Monday, October 29, 2012

Humbility

When I went back to curling about 12 years ago, one of my constant refrains as I settled into the hack at Leaside was, "Thank you, Lord, for teaching me humility." Each week, as I screwed up shot after shot (too heavy, too light, too tight, too wide, wrong handle...), I would remind myself that I was learning more than curling; I was learning to refrain from taking myself too seriously.

I worked away at my game, got a little better each year, and in March, the rink I skip won the women's league championship in Collingwood.

Saturday in Etobicoke at the rather fancy St. Georges club, I found myself repeating my old refrain, as we had our brooms handed to us by club curlers from across the province. We lost to rinks from Burlington, Toronto and Cornwall; it really was a cross-province lesson.

We also won one of our games, which was, frankly, more success than we expected, being first-time competitors at a level no one from our club had yet seen.

I'm taking some lessons from "The Humbling" as I call it:

1) You can never stop learning. I've ordered four books written by curling champions this morning and I plan to study, study, study all winter in hopes of upping my game.

2) Practice practice practice. At this bonspiel, competitors had seven minutes each to slide and throw rocks in advance of play. Those warmup rocks meant we were ready to make our shots right from the first stone, rather than merely finding our stride in the fourth end. Even that little bit of practice changed the tenor, pace and flavour of the game. Imagine if we practised on days we have no scheduled game!

There are more lessons from this experience, but I'm still sorting through my impressions and our brush with excellence.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Weiners

Weiners is what we're calling ourselves on my curling team these days, altering the word winner because we can't completely believe we are headed to a provincial championship.

Lest you think you're going to see us on TV, it's not exactly the Tournament of Hearts. We're on a totally different road. It's such a different road it might not be a road at all. It's more like a dirt track through some scrub brush while the Scotties is a six-lane divided freeway.

The Dominion is for club curlers only; no pros allowed. But, we're winners nonetheless, taking three of four games at the Zone playdowns in Listowel on the weekend, two of the games called off early since we were winning pretty thoroughly.

This weekend, we go to Provincials. Our two-night hotel stay is paid for and we play four games over the two days against nine other women's teams coming in from clubs from Cornwall across to Renfrew.

I have a little quiver in my tummy about it, I must confess. Mostly about where we're playing.

The Competitor's Guide tells us we're not allowed to wear jeans at the clubhouse except in the curling lounge. If we arrive at the host club wearing jeans, we must walk around the clubhouse to get to the back door and the curling entrance.

Something tells me we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Dinnertime Worries

I'm worried about my dinner plate, I really am.

I try hard to source my food from producers I have met, and I've been lucky: my freezer is stocked with pork, beef, chicken and lamb, and never mind this 100-mile thing, the furthest my meat has travelled is more like 20.

But I'm worried about next year.

The small, family-run abattoir where I get my beef and lamb cut is planning to shut down operations at the end of the year. Oh, they have more than enough work to keep them busy, but they say they cannot afford to keep up with the ever-changing rules and regulations that govern their work, plus an overly zealous inspector who is apparently making impossible demands that will force them to close.

At my abattoir, each animal is dealt with individually, so when my farmer girlfriend had her wedding in the month of June, we knew meat from the heifer she jokingly named June was the only meat we were eating that night.

That pound of hamburger you buy at the grocery story could contain meat from hundreds of animals. And if just one of the guest workers at XL Foods didn't cleanly get out the guts of that Alberta-raised steer in 90 seconds, you've got poop in your meat. You know that's what e-coli is, right? Poop in your meat?

What confuses me is the same lax inspections that let so many people eat contaminated meat from XL is the very same system that's putting my friends out of business, and forcing me to buy the supermarket meat produced by places like XL.

There's something not right here.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Sex in the News

This morning, you may have heard a story about the study of sex habits of teenaged girls in connection with the HPV vaccine. Researchers wanted to know if having the vaccine made the girls who received it more promiscuous.

The vaccine prevents cancer. Surely that's a worthy goal, and who gives a care about anything else? It seems to me the act of asking such a question means the research comes with a built-in bias.

Have you seen any research into whether seatbelts lead teenagers to drive more? Me, neither.

This study reminds me of other research I've read about, looking to see whether there's a gene that 'causes' homosexuality.

What would be the point of knowing that? So it can be 'bred' out of people, or so that it can be 'cured'?

I understand curiosity, but I wonder if there might be a few things we want to conquer before we get into all the morality-laden stuff that makes the Taliban and evangelicals so crazy.

How's about we cure cancer before we figure out if its prevention has an impact on whether high school girls are getting laid.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Early Christmas

I'm a little jealous of my husband today. His Christmas shopping is very nearly complete and it's not even Hallowe'en, so he can spend the rest of this fall and the start of the winter not thinking at all about lists or wishes or my less-than-subtle hints.

I, on the other hand, consider myself lucky to get to spend an extra two months with my new best friend.

She's a cow.

Well, she's a painting of a cow, likely a heifer, although it's only her face that's on display, so we can't know for sure. Maybe you saw her, on the left side of the stage at the GNE, the one with the white face covered with curls and a curious expression? The one you might expect at any second to do that thing cows do with their tongue and their nostrils?

I told everyone near me, especially my husband, how much I loved that painting and how very very much I wanted her to come and live at our house. I even had the perfect place all picked out to accommodate her rather large size.

Saturday afternoon, she arrived, and quite by accident. I had found out who had supplied her to the fair, and I just... dropped by at Graingers in Stayner to see if she was still there and whether my love affair was perhaps just a passing fancy.

She was, and it wasn't. I still love her.

I was trying to come up with a way to convince my sweetie that a 5'x 5' piece of unsigned art was neither silly nor a waste and would make his wife so very happy when he suddenly suggested she become this year's Christmas present.

Less than an hour later, she was gracing our walls, looking every bit like she was as in love with us as I am with her.

It was about an hour after she took her place in the foyer that I realized I had seen her face somewhere else. It took a little while, but I located that expression in a photo of my 13 year old self and my 4H calf from that summer. That heifer's name was Bonnie and so that's what we've named my new best friend, who will no doubt make a lot of people say, "Holy cow!" when they come in our door.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Digital Divide Revisited

There comes a day when you choose not to try something new, simply because you feel you might be too old for it.

I believe my reluctance to try something new saved my life when I was living solo in a tiny studio apartment and sought out a friend in hopes of moving into a bigger space, a shared house with, like, bedrooms.

During the move, I discovered my friend had taken up a new habit: ecstasy. (yes, it was the 90s) I knew that if I were to move in, I would quite likely end up taking X at some point, too, and at the tender age of 27, I felt I was just too old to get into that nonsense. So, I gave up 'first and last', redecorated my hovel and stayed in it, alone for a few more years.

I'm feeling about Twitter now the way I felt about ecstasy then: I might be too old for this nonsense. I'm even coming up with research about who's using it, as a way of staying away. Twitter has fewer posters than LinkedIn (140 million versus 150 million), and only a tiny portion of facebook's BILLION users.

However, I feel as though I might be missing something by not having a Twitter account and keeping in touch 140 characters at a time. Hell, even the Queen has a Twitter account. Well, there are several "the queens", actually.

Mind you, Elizabeth Rex doesn't actually sit there and press any of the little buttons on her jewel-encrusted Blackberry, now, does she? She has people for that.

I have no people. What I do have is a full time job, responsibility for most of the domestic duties in my home, a dog who needs an hour-long walk or run each day, three curling teams, a reading habit, email, a blog, facebook, seven magazine subscriptions and a desire to make a quilt this fall. I may be at the tipping point. What would I be willing to give up to become a tweeter? What would I need to do to make it happen? Does one become a 'tweeter' or a 'twit' or what?

I think I may have missed an entire medium, as I've done with cable TV. I have never in my life paid for cable. Satellite TV was included with the place my husband and I shared the first year of marriage, but when we bought our house, we went Over The Air and yes, I admit to being a little sanctimonious about it. (if I ran the food bank, anyone with cable would be turned away with a stern lecture about priorities. Which is why I don't run a food bank; I simply donate and hope for the best.)

The thing is, I'm noticing more and more just how wide the "digital divide" is getting. My 70-year old mother has gone to considerable expense and trouble to get connected at her home in the country so she can Skype to my brother in Australia. But she has never once used the cell phone I gave her three years ago. I know because I pay the bill and the usage is zero. Texting is a foreign language and she still buys a newspaper each Saturday. On paper. For her, twitter is what the birds at her feeder do, all day long.

At the same time, I guarantee you the 21-year old candidate I interviewed for a job at our radio station last year has never in her life written a cheque. And guess where she told me she gets nearly all her news and information? From Twitter.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Pop Culture Oddity

OK, this is starting to get weird.

I've been spending my 'lunch hour' lately re-watching the TV series, Sex and the City and there seems to be some sort of strange pop culture confluence going on. It's freaking me out.

Last week, as Big moved to Napa and danced to Moon River with Carrie in a touching farewell, Andy Williams passed away. Later that week, Moon River was basically the theme song of the new episode of Glee.

Yesterday, during the hullabaloo over the anti-bullying rant by a news anchor in Wisconsin, I discover Jennifer Livingston is the real-life sister of the actor who plays Carrie's love interest in seasons five and six. Just yesterday, I watched the episode where they meet! About six episodes from now, Burger is going to dump Carrie on a post-it note.

Hey, maybe that's what Livingston should have written to the email writer complaining about her weight: "I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me."

Now, I'm just waiting to find out if there will be some drama next week involving Mikhail Baryshnikov. I'm about to get to the episodes where his character, a strange and obsessive Russian artist, becomes Carrie's 'LOVAH'. Gee, I hope if something does happen to him, it's something good.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Bullies Versus Victims

By now, someone has probably sent you a link to the very dramatic speech made by a news anchor on WKBT-TV in Wisconsin in response to an email from a listener. Maybe you saw it on Ellen, or BT or any of the millions of other places it's showing and being discussed.

What Jennifer Livingston had to say on her morning news show was in response to an email from a viewer which upset her and which her husband posted to facebook and which has brought in a lot of reaction. Livingston's speech was well written and well delivered. She's now being hailed as a hero in the ongoing battle against the scourge of bullying.

I'm not in the "Rah-rah, You tell 'em sister!" camp on this one. Yes, she got an email that was tough to read, but that doesn't make her a victim of bullying.

Read the email Livingston conveniently puts on the screen. I don't think it uses the word fat and it doesn't appear to be rude or nasty. It makes no threats. The writer didn't start a campaign against her, didn't rally other people, didn't name-call. The email suggests that as someone who appears in public daily, Livingston is not setting a good example by choosing to be obese. When did pointing out the obvious become bullying? Was it a necessary email? No. Was it kind? No. But was it really bullying?

Read it again, and then listen to Livingstone. The only one calling her fat is the anchor herself. She not only calls herself fat, she agrees with the writer that she's obese. The letter suggests that her obesity does not provide a good example to the community, which she admits and agrees to before addressing the perils of bullying.

But I was also struck by a phrase the email writer used: "choosing to be obese".

As someone who struggles with their weight, I know that for me, luckily, obesity is a choice. I choose the size and shape of my body every day. Every time I cook a meal, buy a meal, eat a meal or take a drink, I choose what I look like. Every time I choose to watch Sex and the City episodes instead of exercising, I'm living my priorities. Maybe being fit and healthy is less of a priority than making sure a work project is complete. Maybe being fit and healthy is less of a priority than getting the kids to their ballet or archery lessons. Those are valid choices. But barring a medical condition, they ARE choices, and once you embrace that fact, you'll be happier for it because you will either find a way to match your actions to your beliefs or accept that your actions already do match your beliefs.

Jennifer Livingston might not like what her writer said, but that doesn't make the writer a bully. Save your tears for the real victims of bullying: kids who are beaten up at school and grownups who are beaten down at work. Livingston is clearly a strong woman and is in the enviable position of having a job on TV. It thrills me that we now live in a time when jobs like hers are no longer predicated on looks. I'd rather see her celebrate the progress we've made than try to use viewer mail as an opportunity to get international attention and a guest spot on Ellen.