Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe

I have always pitied the child that was born on a Wednesday simply because of that poem and yet in the modern working world Wednesday is often pronounced “Hump Day” being in the middle of the week and therefore we are halfway through the working week. 

       Labels are debilitating inventions which can cause untold misery for a person.  Remember Marilyn Monroe’s character in “How to Marry a Millionaire”, how she stumbled about because she refused to wear her glasses due to Dorothy Parker’s little quip “men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses”.  Interestingly enough, we put labels on ourselves by making comments such as “I have always been shy” or “I was always a bit of a tomboy”.  It’s not to say that one shouldn’t identify with a nationality or an alma mater, for example, but caution should be taken in using too many definitions about who we are so that we become set in a box.

       In fashion we learn about shapes, pear shape, apple shape, dumpling or triangle, hourglass, rectangle and so on.  Pleasantly plump, straight as a stick, top-heavy.   Seldom do we hear something positive when it comes to face or figure, most especially when it comes out of our own mouth.  We seem to enjoy disparaging ourselves and we do it best by putting labels on ourselves.  Even with our minds at a very young age we know who the “smart kids” are, the “slow” ones, the “special ones”; the nerds, the brains, the dopes and so on. 

       Labels, like the old song “Signs, signs, everywhere the signs” seem to be freely used, unconsciously even, with little awareness of the harm they may cause.  So next time you are thinking about defining yourself, think careful about who you really are and maybe add one more to your list.  Flexible.  I think it’s important to check in with yourself and take some mental measurements of your personality with a view to finding growth, maturity and interest.  It would be sort of sad to find that you are exactly the same at 60 that you were at 21.

       Next time someone asks how you are, try saying something besides “fine”, “good” or “awesome”.  Make them stop in their tracks and wonder “what was that they said” as you fly by them with a smile and a wink!

Truth, Honesty and Judgment

Now there is a hefty subject which many would fear to tackle.  In my experience the average person is truthful and honest in their dealings and seldom tells significant lies.  The occasional white lie perhaps but these can be excused because they are told to spare someone’s feelings or perhaps they are merely a slight exaggeration for the purposes of storytelling.  Or so they tell themselves.  The question is whether or not a white lie is a real lie and I leave that for you to answer. 

       Publicly we are inundated with lies on a daily basis from false advertising, to public officials lying about budgets, conduct, spending and what have you.  We have become so desensitized to the fact that we are lied to on a regular basis that we simply shrug our collective shoulders, grumble and move on with our life.  Why is that?  Why do we not become more enraged when the end result of these lies brings us consequences such as higher taxes for less return?  I do not understand us as the average citizen.  Are we too weighed down by our personal struggles in life to put up a fight in the larger realm?  Are we the type of people who give up before we have even begun?  I do not understand us.

       Now let’s look at the Idle No More protests that started late last year.  I admit I had only been paying superficial attention to this movement but finally realized that I should look further into the concerns and the reasons for the protest.  Below is a link to the history of the movement.  The fact is that the First Nations have taken a stand against the Harper government for bulldozing Omnibus Bills through parliament that essentially strip rights away from First Nations as well as other citizens.  Curiously the mainstream media have chosen to vilify the Idle No More movement in much the same way they attacked the Occupy movement of 2011.  The evolution of social media now begins to foil Corporate America in covering up these movements which may eventually lead to a mass uprising as citizens wake up to discover that they are no longer in the middle class but are now below the poverty line.  For those kowtowing journalists who fail to bring truth to their reporting, I say beware the day you too are in the breadline, due to downsizing and obsolete-ism in mainstream media. 

IDLE NO MORE LINK:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idle_No_More

Bill C-45 link:          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_C-45_Jobs_and_Growth_Act  and http://www.fin.gc.ca/pub/c45/4-eng.asp

 

 

Home Renovation 411

I give full credit to anyone who takes on a home renovation, big or small.  There are few things more shattering to the nerves than having the house become a shambles while the renovation is going on.  If the renovation involves removing storage space I do not judge the individuals who may resort to valium or oxycondon by way of balancing their nerves.  There are those, who shall not be named, who consider removing storage space a good time to downsize one’s collection of stuff which, in me at least, only produces a snarl of no mean order.

       Every time I go through another phase of renovations I wonder why I was compelled to do it.  Oh yes, that’s right, the wind was whistling through the logs.  It always boils down to the fact that I live in a log cabin and there are definite maintenance costs involved in an aging cabin.  Some advice to cabin lovers, unless you have a lot of humidity in your area, don’t build one on the prairies. 

       The other day we were considering putting in a new floor in the family room and after nearly 30 years of believing that my ugly linoleum had been glued directly on cement we have discovered that there may not even be a cement foundation!  Once again I am faced with another lie from the woman who sold the house to me.  I am terrified to find out what exactly is beneath the room but looking down the heat ducts has definitely frightened me.  Meanwhile, as John, Erik and I are on our knees, head down and rumps up my mother sits in the corner and laughs her head off.  We look ridiculous as we anxiously compare notes on what we are “seeing” down there.  John says insulation, Erik says insulation, I say dirt and light.  John says not a problem, Erik says a problem, I say a nightmare.

       Why did I want to put down a floor again?

Jungle Jim

Some adventure shows we used to watch after school were Jungle Jim and The Last of the Mohicans. Then on certain days of the week Cheyenne and Cimarron Strip were on in the afternoons.  In the evenings we watched Laramie, Lawman, Hawaiian Eye and 77 Sunset Strip.  These were our action shows and when I compare to what is on television today I shudder.  1960’s crime was pretty tame compared to Law & Order SVU or Criminal Minds.

       No one in our games wanted to be the bad guy instead everyone wanted to be the detective, lawman or heroine of the story and of course no one wanted to be the victim so most of the time we had to have a pretend body and then we would assume characters from the different shows.  The main point of any games meant running around a lot and screaming at the top of our lungs “Freeze, buster”.  Once the villain was caught we were allowed to shake him up a little bit but there was really no rough stuff because that isn’t what we saw on the shows.  I was quite surprised when viewing some old westerns like Gunsmoke and The Virginian to notice that we seldom ever saw the shot body once it was dead. 

       Most of the things we watched on television were so wholesome that I find myself constantly amazed that our generation didn’t turn out much better than we did.  Saying that I find myself reflecting and thinking “most of us turned out pretty good; it’s our leaders that disappoint”.  Perhaps that is our problem, we were raised up to trust our leaders and so we continue to vote and trust that our elected officials are going to do well by us.  Images of Fred McMurray and Robert Young as the wise fathers pop to mind as they tell their sons in the last scene what they should do to be a model citizen, then all will be right with their little world for that week.

       The bottom line for me is that television does influence social mores and thinking.

Child's Play

“Back in the day” seems to be the modern way of saying “in the olden days”.  Cliches move with the times as so much that we do changes.  Today it is rare to see children playing in the yard, front or back, and I am not really sure what sort of games they play other than electronic games.  But today’s story isn’t about what’s right or wrong, it’s more about the nostalgia of play.

       Often when my brother, sister and I played together it would be very active.  We were either cowboys and Indians or we were detectives or spies.  We ran around the neighbourhood and climbed up trees and jumped over babbling creeks.  My mother could never understand how we would come home with soakers because she had no idea that we were crossing the street and going down to the creek on the other side.  In fact I am pretty sure that she was unaware for years that there even was a creek on the other side of the road.  By the time she found out about it our boundaries had gone beyond our own street so we were fairly safe in crossing the street.

       While many of our games came straight out of our fertile imagination others were based on television shows or movies that we had seen.  Sometimes we played Stagecoach or Wagon Train; sometimes we were circus performers riding white and black horses with plumes in their manes; sometimes we were the horses because that way we could run wild and do extra fantastic tricks.  I remember one day my dad came home from work and brought an antique telephone home for us to play with.  It was circa 1945, black and with a raised dial.  Man, we were in heaven.  We used to pick that phone up and slam it down just like Mannix.  None of us were thrilled with actually being Mannix though because young as we were we didn’t think much of him since he got knocked out in every single episode.  We preferred the men from U.N.C.L.E., Napoleon and Ilya.  My sister and I were happy to find role models in Honey West, Emma Peel and Daphne Dancer where we could be brilliant detectives instead of sidekicks.

       I got a laugh the other day when I was watching Bill Mahar.  They were discussing whether or not violent video games could lead people to violence and Mahar was dubious at those who objected to the premises.  He said “when a college football player can be fooled into believing he has a girlfriend via social media, I think those watching video games cannot discern games from reality”.  It does give one pause.  Hmmm?

Life or Something Like That

Have you ever wondered where the faces come from in your dreams?  I am a prolific dreamer and often when I wake up in the morning I wonder what on earth could have triggered some of the bizarre motion pictures that constituted my dreams.   But even more often I wonder who the people actually are in my dreams because they bear no resemblance to anyone that I consciously know.  I am seeing hundreds of faces daily, at work, on the street, on the train, in the shopping malls, and I wonder if somehow these faces come back to me when my eyes close.  The curious thing is that it isn’t the truly bizarre faces that peer at me in the dark, but some regular type face.

       Even more curious is when I dream about my pets only the pets have no relation to what they look like in real life.  That seems to me to be going to extremes of disconnection.  When my little Cherie starts looking like an orangutan I have to tell you that I wake up in a sweat and desperately seek out what is exactly lying at the foot of my bed.  At the same time I am hoping that my feet are still attached to my legs.  The other night I woke up and was happily surprised to see the house was still standing as in the dream I had just left my house was burning down around my ears while savage Apaches were about to bear down on me to lift my scalp.  This is a nightmare I have had on and off since I was a little kid who was sent to bed after watching Gary Cooper in The Conqueror.  I woke up in the middle of the night yelling but no sound would come out because my throat was petrified with fear.  This morning when I woke up my throat was raw also but this time it was because I am still suffering from a terrible cold.

       It’s good to know that sometimes we are still just a little kid when we slip into our dreams. 

Humour in Everything

It’s wonderful to be able to find a sense of humour in anything we do because it really does seem to take the gloom out of the day.  Last evening I was thinking about a rather risqué little joke as I prepared for bed which very soon had both my mother and I laughing until the tears flowed.  It just put a smile on my face before I turned off the light and allowed me to sleep soundly.   It’s no secret that a smiling face will bring back a dozen smiles to the giver and what a stress reliever that is for the happy soul.

       Here in the doldrums of winter, with the holiday bills rolling in, the weather being uncooperative or even brutal, things can be a bit discouraging but if you just give yourself a little nudge, wink and a smile, things will seem a little bit brighter.  The sun is returning to us and making the days a little bit longer every day now and before we know it, spring will be just around the corner.  The geese will return, the buds will start forming and summer vacations will be planned. 

       What’s that song “Smile and the whole world will smile with you” . . . picture me grinning from ear to ear.

Deep Winter

It’s the middle of January, in the heart of winter and life seems humdrum and stale.  Looking out in the yard I see yellow grass and vestiges of dirty snow here and there.  This morning the trees don’t take on a strange beauty but simply look stark and bare.  This is when we start to think about sandy white beaches and sunshine, lots of sunshine.

       Ah, the getaway.  But first we have to recover from our flu and our cold, we have to check that the bank account can take the hit, we need to sort out things at work, and that’s when reality sets in.  Life is a constant battle towards assurances and picking up and just taking off is not the responsible thing to do.  You ask yourself “why do I always have to be the responsible one?”

       So you pull the covers over your head and go back into your dream world until the alarm goes off for the second time.  Be responsible, face the world.  After all, tomorrow is another day.

Woman's Solution

I do not pretend to have a true solution to woman’s plight as it entails a choice between career and home but I do know that woman needs to take care of herself.  The nature of a woman is to care for others before herself and this is especially true if she is a mother.  But today’s woman is more than a wife and mother, she is also a joint breadwinner and as such she is carrying a double load.  For women who have remained single her load is equal to that of the married woman in the sense that she is existing on a single income in a double income market.  So yes, I do know whereof I speak.

       The most essential thing a woman must do is to carve out time for herself on a daily basis.  If this means that the toilet doesn’t get cleaned as regularly or that you must task someone else with the dishes then you must become a tyrant and force the issue.  It is imperative that a woman have, at a minimum, fifteen minutes of Me Time, a half hour would be better and an hour would be perfect but one must be realistic.  At least once a month a woman should have a half day to herself, twice a month would be even better.  And what should she do on her off time?  Whatever she wanted that was completely about her; whether it’s soaking in a bath with candles and soft music; giving herself a manicure; meditating in her own private sanctuary (even if that’s her locked bedroom); taking a walk in the nearest park; chatting with her best friend on the phone about something other than family and life in particular; a craft or hobby like sewing or scrapbooking, painting or taking pictures; something she loves for herself, no strings attached.  It sounds simple but it is astonishing the amount of women who don’t do this for themselves.

       I also believe it is important for a woman to understand what is going on with her mind, body and spirit and there is simply no way around it, a woman must read.  Watching self help shows like Dr. Phil, Oprah, The Doctors is fine but it is also a lot of noise (literally and figuratively speaking).  There is something soothing to the mind simply by reading another woman’s perspective of life and unless a woman has a handicap that bars her from reading, you owe it to yourself to enjoy a good book.  And I mean a book about women, for women, by women.  Even a cookbook that has wonderful side notes on the recipe, the food or the author’s experiences with that particular recipe.  Cookbooks create ambience, who knew!

       Women are remarkable creatures and in this season of celebrity awards I want to give an Award to Every Woman on this Planet.  We Rock, Baby!  . . . and we’re worth it . . . J

Woman's Plight

Continuing on yesterday’s discussion, women are between a rock and a hard place and I for one do not have a solution.  I was raised to believe that a woman should aspire to a higher education and take on a career if she had the mind to do so.  My father was a real advocate for women being as capable of a profession such as medicine, law or engineering as men.  Reflecting back on that time, the 60’s, I wonder at my father because there were virtually no women in our neighbourhood who worked.  When I was growing up all the mothers on our street, or in the outlying neighbourhood were home.  I should know since I was pretty much everywhere in those days, playing with all the kids and since there were kids in every home but one on our street and if I wasn’t friends with them one of my siblings was I was in a position to know the mothers.  I’d see the mothers hanging out the laundry in the back yard because in those days there were no fences or hedges separating the yards.  In those days there was a breadman who delivered bread and twinkies and a milkman who delivered every dairy product because the family only had one car and as the mother was home she could take in the milk after it was delivered.  My mother had a running account that she paid every Monday (it hardly seemed like credit, that was just the honesty of the day).  My mother baked at least once a week, bread, cake, pies or cookies as did the other mothers in the neighbourhood.  I had never heard of a store bought birthday cake until I was a teenager.

       In that environment of complete homemaking I marvel that I was raised to consider a professional career.  Consequently I cannot fault women for wanting a higher education but it then becomes a double edged sword when she wants to marry and have a family.  How do you keep a career going and yet have the same lifestyle as your mother?  The truth is that you cannot.  No matter how good your intentions may be you simply cannot be in two places at once.  When a woman gets her college or university degree there is an invisible tag that goes with it which obligates a woman to put it to working use.  Rare was the woman in our class who felt that she could just marry and stay home.  In the 1970’s women went out to work whether they were high school or university graduates and they stayed working after they married and after they had children.  How or why that became the norm I cannot say with certain but that was definitely the new trend.  We were liberated.

       Somehow women have made it work but at what cost?  Forget about the toll on family life, on credit overruns and let’s just consider woman’s psyche.  It seems to me as I look around at my friends and colleagues that we are becoming more and more loaded down with duties as the years go by.  These duties are not any different from those of our mothers or grandmothers with the difference being that on top of these obligations we continue to work.  How much more can we carry?  Is it any wonder that women are now suffering heart disease as never before and despite advancements in medical knowledge?

       What do I mean by duties?  Adult children are still requiring attention in ever increasing numbers.  My generation of children went out to work at 18 and few were ever financially under our parents’ care again.  Today, according to Dr. Phil, there is a whole generation of boomrang kids who come back and forth to live under their parents’ roof for any number of reasons.  As well, while my generation for the most part paid for their own university education we are under the illusion that we are obliged to pay for our children’s education.  On top of that we are also now termed the sandwich generation because we are caring for our elderly parents since the country has gone so awry that the system hasn’t enough tax dollars to create affordable senior complexes or provide the medical care they ought to have.  Grandchildren are now part of the family and we become built in babysitters as well as feeling it is imperative to spoil them with lavish gifts.  Besides family obligations we also feel the need to do something for our community so we volunteer time to worthy causes.  Where does it stop?

       If women even have time to stop and ponder what is happening to them they look longingly back at their mothers’ lives and wonder why they cannot have that more leisurely pace of life.  All the lost moments when they might have been playing house with their kids, making doll clothes or wooden swords wrapped in tinfoil, taking them to the park to play on swings, slides and in sandboxes.  Baking a pie for after dinner coffee with the neighbours, neighbours who you hardly know because everyone leaves before daybreak and comes home after dark.  That world is gone now but we have our careers.  Was it worth it?

Woman's Evolution

I’ve been thinking about woman’s changing roles over the last century.  From the beginning of World War I to today we have seen dramatic changes in women’s lives, everything from the liberation of her clothing through education, voting, careers and raising families.  Psychologically I wonder how far women have evolved since they are balancing much more than they had done in times gone by.  Just evaluating my own “load” I realize that unless I am doing any evaluating I have no idea how much I am trying to do in a day or a week. 

It might seem like a piece of cake to “run a household” but single or married there is a variety of duties that must be done in a respectable household, and this is on top of putting in a 10 hour day at a job (figure on the commute to be included, in my case it’s 12).  Cooking, washing dishes, putting things away, shopping for groceries, laundry, cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, dusting, putting away more things; it is an endless round.  Then there’s the outside of the home, shovelling snow, cutting grass, planting the summer garden, watering the plants.  Then there is the annual caring for the house, as in painting trim, caulking, staining decks, and whatever else you find falling apart.

Then there are the social obligations, even if it’s a pleasure to keep in touch with friends it is still time consuming to get quality time with friends and family.  Somewhere in the day you are supposed to squeeze in time for yourself but even if you manage to find the time there seems to be incredible guilt for “squandering” the time from something perceived to be more essential.  Perhaps that means you feel you should be volunteering somewhere or simply doing more to support others.  Rare is it that a woman sits still and enjoys quiet time.

In recent years there has been a lot of noise about work life balance but like so many other things we hear about, we hear about it but we are not really listening and certainly we are not practicing what we have learned.  Somehow I do think that women didn’t really win any battle when they liberated themselves.  It was more bondage disguised as freedom simply because they were free to go outside the home.  The ultimate winner in this battle was the tax man who now had two incomes to tax from instead of one.

Whose sorry now?

Getting Away with Things

I’m standing in the kitchen, staring into the fridge and wondering what I can eat that won’t ruin my diet when suddenly I think to myself “I feel like I’m trying to get away with something, who am I trying to fool?”  Have you ever felt that you were accountable to someone else while dieting, perhaps if you have to weigh in at Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig?   So if you cheat you are fooling them?  Give yourself a big shake and a lecture because you are only fooling yourself and you are not “getting away with anything”.  I’m pretty sure I am not alone with this ploy but a great big bell rang in my head this morning and I said “that is enough of that”, closed the fridge and set about doing the right thing.

       Little example which we can now use in the big picture of life.  I always wonder why high profile people think they can get away with things since inevitably they will get caught.  In the unlikely event that they are not caught, who are they fooling in the long run?  Their integrity is obviously gone and if they believe in a higher being, well “He’s Watching You“.  Is the cheating really worth losing your self respect? 

       Perhaps self respect is no longer a valuable commodity in this desensitized world.  Curiously enough I was taught self respect at quite a young age even though my parents never actually used that term and yet I instinctively understood what they were trying to teach us.  Be true to yourself, that is what quiets your soul and allows you to sleep well at night.  God bless my parents, I sleep like a log.

Routines

Routines are wonderful methods of keeping one organized.  Most people have their daily rituals such as getting up, having breakfast, brushing teeth and hair, washing face, getting dressed, and so on.  One morning as I stood in the bathroom I wondered if I had already brushed my teeth and had to verify whether I had or not by touching my toothbrush to see if it was wet.  It was dry and yet I felt as though I had just done my routine so as I brushed away I considered the reality of having too much routine.  Here I was, not yet retired, and yet every day seemed the same and I worried about what retirement would be like which would be even more of the same thing.  I left the bathroom with determination.

       As I sat across from Mother while eating breakfast I asked her if she had ever had that type of experience.  She looked down at her tray of various pills, looked up at me and grinned.

       “I put the pills out first thing before I sit down because if I don’t I will come back with the coffee and toast and wonder if I had already taken them.”

       I guess that answered my question.  So I told her my Plan.

       “Mor, there is danger in too much routine and I was thinking that a person needs to ensure that something in the day is a highlight so you can remember ‘that happened on Monday’ and ‘this happened on Tuesday’ because otherwise all the days are the same.  That’s just not good.”

       Mom agreed with me and we continued to discuss ways of staying nimble in our minds when my brother showed up.  He looked at us as we continued our discussion and then asked us,

       “You do know you can just turn on the TV or the computer and presto there is the day?”

       That was on Saturday and we remember that because we realized that no one can come into the middle of a conversation and understand where we were at the beginning!  J

Lazarus & Maggie

My father had a penchant for naming his pets with unusual names.  His childhood cat was named Stalin for no apparent reason.  Later when he moved out to the farm there was a whole family of barn cats but the dominant male was a huge black beast that Dad named Lowenstoff, who knows why.  The last cat he named was a black ragamuffin of a cat with long black hair that would come off in huge tuffs, trailing behind him like a black mummy, hence he became known as Lazarus.  Lazarus was aptly named because he would wander off the farm for weeks at a time and the family would assume that he was dead, only to find him on the deck waiting for his breakfast one bright morning.

       Lazarus was the sole survivor of the barn cats and had to his meals on the back deck of the house in solitary style.  It wasn’t long, however, before the magpies discovered the plate of food and after Lazarus had finished his meal they would come down and eat up the rest.  Lazarus would watch them tolerantly and then wander off to hunt gophers.  The magpies eventually became so aggressive that they would peck on the tin plate if the food wasn’t put out at supper time.  My mother would go and put out a bit of cat food for them even if Lazarus wasn’t around.

       Then one day my mother saw a most amazing scene at the edge of their place.  Lazarus had been cornered by a coyote on the very edge of the cliff and he was either facing the coyote or it would be over the cliff into the creek below.  The coyote was moving closer and closer when suddenly several magpies came swarming down and began attacking the coyote.  They continued to swoop down, pecking at the hunter until eventually he turned tail and ran.  Mom firmly believes that they realized that Lazarus had been their friend and they protected that friend.

       Lazarus lived another day!

Blondie Buys a Hat

When I was young I liked to read Blondie the comic strip and my favorite episodes was when she went shopping.  Back in the day, when she would get upset Blondie would go shopping for a hat and it became a catch phrase for ladies when they went shopping.  These days when I want to take a spin into the city if I bring my mother along I tell her that  “I’m going to buy a hat” which is code for “don’t bother me, I want to buy something even if it’s a knickknack”.

      As part of this philosophy of shopping I wanted to find a picture of Blondie buying the hat but would you believe it, not a single google image of Blondie with a hatbox!  In my search I ended up reading the whole story of Blondie’s evolution which was very fascinating.  Did you know the comic strip started in 1930 and that Blondie was originally a flapper girl? Dagwood was the son of a wealthy industrialist who was disowned when he married Blondie.  Also after Blondie got married she became the background figure to Dagwood’s antics which doesn’t say much for the institution of marriage within the comic world at least. 

      But while the blog may sometimes ramble like Jeffie in Family Circus I do come back to the main point, shopping.  There are different types of shopping.  There’s the domestic shopping when the only mission is to buy groceries and household cleaning products.  Then there is the blended shopping where groceries mix with other domestic essentials like vacuum bags, kitty litter which results in roaming throughout the Walmart and one may get distracted in the video, book, makeup or linen departments.  The third type of shopping is when one needs to do the manly chores which can also be blended with the groceries and domestic essentials.  This entails going to Canadian Tire, Home Hardware or Home Depot and looking at hammers, lawnmowers, dohickies and the like.  Yesterday I had to look for 16 foot corners which baffled me.  I called up my brother to ask what he meant by that and how did they fold so they would fit in my car?  Clarity came when he said he needed 16 feet but they came in 8 foot lengths.  Oh, why didn’t he write down 2 – 8 foot lengths?  Because I was a dummy who didn’t understand anything, that’s why. 

After that type of conversation the final and best type of shopping is Retail Therapy.  That’s when a woman can go shopping for a hat, or a dress, or a purse, or shoes, or a knick knack or whatever the heck she likes.  Utterly therapeutic even if it is only window shopping.  Believe it or not, a woman can actually go window shopping without ever buying anything.  It’s rare, but it is possible.  But Retail Therapy is at it’s best when a woman can come home with a bundle of packages that feel utterly satisfying.  To her.

Things That Amaze Me

When you sit down and really start thinking about the universe is the first thing you think of infinity?  Maybe not, but as you contemplate the world around you, the encounters you have every day, the creatures you meet, the people you love, and the events of the day, don’t you think that amazement can be infinite?

       There are lots of lists by lots of people but as I sat here trying to think up something new and fresh to write about I happened to glance at the doorway and there was one of my cats lying and watching me, faithful as a dog.  The nature of pets is beyond wonderful and even the imperious cat has a sense of loyalty and faithfulness.  It’s true that I firmly believe that a dog is the best creature on the planet, faithful, loyal and forgiving but I think any pet will show the same type of care for their owner if you only took time to observe their faithful eyes.  When I had my chickens I found that they recognized me (their feeder) but even when they knew that I didn’t have food they would follow me around the yard and when I stopped they would also stop and wait to watch what I was doing next.

       Every night when I get out of the car to open up my garage door I happen to look over at the front yard and I see my mugo pine, growing in the winter time.  I kid you not, the tree seems to be getting taller since the summer time – how amazing is that?  When you look at some of the pine trees growing out of the side of the mountain, apparently without any soil at all, it is remarkable.  Then it amazes me to see weeds growing out of cement.  I wonder, how is it possible that weeds can grow anywhere when you cannot make a rose come despite being pampered?  I watch the trees swaying in 100 km winds and I think, amazing.   

When a person sets their mind to something it is remarkable what they can accomplish.  Most nights the newspaper will have some small article about something someone did somewhere in the world.  And we all think, amazing.  So here’s the thing, if we think that, if we know that we can all set our minds to something, how is it that we cannot seem to make this world a better place, right now.  Something to think about.

The Wunderkin of Goals

It’s approaching the middle of the month, can you believe it?  How many people have already broken their New Year’s resolutions?  For those of us who not set resolutions but instead set goals, how are we coming along?  Isn’t it a relief to know that a goal is not something that can be broken although it may be delayed or turn out to be unreachable.  Somehow a goal does not seem as relentless as a resolution especially if you have vowed off chocolate or something equally addictive.

       As any reader knows setting goals can be a real challenge in itself but sometimes we create a goal without even realizing that this is in fact what we have done.  For instance, the fact that we get up each day, go to work and come home again is a goal in itself.  The second goal is accomplishing the daily routine with integrity and quiet pride.  The fact that we pay our bills, on time, is another goal that we do without realizing that it is a goal.  Paying off our mortgage, it seems a must but it is also a goal.  Looking for brass rings almost daily, isn’t that a goal in being cheerful or having optimism?  So many goals without even naming them.

       We are a remarkable species when we are at our best and often we are at our best without even acknowledging what wunderkins we really are.  So today, give yourself a pat on the back for being able to face a brave new day.

Looking for Answers

A two week vacation can certainly put one’s life in a completely different stream of action.  Staying active seems so much easier when there is no deadline for bedtime or rising in the morning.  The challenge now is to see if one can keep some sort of momentum going once we are back in the workforce.  For me that means structure and organization, everything from planning meals to laying out the clothes for the following day.  It means putting things in their proper place so I am not searching frantically for car keys, lunch bags or boots.  Schedules are important to me even when I have all the time in the world.  I like to know what I am doing for the day.  Even when on vacation I like to have a certain flow in the day so that I am not flying all over the place ending up lost or frustrated.

So you are wondering, where is she headed today?  Interestingly enough I happened to turn on the television yesterday and the first program on was called “Boundless Potential” and the first words that the host Mark Walton spoke was “reinventing yourself after retirement” which naturally attracted my instant attention.  I had missed the first half of the program but the half that I watched was extremely interesting since it spoke about so many of the things that I had been questioning and researching about retirement and longevity these last 8 years.  How wonderful to learn that I was on the right track, that we can continue to learn and grow in our later years and to do so brings the reward of a very fulfilling longevity. 

Part of Walton’s research indicated that by developing some type of career in later life that included educating or engaging younger generation with a style of “paying it forward” would reward a person by increasing their life span.  I expect this is simply because one becomes happy and fulfilled by being meaningful even in old age which triggers the body into not being stressed or depressed.  Just as Barbara Walters’ documentation on longevity some years ago summed up the final equation as being Joy of Life, this particular research indicates that by being happy and fulfilled one tended to live longer.

The goal is, be happy.

Listen, the Wind!

That is the title of one of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s first books, about her navigation experiences with her husband but it is a phrase I say often to myself as a Chinook blows in over the western mountains.  We are having such a wind today and I find it unsettling with poor concentration being the outcome. 

       Notwithstanding that perhaps talking about feeling unsettled is the premise for today.  A person may set a goal for the day but find that time spins out of control for a variety of reasons with the end result being nothing that was planned gets done.  It’s important to not feel frustrated when this happens and though it may be a platitude things do happen for a reason.  If the wind drives you to distraction so that you cannot concentrate on the task at hand perhaps the best thing to do is take that distracted energy to use as exercise or something else that does not require focus.  Whatever the outcome of the day brings try not to despair that it was a wasted day because something, surely, came out of the day, if only a weak sense of survival.

       There are days when I simply crave for quiet, to find some good reading material and sink myself into the book while shutting out the rest of the world, including my own brain.  I then pick up “Gift from the Sea”, “The Four Agreements” or “Simple Abundance” as my comfort food.  Calibrating my life back into focus in a gentle sort of way, leaning on the wisdom of others who came before me.  Then I have a mental sigh of peace and feel that I can go on with the day, my life, the new task at hand.

       Life is survival.

Reaching for the Moon

The title could as well be reaching for the stars or the sun but the essence is to reach for perfection.  The other day a colleague shared Robin Sharma’s 2012 life lessons and one of his points was to pursue excellence rather than chase perfection which I think is quite a profound vision.  It’s really a matter of doing one’s best and making the effort not to be sloppy with one’s work no matter what the task may be from your job to washing your toilet or from savouring a good book rather than skimming through it to say “I read thus & so”. 

Excellence seems like a more powerful word than perfection in the sense that it is humanly achievable in a way that perfection never could be.  But also in a way the pursuit of excellence is a continual goal with multilayered ambitions.  One could be writing at a piece with the desire to use good grammar and at the same time hope that the content will strike a cord with the reader.  Over time perhaps the content will be of a quality that might influence the reader in their way of thinking or observing life.  As we like to say in this house “one can always hope”.

Entering adulthood I don’t believe one general has set goals.  There could be the goal of getting one’s degree and then finding a job, hopefully in one’s chosen field.  But I don’t believe most young people have any thought of self development or honing their character during their 20’s or even their 30’s.  I think looking at one’s character doesn’t really start to occur until your 40’s at least for most people (if they start at all).  I don’t mean that people don’t have values or the intention of living up to them when they are young because I do think most people tend to stay loyal to their teachings but I don’t believe they are consciously working at being a “better person”.  Society teaches us to have ambition, to be career oriented or sports conscious but seldom do we see advertising that promotes being a better person.  It’s rather interesting since I know that the Girl Guides from my time certainly focused on character development.  It seems to me that today there is a lot more focus on sports than other children’s activities such as guides or boy scouts.

Once again I look at what is served up in television and other media and question where society is headed.  Few and far between are the ideals one ought to aspire to.  Instead there is too much self serving celebrity bouncing.  It’s quite disturbing when you actually start analyzing what is out there.

So today, savour the word excellence.

The Mystery of Laundry

Any housewife will tell you that it is not a legend about the Mystery of the Disappearing Socks.  It is a well known fact that if you put 6 pairs of socks into the washing machine by the time they get through the dryer there is only 5 ½ pairs of socks remaining.  In my house he is known as the sock-goblin, the mysterious being who resides somewhere in the laundry room, invisibly moving between the washing machine and the dryer, eating away at (not lint, which would be useful) but socks.  The sock-goblin does not go for underwear although he has been known to nibble in the crotch area from time to time but he strictly has an appetite for socks.  Whether the socks go in folded up as a pair (yes this method has been tried in order to foil the sock-goblin) or as singles, the result is inevitable, one pair is forever gone.

       There is no use in trying to explain away the phenomenon because all logical investigations have long since been thoroughly reviewed and are now abandoned.  There are no lingering socks stashed away in the duvet cover, up a pant leg or down a sweater sleeve.  No, there is irrefutable evidence in our house that the sock-goblin Does Exist.  We have tried to eradicate him from our lives by means of static cling sprays, Downey Fabric Softener, and even static sheets to no avail.  We have used knitting needles to try to push him out of the wringer in the washing machine, we have taken a flashlight into the bowels of the dryer vents but he has an invisible shield that we are unable to penetrate.  Never once, in 27 years, has a missing sock been found.  It has been consumed by the sock-goblin and when the house is razed to the ground in the next millennium there will be found a tiny little hole that goes deep under the earth where a whole generation of sock-goblins live and breed.

       I know it to be true.

Book Reviews of 2012

2012 was a skimpy year for me in the reading department and I am not really sure why that was.  But the books I did read were interesting and for the most part well written.

       I particularly enjoy Geraldine Brooks and this year I read both “March” and “Caleb’s Crossing” having already read “Year of Wonders” and “People of the Book”.  Her subject matter is interesting and the characters are engaging while her writing is fluid pulling the reader into the story from the first page.  She has rapidly become one of my current favorite authors along with Kaye Gibbons and Alice Hoffman.

       Another book was “The Gods of Gotham” by Lyndsay Faye which is a mystery novel set in 1840’s New York City.  She has developed an interesting set of characters in the NYC police force and I anticipate there will be a series of stories coming out with the hero.  The actual plot had a disappointing ending for me but I am particular that way.  It was a little too predictable and sordid but I still liked the book.  I would certainly pick up a second book by Ms. Faye even though she has not yet thrilled me the way Thomas H. Cook does.

       Alison Weir has written a fine historical biography of Katherine Swynford, so titled.  She was inspired by the old novel “Katherine” written by Anya Seton which I had read when I was fifteen years old.  This old novel got me hooked on the whole Plantagenet story which lead me over to Thomas Costain’s books.  Without realizing it I had already read one of his books “The Black Rose” when I was 15 (about the only thing I learned thoroughly well in my Montreal grade 10 high school experience was going through their whole history section in the library) but soon I had gone through his whole Plantagenet series.

       I took another adventure into a Jane Austen spinoff by way of P.D. James’ “Death Comes to Pemberly” which I found much more to my liking than Colleen McCullough’s “The Independence of Mary Bennet”.  I did not care for McCullough’s rendition of making our Lizzie a downtrodden dull wife and reinventing Mary as the new Elizabeth Bennet.  I preferred the clever working of James’ murder mystery using beloved characters from Pride & Prejudice. 

       I used my Kindle to get some free oldies, Mary Roberts Rinehart’s “Kings, Queens & Pawns” is a very interesting account of her work with the government during WWI where she actually went to the frontlines and experienced the fighting from a woman’s perspective.  I vastly enjoyed Edna Ferber’s “Fanny Herself”.  I believe Ferber is a much undervalued American treasure.  She had a very penetrating insight into the growth of America at it’s peak in the early 20^th century.

       These are some of the few books which I read during 2012.  I have hopes for a bigger year in 2013 with the revitalization of The Awesome Chicks Book Club.

Oprah's Salvation from the Middle of the Night

Oprah is more of a teacher than a do-er but I mean this in a good way.  Her strength has been in identifying talent, in empathizing with her audience and guests, and in building brand and appeal.  The latest “what I know for sure” in her January magazine declares that she must listen to herself rather than what others see as her “failure” with her network.  I think she needs to wake up and smell the coffee.  I have trolled her lineup regularly and there is almost nothing there that makes me inspired to pay for getting her channel added to my lineup.  And I’m a big fan of Oprah.  There is virtually nothing on this channel that interests me.

       As I lay awake one night I thought about what she could do to bring over an audience.  When 3 old soaps were going out she could have picked any one of the 3 up and she would have had a built in audience right away.  It’s probably too late to revitalize All My Children, One Life to Live or As the World Turns (was that the other one?) but I thought could it work to rerun one of them from the beginning with a lead in or close out chat talking about the storyline, the actors, the fashion of the day, etc.  I have no idea what the cost would be but I feel confident that this would bring in fans from the show – which number in the millions.

       I also thought that Oprah should do a Saturday night show of her own, perhaps something along the line of the old Loretta Young show where she could either narrate or even act on an episode, all episodes to be stand alone shows.  For one thing Oprah would be able to bring on new actors which she has clearly shown she has a talent for identifying (Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, Dr. Oz, Nate Berkus, to name a few).  Or she could stay behind the scenes but start a new style of variety show for Saturday nights, anything that would compete with the sports currently shown on Saturday night would be a relief and preferably something without vampires or zombies!

       Finally why is she not creating her own shows instead of taking general meat market programs of no particular value?  Why isn’t she doing miniseries along the lines of Downton Abbey, Boardwalk Empire or Bomb Girls?  Why isn’t she using a format similar to the regular networks, with standing shows, news shows and talk shows?  Who wants to see a string of The Shopping Bags or any of the others shows that are 5 years old or more? 

       I’m asking where is Oprah’s sense of creativity and adventure.  It is not evident on OWN.  It is dull, cheap and lacking imagination.  I know nothing at all about running a TV show much less a whole channel but it is clear that there is no money being spent to make this into a really creative or innovative station.  If you are going to buy up old stuff, at least make it vintage and give it some lead in whoomph. 

       Just some thoughts from the middle of the night.

Live Life with Zest

Mom and I went shopping yesterday for all the good, nutritional food that one should be eating to get slim, fit and healthy.  We then proceeded to eat a store bought BBQ chicken with mashed potatoes, had second helpings and then groaned that we ate too much.  Somehow I don’t think I mission was successful!  The moral of the story is that I shouldn’t have been shopping on an empty stomach which is why the BBQ chicken smelled so good and I said “why not, it’s my last chance before the Big Diet begins”. 

       Alright so I have written about diets, weight management and all the rest before and I am not going to promise that this time it will be any different.  But I do think that having a good strong mental attitude and visualizing the results are key to staying on track.  Previously I have not been in a proper frame of mind to keep going and in the end I can find a hundred excuses for why I have failed or will fail.  This time I have a very strong reason for not failing, my health.  Don’t be alarmed, I am not unhealthy right now, but I realize that I have been taking for granted my good health and that there is a limit to what a person’s body (including my own) can take by way of nonchalant care.  When a person starts to feel less than 100% on a continual basis it’s really time to examine what is going on.

       Yesterday I got a shocking phone call from a colleague who told me that her cousin, at the age of 44, had suddenly died because of a virus.  At the present time they still do not know anything else except that one minute she was enjoying life, the next she said she felt unwell, went to the doctor who prescribed antibiotics and a short while later they were rushing her by ambulance to the hospital where she died.  Even though she acted swiftly (or so we believe) when she felt unwell she still died.  It is simply terrible to realize that life is short.  Life should be lived well, every minute of the day.

       So here it is, the second day of 2013 and I just want to send out a reminder to everyone that you should take care of your body, your mind, your spirit and your world.  Live each day by learning something new, by being still within yourself so you can feel all of you, and by appreciating everyone in your life.  Whether you are 20 or 60 or 92, life should be savoured, enjoyed, and lived to the absolute limit.  We all have our own ways of savouring, enjoying and living, but let it be done well and with zest.  Be happy but also, be smart in your choices.  Living well does not mean you have to be reckless.  So again, be happy!