and PomPom (the boys were still naming the cats with participation by their sister Kathleen).  By this time poor Blackie had passed away due to a urinary tract infection but I was now up to 5 cats.  Then along came Teddy, another grey male.  And lastly came Trouble, grey as well.  I am happy to say that I maxed out at 7 and most of the time they were outdoor cats.

The winter after Trouble arrived Teddy ran away, never to be seen again.  Then tragedy struck one terrible summer when first PomPom and then Arrow were attacked by cougars.  That same summer Patchy lay dead in the backyard, feet up in the air and her eyes wide opened in fright.   I’m convinced the neighbour’s dog terrified her and she ran away only to die of a heart attack (she was quite fat by this time).  That same day Silky went missing.  Then Trouble disappeared.  I was down to only Tigger from my original four.  Tigger passed away at the age of 20.

            The tale of Jericho mother of Thumper and Cherie will wait for another day.

Kim's Game

When I was a girl guide we went hiking with our troup leader who introduced us to the game called Kim’s Game based on the character from  Rudyard Kipling book.  Often when I go for my nature walk I think about that time and will play the game just with myself as I did this morning.  There was no breeze so it was nice as it was also quite crisp outside and my ears are sensitive to cold. 

Right off the bat, just as I passed the swamp across from the house I saw a flock of geese take off as they heard my footsteps.  One.  Only a few more steps and I discovered a lone ragweed blooming yellow as though it hadn’t got the notice that it was fall not summertime.  Two.  The sun was beaming through the trees and hit directly in my eye so I was squinting and needed to turn my head westward.  There was a lot of dirty brown withered field but I didn’t care to count that as part of my game.  Then my eyes lit on the new house that was built last year near the golf course.  From a distance it is quite picturesque with that unusual Pennsylvania Dutch colour and white trim.  Three.  Then I noticed a clump of trees to the east that also had not received the message of their brethren.  They stood in glorious green and yellow leaf while all the trees around them were bare of leaves.  Four.  On I walked, picking up the pace now as I climbed the hill to the Indian Graveyard.  Quite by surprise a neighbour drove by, rolled down the window and stuck out his arm in a wave.  It was so unusual that I said Five. 

Hit the graveyard and I turned around to head back.  By this time I was mulling over the idea of neighbours and realized that on November 16^th I will have lived in my home for 25 years.  In 25 years I have never once been invited into the home of any of my neighbours.  How unneighbourly is that?  I like the dynamics of Wisteria Lane of Desperate Housewives fame and feel sad that I don’t have that sort of neighbourhood.  So because I was thinking about that I forgot about Kim’s Game and didn’t discover any more natural wonders this morning.

Once again I think – I get more like Faster Jonna every day.  Focus.  But lately I seem to wool-gather more and more often and then I think “Still Alice”, oh oh, I’m in trouble.  Now what was this blog supposed to be about . . . nature?  Well, I’m a natural wonder too!

Friday's Random Thoughts

A few things going on in my mind this morning.  What do people think about Prime Minister Harper’s government’s move to legislate Air Canada stewardesses back to work, after first blocking their right to vote by asking Canadian Industrial Relations Board whether their strike could affect Canadians “health and safety”? Are you serious?

What is happening with the Occupy Wallstreet demonstrations in Canada?  Are you aware there is going to be a walk in Calgary on Saturday?  I didn’t think so.  I haven’t heard anything on my radio station about it.

Does it bother you when news is apparently suppressed?  Occasionally you may hear an interesting blip about something and then the story seems to die.  Unless you get on the internet and search you aren’t going to hear any more about it.

Did you know Shania Twain has the most scientifically perfect body? 

The things you discover on MSN’s front page!

So what am I really up to these days?  As part of my fall cleanout I am now cleaning out my body and my brain.  I have started an extreme diet (don’t worry I plan to monitor) and I have started assessing my writing work.  Both are scary.  The pleasures of autumn are now morphing into the work of fall.  See how the poetry turns to prose?  From pretty words it gets blunt.  “Work of fall”, hmmm, nothing very charming about that.  However this is how school worked as well.  We went from the nervous thrill and excitement of starting the fall semester to starting on the grunt work.  Roll up the sleeves and get working on those papers, reading those dry science books and longing for the Christmas break.

Life is a roller coaster ride of fun and scares; work and vacation; a sense of achievement and a bout of despair.  Real people know that it cannot be a constant high to live life to the fullest.  There are battles to be waged, there is routine work that needs to get done.  We get exposed to a lot of glamour in the world via various media outlets but for 99% of the world the best we can do is juggle that work/life balance and eventually make it a 40/60 mix with our life side winning out! 

I’m on it, baby!

Evaluation

According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolotion or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

 

Alfred Nobel's will further specified that the prize be awarded by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament.  Nobel died in 1896 and he did not leave an explanation for choosing peace as a prize category.

            Over the 100+ years since the institution of the Nobel Peace prize there have been some controversy over some of the winners.  This year three women were awarded the prize.  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, Leymah Gbowee also of Liberia and a peace activist and Tawakul Karman a journalist from Yemen "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work."  Researching each of the women on Wikipedia my first thought is "why all 3" when Leymah Gbowee appears to be a strong candidate all on her own?  She co-founded a peace movement that brought about the end of the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 and has clearly been an activist for peace.  I don’t mean to disparage the other ladies hard work but sometimes it seems to me that the Nobel committee doesn’t send a clear message when there are co-recipients.

            Despite all the advances of human rights in the western world women’s recognition is still far behind that of men.  We are still a long way from being equal, just ask the female professors at the University of Calgary who are paid on average 20% less than their male counterparts.  There’s a shocker for you.  The banking industry is notorious for being discriminatory towards women.  Articles like to soften the discrimination by saying some of it is caused by women themselves, or that bosses are doing their female staff a favour by “covering” for them and not asking them to take on “challenging” roles.  Thanks but we do know the value of money and no matter what we are in it for the money.  I don’t get up at 4:00 a.m. every morning because I like it.  I do this because I am going where the money is – downtown Calgary.  If I could make the same money in my little town, naturally I would do so. 

            When women are recognized, I feel good for the ladies but also for womankind in general.  There are so many unsung heroines in the world today. Don’t be our own worst enemy.  Self evaluation should be to the good.  Avoid self deprecation and blow your own horn.   Your worth it.

Wholesome Thoughts

Do you ever think back to your childhood and youth and then wonder what on earth happened to the world?  At the risk of sounding elderly I admit that I do reflect back on how I was raised and wonder where the folks today got their values.

What has set me off today?  For some peculiar reason I felt the need to read Grace Livingston Hill novels recently.  Her books are an older version of the old Harlequin Romance novels and I have no idea why I felt compelled to read these books other than nostalgia.  They are overflowing with morality lessons that almost make you gag but I persevere.  The main characters are always noble in character who strive to always do the right thing.  Everything in the story is quite black and white so there is no mistaking the good guys and there is no doubt about what ought to be done.  Pushing away the religious context there is yet a simple standard of right and wrong which I think is lacking in today’s world. 

Several times a year our company runs mandatory learning campaigns and recently we had another anti-corruption and ethics one.  I often feel frustrated after taking these lessons because I am an extremely literal person.  I accept that others see things as grey when I am a more black and white kind of person when it comes to right and wrong.  However I am irritated beyond words when we are inflicted with these campaigns annually yet I see no material improvement in certain conduct.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we have corruption, far from it in fact.  But there was one section on bullying and that type of behaviour has gone on for much too long in certain instances.  With my INFJ personality you can only imagine how I feel when I hear about such things.  I go around the bend.

So I choose to retreat into these novels to sooth my soul with wholesomeness.  In the olden days people actually believed in being decent behind the scenes as well as in front of the cameras.  I like to think that with me “what you see is what you get”.  I don’t know how to play the game and for the life of me I cannot make myself pretend.  I’m repulsed by smarmy behaviour and baffled when others don’t see it.  That’s the Pollyanna in me.

Thanksgiving

Canada’s Thanksgiving Day did not come about in the same tradition as the Americans' Thanksgiving.  However, Canada has had days of thanksgiving as far back as the late 1500’s but our official holiday began in 1957 by a declaration of Parliament to celebrate the harvest and what we have today.  Interestingly the Maritimes don’t celebrate it although New Brunswick observes it.

            I enjoy the colours and smells of Thanksgiving and find the displays of pumpkins, corn and squashes of all kinds charming.  These displays have a welcoming hospitality that really adds to the idea of giving thanks.  In Canada we have so much to be thankful for that we may simply be taking for granted.  For instance we do live in a country of great abundance which is evidenced in our grocery stores.  Our nation has been safe from attack for decades and in fact hasn’t been invaded since the War of 1812.  As you well know I don’t consider our social structure to be perfect by any means but still our system is superior to that of the United States.  We do still have free Health Care and Education and Old Age Pensions.  We have heat, electricity and communication on demand.  We have freedom of speech and the freedom to travel where we wish.  We are a very fortunate country. 

            I give thanks for my wonderful family and friends.  For my excellent job, great boss, wonderful and supportive colleagues.  I give thanks for the ability to enjoy the things I love to do such as reading, writing, gardening, travelling, photography.  I give thanks that I haven’t broken my legs yet in zumba class.  I give thanks for my 4 wonderful critters, Cherie, Thumper, Harold and Arnold.

            Most of all I give thanks for having had such wonderful parents as my Mom and Dad.

Poetry in Motion

Poetry is not my strong suit, a phenomenon that runs in my family.  When I watch movies where the dad has a favourite poem I am dubious.  If there’s one thing I am pretty sure about it is that not one father of my acquaintance was (or is) sitting around reading poetry. They are either out playing hockey or watching some sports on TV.  My own father’s habit when he came home from work was to read the sports section first and then go through the whole newspaper front to back.  He said he got in the habit of reading the sports section first so that he would have something in common with his colleagues during the coffee breaks.  When he first came to Canada it took him a while to get through the whole newspaper because he was still acquiring his English vocabulary.  Later it was just habit.

            He would tell how he would skip over poems when he read books and my mother confessed that she did the same.  Guess who followed suit?  Every once in a while I will try to read the poems but it is painful.  I prefer to say it straight out.

            Here in my middle years I realize that I might be missing out so I have tried to take an interest in poetry yet I have to say that Emily Dickinson is still my favourite poet.  I simply enjoy her cadence.  I remember some of the poems from high school, like Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay, and T.S. Elliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; not by heart of course, but the gist of the poem, because we thrashed through it for a day or two! 

So you may wonder why would I want to go to Windermere during my England tour when I wasn’t crazy about Wordsworth?  Two reasons, Beatrix Potter of course but also because Charlotte Bronte wrote to Wordsworth and thus he was part of her history.  Since then I have begun to read Wordsworth’s poetry to get a better appreciation for him.  I like the ideas within the poetry but I’m afraid I don’t find any sort of beat that resonates with me nor am I terribly enamoured of the rather leaden religious overtones of many of the pieces.  Perhaps because I am such a literal person I find allusions tiresome for the length of the piece.  Again, I have that strong streak of common sense that comes from my mother’s side of the family – trust me there isn’t any poetry in their practicality!

But let me not despair

There is poetry everywhere

In wind and flower and weather

Even in a little feather.    by Sanne