High School Grad

Right from the beginning of grade 12 we started talking about The Grad. No girl would dare go to the grad without an escort and none of my friends had a boyfriend so this was a deep concern. Along comes Yvette the mature student who happened to be in my biology class and has joined our lunch group. Yvette didn’t aspire to going to the Grad but when we kept talking about it she decided she would solve our problem for us. She had just started dating Lucien who lived in St. Anne and he had a lot of good looking friends, she said. By now there was quite a group of us girls at the lunch table. Besides Silvia and Ranee there was Marj , Barb , and Dawn . However Yvette was sure she could get dates for all of us!

It took months but around Easter time Silvia and I went on our first blind date and when it came to me it was literally blind. I was so near sighted that I couldn’t see across the hall to say hello to my own friends because I didn’t recognize them but being extremely vain I only wore my glasses when I had to see the blackboard. The point is important because our blind date was at a bowling alley and since I wasn’t going to wear my glasses I couldn’t possibly bowl because I wouldn’t be able to see down to the end of the bowling lane! So I was able to just sit and talk and get to know George very well. I ended up going steady with George for about half a year and yes, he did take me to Grad. Marj and Barb also ended up with two guys from St. Anne. Silvia and Ranee went with WPC guys whose names escape me for the moment. One was named Kim but I don’t see him anywhere in the yearbook which has me wondering if I have the name right.

A week before Grad Bernard asked me to go with him and I had to turn him down. Bernard and I used to walk home together since we lived on the same street. Why it took him a year to get up the courage to ask me I don’t know but he looked crushed when I said I was going steady. I felt terrible for him. And maybe that’s why the guys don’t ask, they don’t want to get hurt. So lots of pretty girls stay home instead of going to Grad. If only the guys realized the girls are just as miserable and nervous! But that’s part of the “joy of high school”, feeling the pain!

Speaking of pain – my poor Thumper appears to have got himself stuck between the walls of my garage. Not down at the bottom, that would be too easy. No he is stuck up by the ceiling and there is a hanging light for the work table obstructing my reach to get him. I’m going to have to get Erik to pull down the wall to release the fat baby. Oh, the joys of being a kitty mom. He is so grounded.

Remembering Classmates

I met my best friend Silvia at the beginning of Grade 11. We were in the same history class and one day we were sitting together in the library doing some research which involved Cardinal Richelieu or some such person. I looked up from my reading and out of the blue said something disparaging about Catholics as it related to what we were studying. Silvia smiled and nodded and then I asked “Are you Catholic?” She nodded again but she then spoke up and said she agreed with me which saved me from feeling like a complete fool. From this little incident a friendship of 40 years evolved and it’s still going strong.

Ranee was the other girl that stood with us at the corner of the hall wings every morning. I don’t remember if it was the end of Grade 10 in our homeroom that I first met Ranee or if it was also early in Grade 11 but the three of us chummed together for the rest of high school with never a quarrel or disagreement between us. We sat together at lunch time even though Ranee only lived a little ways away and could go home for lunch.

Ann Clark was my seat mate through Grade 11 art class and we got to be friends because she got her ears pierced that year and had so much trouble with them getting sore and infected and she talk to me about her pain. The following year I sat beside Christine Almdal in our home room and she had her ears pierced and suffered just like Ann. It’s no wonder it took me until 30 to get the courage to have my ears pierced! Chris is half Danish and we used to have fun kidding around about being the Danish Pastry and the Danish Donut. I remember Chris had a crush on one of the teachers as well as that famous hockey player from the Boston Bruins. I should remember his name as every Monday morning she’d talk about the hockey game and this guy but for some reason Elsie Heymer is visiting me this morning. (Elsie as in Alzheimers in case this is an inside joke).

Sometimes Del Hadder and Eric Derby would hang around with us before we went into our English class. Del was always a lot of fun.

After grad we sort of went our separate ways though Ranee and Silvia and I stayed in touch even after we moved away from Winnipeg. Chris and I wrote to each other when we took our European trips but then seemed to lose touch. That’s what happens after grad. Except for our most intimate friends we seem to get too busy to keep up with our friends from school. Thank heavens for reunions then because it’s a chance to reconnect with classmates and even make friends with ones you only said hello to in the hallowed halls of WPC.

Happy Mother's Day

All over the world it’s the special day for mothers. When we were kids we’d get up extra early to prepare breakfast in bed for my mom and dad. We’d put the coffee pot on the stove, prepare the instant coffee and then spread butter on the bread, add jam on one, cheese on another, ham on a third. Dad always had to have a glass of milk on the side. We’d carry the plates and cups into their bedroom and call “surprise” even though they had no doubt heard us arguing about who was going to do what. The coffee was always horrible and Mom would have to get up to go make a proper cup for them but they’d eat the sandwiches and enjoy the visit from us. Frequently we would simply make some nice pictures for Mom as her gift because we had no money.

Later on when I did have an allowance and some babysitting money I would buy Evening in Paris perfume (remember that?) and a card that all of us kids would sign. My mother has always been a very practical and down to earth woman so when I was older and working she would prefer that we buy potted roses so she could put them in the garden. When we lived in Kitchener she had an outstanding rose garden and lots of the bushes came from Mother’s Day gifts. This year I bought Mom some huge ceramic containers so she can have a container garden on her back deck. It would just be nice if our weather would cooperate so we could actually start planting in them!

I’ve written quite a number of blogs about my mother but in case you missed it I think I got the best mother in the world. When you come in to her house she is always so welcoming and can never do enough as a hostess. Let’s face it, she spoils me with my special requests. If I ask her “can you make your famous ski-kloser (cinnamon buns)” I will be out there in a couple of hours and smell that delicious just baked smell of cinnamon, yeast and chocolate. If it’s a particularly miserable day and I go out there she will make her special ‘upcooked’ hot chocolate with whipped cream (if it happens to be handy). If I whine a little, or if she wants to bribe me, she will make her clear soup with 2 kinds of boller (meatballs and dumplings).

My mother is 77 years old and I have only once in all my 57 years heard her say an unkind thing about someone and that was so bad. What she said was “she is not a very nice person”. That’s how kind my mother is about people. She doesn’t like to hear gossip and she definitely doesn’t partake in it. She doesn’t like to hear it when one of us complains about another sibling and she doesn’t repeat any of it. My mother just wants peace and accord within the family (and around the world if she could have it!). I was probably her most difficult child during my teen years. My sisters didn’t have the same feeling of being hated by her that I had (all completely ridiculous and shows what a royal pain I was) and my brothers all loved her to bits. I grew out of that as soon as I graduated from high school (and in fact slightly before that when she started supporting me in my move to liberate myself from my dad’s over protectiveness).

Maybe I’ve put my mother on a pedestal but I think she deserves it. She’s raised 6 kids who think the world of her so she definitely did everything right in the long run. Peter, just get over the incident of the brussels sprout sandwiches. John, forget the knickerbockers in grade 3. Lotte, forget the slinging elastics on the ears. Nette, forget the long hours at the supper table when she served up something weird. Erik, well Erik, you don’t have to get over anything because you got spoiled more than anyone else. We all remember how you always got drawing paper when she went shopping – and it wasn’t even your birthday. And Sanne, just make sure you spoil her to death today!

So how do you feel about your mother?

This is me with my Mom at my niece Brittany's graduation. She was recovering from cataract surgery.

High School

That heading is deceiving because I was not the kind of kid who got into trouble at school. For sure there wasn’t a halo around my head either and while I was put in possession of a math exam stolen out of the classroom (naming no names) I was too cowardly to actually use it for the final. I trembled in my gladiator sandals throughout the exam in case Miss Jansen’s xray eyes saw through my bag to the stolen papers. I still shudder thinking about that hour!

After grade 9 we moved to Montreal for 10 months where I attended Lindsay Place High School in Pointe Claire. Over the Christmas holidays we heard about the huge rumble that had taken place at WPC when the school had invited some other school (cannot remember the name of it) to attend one of their dances. It hit national news and Debbie Ryan (who had also moved from WPC to Lindsay Place the same time as I did – and how weird is that coincidence?) was the one who told me about it. As a consequence when I moved back to WPC at Easter time it was to the news “no more hops, dances or other extracurricular events until further notice”. Which meant there were no dances that year or the following year. We didn’t get the dances back until grade 12.

Not that it would have mattered much to me anyway because my dad was so strict that I wouldn’t have been allowed to go to a dance anyway. If it hadn’t been for my mother finally putting her foot down I never would have gotten out of the house even in grade 12. I wasn’t even allowed to date until the summer before grade 12 when Mom said it was okay for me to go to the Zoo with Eric Derby. Wow, how wild and liberating. This was 1970 and other kids were driving cars, smoking cigarettes (and maybe marijuana), having parties with boys, going downtown on dates and I got to go to the zoo. I was a very sheltered 17 year old, practically living in a convent, except I had 3 boisterous brothers in the house. I’m the only girl I know (other than my sister Jeanette) who took ballet and judo at the same time. As we are both Gemini it was a perfect fit. We were girly tomboys, an unusual combination, and awkward.

My mother would send us to school in pants when it was mandatory that girls wear skirts (in fact we weren’t allowed to wear slacks until grade 12 and even then jeans were forbidden). When we got sent home by the teachers my mother would send us back without changing us. My teacher called me George for the rest of the year. Then we got promoted to trendy miniskirts and pale pink lipstick and I carried a purse with a comb, hanky and lipstick in it and nothing else. I had an empty wallet. Man I was so poor and so awkward I feel sorry for myself even now! Even though I had naturally wavy hair my mother would insist that I get a perm every summer and I would have to put my hair in rollers after washing it even though in 1970 it was Peggy Lipton straight hair, part in the middle. I did manage to grow out my bangs and part it in the middle by grade 11. One small victory for girl-kind.

High school had its struggles and fitting in was one of the biggest ones.

Appeal to Blogging World

As you can see I have lost my columns on this blog. If anyone knows how to recover the columns I would be grateful for your comment as I have been unable to find any help! I had not been in my settings or design but on Monday I opened up the blog to find the columns gone - and I miss all my links (now at the bottom of the page). Help from you bloggers out there!
Thank you in advance.

Windsor Park Collegiate

In one week I am headed to my high school reunion in Winnipeg which coincides with our school’s 50^th anniversary. Technically it is the schools 51^st but I think they’ve hoaxed the alumni into celebrating the first graduates’ 50^th reunion together! At least, that’s my take on the miscalculation. Our class doesn’t care because at little cost to us we are able to celebrate our 40^th at the same time – and ours is the correct number.

I remember a TV movie with Barbara Rush and David Janssen where they meet as 40 somethings at their high school reunion. I think that’s the first time I’d ever heard of a high school reunion (I was maybe 16) but I thought it was cool that they told each other they had a crush on the other while they were in school (and of course they fell in love again). Unfortunately it turned out that her brother was a werewolf so they had problems getting together.

While I’m pretty sure nothing like that will happen to me I do know that several couples did reconnect at our 25^th and 30^th reunions which I think is very romantic. But now we are getting into the grandparent age and while it would be fun to do the Betty White act that I saw last night on “Hot in Cincinnati” I really don’t think I could carry it off without laughing myself into stitches. When she said “butterscotch do your stuff” I had no idea what she was up to but as she proceeded to open a package of butterscotch candies in the most seductive way the lightbulb went on. Oh my goodness but she was funny.

I will be content to revisit with some of my old friends and develop friendships that first began at the 25^th reunion. That’s one of the things that I found truly wonderful with our reunion as we connected for the first time with some of the people that had been in our class for years. My best friend Silvia had gone to school with most of the students from kindergarten and for some reason that surprised me. I was forgetting that she had immigrated to Winnipeg when she was 3 years old and of course she would have gone to the same school throughout. Me, I had been in 9 different schools by the time I graduated high school. Toronto, Hamilton, Stoney Creek, Grimsby (2), Burlington (2), Winnipeg and Montreal and back to Winnipeg again (same school). I always swore that if I had kids they would stay in the school from beginning to end. It wasn’t so bad moving when I was a youngster but when I got to high school it was devastating. The kids I’d been to school with from grade 3 through grade 8 were the ones that I was meant to be with through high school and the dating years. Suddenly I was on the Prairies learning French and New Math at the same time Bruce Johnson was asking me if I was a virgin. It was TOO MUCH.

More on my education tomorrow.

Morning Bliss

Irony is when you plan to write something wonderful but the feeling isn’t there. As in Morning Bliss something that I generally have in the mornings but not today. I woke up earlier than usual and was happy to have Cherie playing with my nose but then it flashed through my mind how disappointed I am in myself because I have gained weight rather than lost it and my reunion is one week away. Depression! Anger at myself. There should be no excuses but I can find a thousand!

Alright, let me just shake myself all over just like a wet dog and start again.

Morning bliss is that feeling of effervescence that bubbles and bounces around inside when you look on playful puppies and robins hopping along on the lawn. It’s being content with yourself and your life. It’s a good cup of coffee (I’ve just finished mine and I feel like my usual morning self, that was the problem!) and some moments of self reflection! Morning bliss has serenity written all over it and yet you are also grinning ear to ear at the inside joke on the world. Morning bliss is a state of perfection simply because you are happy with yourself and the world around you. I feel blessed that this is frequently my state of mind not only when I wake up in the mornings but through a good portion of morning, particularly on the weekends when I get to putz around the house and go from my walks either in my yard or down to the golf course.

I sound like those cutsey notecards “Happiness is a warm kitten” and I know lots of people want to throw up at the sight. It’s like Roz in Grease making fun of Sandra Dee. I know, I get it. But last night as we were driving home my buddy and I were saying how much we enjoy going to sleep at night knowing that we haven’t hurt anyone’s feelings that day. Neal is a warm hearted guy with a love of humanity that is unusual in such a young fellow. The world can be a very tough place and there are plenty of insensitive people out there who don’t even realize when they’ve hurt someone’s feelings. My dad used to say that we have (translated from the Danish) “fine feelings” which means that we are sensitive to words and actions. Not just sensitive in getting hurt by meanness but sensitive in sensing that there might be a hidden meaning in a word or gesture. The upside of that sensitivity is that in our tranquil morning moments we are in tune with the positive energy in the universe.

That’s morning bliss.

Rambling Rose

It looks as though spring may have sprung. We’ve had rather steady warm weather and the rains have begun though not yet cleaning up the countryside. But the buds are coming out on my bushes and trees, the tulips are 4 inches now and the alliums are as thick as grass. Robins have been hopping around for several weeks already and the ducks are swimming across the many ponds surrounding the house and countryside.

And Sanne?

Last night I was out for about an hour watering the plants and shrubs but then it was back inside to watch The Good Wife. The season is almost over and this is the only show left to watch so my activity level will kick up several notches as long as my body doesn’t give out in the meantime. Last week my left ankle was paining me. Yesterday my right foot had a muscle spasm that felt like a Charlie Horse. Good grief, I am falling apart and going into one of those vicious cycles where I cannot do the work because it hurts and if I don’t do the work it will hurt. Help!

But it’s morning now and I feel great and I am making all sorts of ambitious promises to myself about tonight. That is the wonderful thing about mornings. The day is still ahead with infinite possibilities just beyond the dawn. Energy levels are peaking, the eyes are starting to unblur, and the little grey cells are firing on all 2,3,4,5, 6 cylinders. Bang! I’m set for the day. Sure stuff happens along the way that drains the batteries but at least I have my morning bliss.

Morning Bliss – isn’t that a beautiful phrase? I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

Election Results

Harper now has a majority of 167 seats, the NDP got a whopping huge boost to 102 seats and is now the Official Opposition. Elizabeth May of the Green party got her first seat in parliament. The Bloc loses official party status, the Liberals were decimated though not quite as badly as the conservatives back in 1993 when the Reform party whacked them down and both Duceppe and Ignatieff have lost their own seats.

What does this mean? For the next 4 years we are going to see Stephen Harper show his true colours. You think you’ve seen the monster but that has been nothing compared to the tyrant that will explode over the next four to five years. I predict there will be more than one Conservative who will cross the floor either to the NDP or more likely as an Independent during this term of parliament. But will there be enough to cross the floor to stop Harper from bumping up personal taxes and crushing the average Canadian to the floor? No. We are going to see hard times ahead for Canadians and small business. The banks are going to be laughing all the way to the bank as will all big business.

We are in for it Canadians.

And let me just point something else out. Despite Jack Layton’s fantastic victory last night, did we see much coverage of him or his winners? It was all too obvious that the journalists (so called journalists, I should say) were completely biased against the NDP in their coverage that it is beyond shameful. It is going to be interesting to compare the coverage they get over the next four years and I can already see headlines on “ineffective opposition”. What do you expect with a majority government? What do you expect when there is no raw material in Canada? I’ll give you 100 guesses to figure that one out, and this is the first clue.

Canadians, you disappoint me. Where’s your faith in something new?

What Women Want

I don’t know what all women want and I find that a little surprising because I am such a good listener. My observations do lead me to think that most women want a man who understands them. They want someone who looks romantic like Colin Firth, who dances like John Travolta and who listens like Dr. Phil. If he is smart like Dr. Oz that is even better but not as necessary. Women settle for lesser gods because they are realistic in their expectations and hubby usually turns out satisfactory. They have children, they work to support the desires of their children, or at least what they believe are the desires of their children and then suddenly they discover that they are turning 50 next week and “is that all there is” springs to mind.

More shocks are in store for them as their marriage falls apart for any one of a variety of reasons. Then suddenly they are alone again, still expecting that wonderful godlike combination and yet they settle for whoever will ask out a 50 year old woman. This is the part that I find bewildering. Why wouldn’t women take a little breather from the treadmill they have been on and get to know themselves for a year or two before they start dating after a marriage breakup? I think perhaps they are frightened by their age and the competition and they feel a sense of urgency to get right back on the horse before it is too late. Too late for what? Living the life you’ve already led which ended in failure?

Don’t get me wrong I do understand that we all would like a partner. We are taught in life that everything ends happily ever after with the prince by our side. The commercials we are inundated with show happy, carefree women leading men down the garden path of life if we drink a cool beer, use the right deodorant and eat the right yogurt. No one tells us that men never mature beyond the age of 13 when they first start paying attention to their penises. Obnoxious as Gerard Butler is in the movie The Ugly Truth he is telling it like it is. That’s what men think about. Sex, sex and more sex. Even at 70 for heavens sakes. Huh, that reminds me of what happened to me in my younger, innocent days.

Like all girls I always loved horses and wanted to ride like Dale Evans on a beautiful palomino. When we moved to this little town my dad became friends with some older men, older than my dad even. Way older. Like in their 70’s. One of them had a cattle ranch and invited me to ride with him west of town on his free range. I loved it and I even got to go on an all day cattle drive. I wore genuine chaps and he even lent me his son’s spurs to wear with my boots because I was on a bit of a stubborn old horse. This went on all summer and I was in heaven when I was riding thinking he was just like a great old grandfather. Imagine my shock when one evening as we got home he leaned over and kissed me. With tongue. I was so upset and shaken up and didn’t know what to say or do. And my stunned ears were being assaulted with words like “if we had met at another time and place”. Was he drunk? Was he out of his mind? Hadn’t he seen my finance at the branding? I was 32 years old and he was at least 78. You are fucking kidding me!

When I told my brother Peter he howled with laughter. I was furious. This was serious. This man was a friend and business acquaintance with my dad and I didn’t know how to tell my father that there was no way I was going to be in the same room with a letcher. Finally I just told him the truth and thank goodness my dad understood. But he didn’t severe his relationship. All the books I had read led me to hope that he would at least punch him in the mouth but I guess my dad had a cooler head than I did.

Men.

Richard's MAY YOU's

Richard has a nice blog today "May you, count your blessings . . ." He is just so thoughtful and inspiring in gentle and fun ways. I hope you take a minute to read his blog today. May it help you through the month of May. :)

Day Three - Home Stretch

This is the final day of my Writer’s Retreat and I already can say that it has been a very fulfilling experience. It has definitely reinforced my desire to write and has given a pathforward on one particular story that I have thought would be good to write. Yesterday we did a lot of writing exercises and then Karen taught us a lot about editing and graphic design. Today we are going to learn more about the publishing world. I must confess that I feel a little bit like a pretender when we talk about publishing and yet, OF COURSE, I want to be a published author. But I feel a bit shy about it too. I think this is one of those moments where Jennifer would say “Get out of your own way”.

I confessed to the room on Friday that I still have bad habits (LOL) that hold me back so here I go with one of them. The retreat is supposed to go to 5 or 6 but with the long drive back home I really feel I must leave no later than 1 which will get me home around 4. I just need that time to unwind on a Sunday night before I go to work tomorrow. If I land at home at 7 or 8 I know I will not be able to get to sleep and I will be bagged tomorrow. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.

So forget my bad habits, I can work on them in a different context and just keep the energy flowing from this weekend. One thing, I still hate this netbook’s spacebar which just doesn’t seem to want to work. I should NOT have to whack it to get a space between my words. Karen asked us not to edit but I just had to put those spaces in place, it drove me nuts. OK another habit but STILL, who could understand run-on-words? It will be better on my home computer, I can free write without having to edit. I took so many notes on ideas that I can write for some days.

And now, brush my teeth, get dressed and go for another walk. This time with camera!