Year-End Clearout Continues

I'm so inspired by the cleanup of my files at work, I have decided to continue the cleanout at home.

Although work might suffer because of my enthusiasm.

In my lunch bag, ready for the return to the office, nine coffee mugs.

I have had trouble finding a mug at work in recent weeks, (well, a clean one, but that's a story for another day...) and went looking for a box of mugs I'd packed up long ago.

While trying not to see the translucent spiders who populate my basement, I was struck by several questions: What posessed me to keep these mugs in the first place?
Why do I have mugs from radio station parties in Toronto I didn't actually attend? When was I a guest speaker at a Rotary meeting? Who would ever give someone a mug declaring them the world's Number One dieter? If you were the number one dieter, what would you put in your mug, anyway?

You can rest assured if you're a guest on my radio show in the next while, I will offer you coffee or tea or water in a mug that's never been used.

Cleaning Up

I wonder if Old Year resolutions might actually be better for us than New Year's Resolutions.

My plan for the end of 2012 was to have a clean workspace at work (and by that I mean cleaned out computer files) and at home. Two days to go, and things are looking better.

I have deleted or moved something like 500 files from the computer at work, carefully making sure the most important stuff is saved on a thumbdrive. I've cleaned up my home and work email accounts, too.

I have not yet tackled the heap of actual paper in my office that appears ready to teeter down upon me, though. I think if we can play fast and loose with the rules about resolutions, maybe the actual date of the 'new year' can be toyed with, too, don't you think?

So maybe my resolution for next year should be not to get myself into this bollox in the first place. Harrumph.

Review: Les Miserables

Never doubt the power of a story of redemption, well told.

At its core, Les Miserables, the classic novel, the stage show and now the latest film adaptation is about the power of true love. Agape love, not the romantic kind.

The final line is the most powerful: "To love another person is to see the face of God..."

Here's a hint about how good this movie is: my ever-indulgent sweetheart, who bought us the tickets and went to the show with me, and even thought to bring along extra tissues, spent much of the evening singing, "Look Down, Look Down... Don't Look 'em in the eye...." and only once asked, "Did they really have to sing every single word?"

I apologised in advance to the people sitting near me at the multiplex on Boxing Day in advance of the first scenes. I told them I would be singing along, and there was nothing I could do. I also apologised to my sweetheart for the sniffing and snuffling and weeping, of which there was PLENTY.

The film is practically perfect. Russel Crowe's singing leaves a teeny bit to be desired, and some of the closeups are, well, very close up, and maybe a bit too close.

But overall, Les Miz completely lives up to my very-high hopes: Anne Hathaway as the heartbroken Fantine, Hugh Jackman as the oppressed Jean Valjean, and even Amanda Seigfried (oh, I was worried about her) as Cosette, they were all brilliant, just brilliant.

I never do this, but I'm going to see it in the theatre again, because it will be far too long before the DVD comes out.

Woo Hoo

One of my girlfriends tells me the most endearing thing about her husband is that no matter what, he gives a little cheer when she takes off her clothes.

There are no pompoms or eye-high kicks involved, but she gets a, "Woo Hoo!" every time she undresses, whether to get ready for the day, prepare for a night out or put on her jammies for bed.

She says the constant reinforcement of her desirability, 18 years into their relationship is one of the keys to their successful partnership. The little daily reminder that he still finds her 'hot' serves to remind her of his good qualities, too, and can sometimes soothe any little hurts between them.

I get a similar service from my sweetheart every time I 'put on my face' when we're going out. I'll say, "What do you think of my makeup?" and he'll reply, "You don't need any - you're pretty just the way you are." It doesn't stop me from putting on makeup, but reminds me that even if we're being 'peevy' with each other, there's a foundation of admiration there.

For Christmas this year, in addition to the awesome painting that's already up on a wall, I'm asking for that little ritual to continue.

I bet there's some sweet thing your darling does for you, a thing you don't always notice. Maybe your gift this year could include taking notice. Wrap it in some appreciation and I guarantee your home will be a sweeter place to live.

I can feel it!

A friend of mine has had a cough for the last couple of weeks. It's not what you might term a little tickle, oh, no, it's one of those persistent deep coughs that makes me think he's going to lose a lung or perhaps a toenail.

He showed up at our house yesterday, pale and sweaty, carrying a big prescription and the news that he had finally obeyed my sweetheart and his wife and gone to the doctor. The diagnosis? Whooping cough.

Seriously? Whooping cough?

That really exists outside of nursery rhymes? (hush-ah hush-ah, we all fall down...)

We didn't touch him and after ushering him quickly from the premises, we pulled out the bleach, wiped down everything he had been near and dosed ourselves with Vitamin C and disinfectant and hoped for the best.

Now, of course, 12 hours later, I have a wee headache and I just know I've contracted gangrene, dengue fever and several other hideous diseases he brought with him from the germ-infested waiting room occupied by all those sniffling, whining children.

Dammit!

Party Couple

There was a time I would long for a quiet weekend cocooned at home after busy and hectic weeks of parties and silliness and yes, sometimes a little work. I would emerge from a couple of early nights and quiet afternoons refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to tackle the world once more.

However, after a certain number of peaceful hours, I worry that I'm about to turn to a rusty hulk of a former funster.

This weekend was one of those.

My sweetheart and I were invited to two parties on Friday night and two parties on Saturday night and we attended none of them. I felt guilty about not going, even though I had let my hosts know what we were up to. I felt guilty because nearly everyone I invited to our Christmas bash showed up, some of them from quite a distance.

I also felt like I was missing out, as though somehow the world was moving on without me. Yes, it was only one weekend, and it's not like we were deprived: when a friend dropped in one afternoon, he found us lounging with drinks in our hot tub. Later, we treated ourselves to a wonderful dinner. My sweetie, bless his heart, said to me as we sat down to steak and red wine, flowers, candles, fine china and crystal, "Isn't this The Best? I would give up a fancy restaurant any day for this!" It's what many women wish to hear, I'm told, and I do love knowing Sweetie's first choice is to be with me in our home.

But I can tell you without a question or doubt: one hundred times out of one hundred, I will choose a place that's noisy, packed or overpriced if someone else makes the meal and brings it to me, even if the food is not as good as what I would make, which, in my humble opinion, it almost never is. I'm all for romance, but could it please be catered?

Words Fail

I have nothing intelligent to add to the acres of ink and tears after what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on Friday. Simply nothing.

Other than this: What a waste.

Diamond Shoes

Once in a while, when I'm in full rant mode about some perceived slight or worrisome situation, one of my girlyfriends will haul me back to reality. She says, in a sing-song voice, "...and my diamond shoes are too tight!" It works every time.

I've been complaining to my sweetheart lately about the sheer volume of cash that's leaving our home, wondering whether our Christmas dinner is going to consist of KD and cut-up weenies. We've had a blast of huge expenses; snow tires, fees for our soon-to-be rebuilt porch, a side of beef we forgot we had ordered and today, carpet so our aging doggie can make it down the hardwood stairs in the middle of the night without assistance.

While it appears our bank accounts are merely conduits rather than savings vehicles, it can be tough to keep in mind this problem is vastly different from the problems facing much of the rest of the world. Snow tires are expensive, but the car is newish. The carpet is expensive but the doggie lights up our lives. The beef was unexpected, but man, is it delicious! We have a roof, food and love to spare.

So, if (when) you hear me complain about my long list of 'first world problems', feel free to remind me of my shoes. And if you don't get that iPad or whatever you're waiting for under your tree, ask yourself about the fit of your sparkly pumps or boots.

To my teacher friends

I love you, I do. You do important work and you make a difference.

But can you please please please just admit how good you've got it rather than going into full howl?

At a party recently, a teacher friend of mine lamented loud and long about being bullied by the province over teacher contracts and the right to strike. She also told the story of how one of the four year olds in her junior kindergarten asked her to check his little backside after he used the loo.

After about 20 years on the job, I estimate she gets paid just under a hundred thousand dollars for ten months in the classroom each year.

Would you wipe a kid's bum for 95K?

A couple of years ago I estimate my lovely friend was paid about $70,000 during an entire year off work because of an arrangement called 4 for 5. She took a 20% pay cut for four years, the school board held on to the money and during that whole year off, she was paid the reduced salary. She spent half the year travelling the world and got paid the whole year with benefits. At the end of it, her job was waiting for her.

When was the last time you had a paid year off?

A cousin of mine has been a high school teacher for more than 20 years, and she tells me she has somewhere around 350 sick days 'banked'. When she retires at the age of 55 with a pension of about $60,000 a year, she will not actually 'retire' for the first year. She'll be at home, being paid nearly a hundred thousand dollars while she 'uses up' those days.

Is this how things work at your house?

Damn, I wish I'd gotten in to teachers' college.

Les Miss

I'm getting ready for a Christmas with a difference. With a lot of differences, actually, after my plans for cuddling cute children over an extended holiday were scuttled with an unhappy twist.

At one point this summer, I had a count-down underway until the day my brother, sister in law, and their three kids would travel home to Canada for a month-long visit. They moved to Brisbane in March, and while Skype and phone calls and videochats and email are all well and good, a 15 hour time difference is unwieldy and I miss them pretty badly. They sold their house when they moved, so my plans included sleepovers at my house for at least a few nights, and a few at my Mom's, too, where the kids would likely spend at least some of the holiday.

In late September, we got the news they weren't coming home after all, for a range of very reasonable reasons.

And so, I have no moppets to spoil, play with or tease. No one to take shopping or whose secrets to hear, no little people to tickle or whose hair to braid.

My nieces are 5 and 11, my nephew 9, so they're at a great age to be friends with, too, but since my sweetheart and I simply can't afford a trip to Australia just now, we will have to 'make do'.

We'll also have to talk to my mom via Skype, since she is taking an extended trip to be with the dear little ones. She will be with them for several weeks, which means lots of lovely memories being made in Australia, but no Mommy for me. Her absence and theirs reduces my family Christmas circle to my sweetheart, a brother who lives three hours away and my inlaws. Oh, and of course, our beloved dog, who tends to eat the presents.

This may not altogether be a bad thing. Sweetie and I have complained loud and long about the vast pile of events we are faced with every year. It has seemed to us that we were on a "dead giddyup" most of December, with extended family gatherings, office parties, the party we host for our friends and all the family 'things' we simply can't miss between Christmas Eve and the 27th. Most years, we have had trouble finding time for just the two of us. This year, we'll find out how much 'just us' we're interested in.

We are still attending our office parties and hosting a party for our friends, but Sweetie's extended family has decided not to have a get-together this year. We will go to church on Christmas Eve and afterwards have drinks and snacks with Sweetie's siblings and mother, but we won't have Christmas Eve Tourtiere with my parents beforehand.

We are still having a traditional Christmas dinner with Sweetie's family, but we're not having Christmas morning at his mom's house or Christmas Day brunch at mine.

On the 26th, which has long been the traditional Christmas dinner for my first family, we'll be completely our own.

The number of events has been reduced by about half, and while not being in the presence of my moppets might well make me miserable, having the chance to see Les Miserables on Boxing Day might just make things a little happier chez nous.

Just Because You CAN

I had a tough time with my outfit for the office Christmas party this weekend, but after throwing several heaps of dresses and skirts around, I finally figured it out, with the help of my sweetheart.

I wanted to go full-on Christmas with a lovely vintage plaid taffeta ankle-length skirt, complete with a three-inch black velvet band around the bottom. I paired it with a brand-new black cashmere sweater and thought I was ready to go, with just the right blend of vintage and new, formal and casual, only one hole in my pantyhose and my great big fake eyelashes glued firmly in place.

But I wasn't allowed out of the house. My sweetheart said in a tone women usually reserve for men, "Is that what you're wearing?"

Oh, that one's never a good phrase to hear. It's never a question, it's a judgement. And not an aquittal.

"It's Christmassy!" came my plaintive reply.

"Which Christmas?"

"Well, my mom made this for me." (maybe the Mom card would get me some leeway.) "It was before we met, but after I could get served, so sometime between 1984 and 1986. Hey, I wore this to a Junior Farmer Christmas Formal! Can you believe it still fits?" (looking for leeway with my newly trim figure...)

"Honey, just because you CAN wear something doesn't mean you SHOULD. Where's the sticky-outy thing that goes under it to poof it out?"

His reference to a crinoline sealed the skirt's fate. I guess 'old' and 'vintage' might be different things, but I'm not yet sure just how.

"Fine. Maybe I'll cut it up to use in a quilt..." I sighed.

"Not one that I'm sleeping under!" was Sweetie's quick reply.

In the end, I went with a little red wool number I wore to my friend Stephanie's wedding three summers ago. It's two sizes too big, but at least it's from this century, and even this decade.

I can't say the same for the lamp shade I had on later in the night, but that's another story.

Review: Twilight Finale II

Best. Husbands. In. The. World.

You know who you are, the ones who were oh-so-patiently sitting in the theatre this weekend, listening to the under-breath screams of delight from spouses deep in the thrall of the finale of Twilight.

It was for you they put in the big fight scene.

I was wondering how and why the trailers for the final movie in the series all featured this big fight, when there is no fight in the book at all. There was only Bella with her shield and a staring-down across a snowy field.

What gives?

But I get it now, and I have to say, kudos to you, movie makers, for such a well-thought out play on my emotions. I thought I was there to see a book I really enjoyed, acted out, but you gave me so much more. It was well worth the price of admission and the bellyache from the popcorn.

Skyfall was 'beyond belief' good and next up in my season of awesome movies: Les Miserables opens on Christmas Day.

Review: Skyfall

I can't stop gushing about the latest Bond movie. It was just about everything I wanted to see, including, you know, a plot.

Let's not kid ourselves, there have been a few of the 23 movies in the Bond franchise over the last fifty years that were a little bit, shall we say, um, thin, in the plot department. Oh, they blow stuff up real good, but I have often been disappointed when it comes to character development and believability

Not this time.

There's still lots of blowing up stuff and the requisite great car chases, but there's also a plot that can be followed, and dare I say, sensitivity in this particular Bond, plus a little bit of back story not only for Bond, but also for the arch-villain.

I didn't think Daniel Craig was good-looking or suave enough for the part the first time I saw him, but he is rapidly becoming my favourite of the boys who have taken on the iconic character, in spite of the fact that he holds his arms funny when he runs.

My very favourite piece of this movie (and I'm not giving anything away): the Moneypenny reference. Perfect.

Random Kindness

I still have the bumper sticker I bought during my 'peace love and grooviness moonbeam mother earth save the whales birkenstock' years.

It's in a towel drawer in the bathroom, which is indeed a random place to store a bumper sticker, I know. Somehow randomness is appropriate for a sticker that reads, "Practice random kindness perform senseless acts of beauty".

I didn't put the sticker on my bumper because when I proudly showed it to a co-worker way back then, his response was, "Why not -consistent- kindness?" and since then, his voice asking that question is all I can hear when I look at the damn thing.

I still support the idea, but I think the groovy attitude it expresses would have to change if it were being handed out today.

It would more likely read, "Practice random kindness and be sure to post about it on facebook."

Codes in our Dozes

I have to brag about my perfect day on the trail:

--blissful sunshine pouring down onto decaying leaves and brush along the trail toward Poplar Sideroad

--no one at all on the trail past the river, so doggie could run free to sniff and seek out all the good smells and critters

--just the right amount of clothing for the temperature and my exertion, so I was Goldilocks; neither too warm or too cold, but just right

--a new and fun acquaintance, whose equally lovely dog neither attacked nor ran from my pooch

--the whole time, the unmistakable scent of the leaves and the sunshine and a feeling of luckiness to have an hour to walk such a rare and perfect late-fall day.

It was just great.

And then, as my sweetie and I made our dinner:
--a tickle at the back of the throat.
--a shiver.
--a sniffle.
--a sneeze.

By 7 o'clock, my itchy, watery eyes and stuffed up nose were alternately shivering and sweating under the covers with my equally-afflicted darling.
Today, the only scent I can enjoy is VapoRub.

They can Keep it

Don't get me wrong- I'm a big fan of snow.

Is there anything better in this world than a big fat flakes drifting quietly down on a crystal clear night as you pull your touque down a little tighter on the way home from a friend's house on Christmas Eve? I think not.

But I'm not ready. Not yet.

I've been busy doing pretty much anything but getting the yard ready for its big sleep.

Oh, I own the bags for the leaves and I own a rake, and I certainly have my fair share of leaves, but no matter how many times I look at the leaves and wonder where I put the rake and ponder the pile of bags, they can't seem to get together.
I know the hoses need to be coiled and the outdoor furnitue needs to go into the shed, and the flat tire on the snowblower needs to be inflated and the potted plants need to come into the house. I know the dahlia bulbs need to be dug up and the tulip bulbs need to be dug in, but I just can't seem to find the time.

I'm curling, teaching piano lessons, getting my hair done and sitting on my tush reading facebook.

So, I've decided. The snow will simply have to wait this year.

I will allow some on Christmas Eve, but the folks up at Blue Mountain will just have to make their own.

So far, it's working, and we have a 14 degree day on the way for the weekend.

But with a foot of snow on the ground in Edmonton, I may have to reassess my powers of persuasion with Mother Nature.

Just not yet, please, I'm not ready!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Drama Class

What do you do with information that comes to you, information you didn't ask for and can do nothing with, but which floats around occupying space in your head?

I'm sad to report I let it float and occupy, but happy to say I don't try to make dramatic hay from it. At least not any more.

In the last while, information has come to me about a couple of people who are no longer in my life. The thing is, the news about them has inserted them back into my consciousness. It made me wonder, briefly, if this news I've received is the universe telling me I'm supposed to be reaching out to them. There was a time I would have interpreted the information I've received as a sign, a need to made a grand gesture that might satisfy my need for a little drama in my life.

Here's the thing about signs: if you want to see them, they're everywhere.

Example: Andy Williams died last week, crooner of Moon River. I have been re-watching Sex and the City episodes, and the very day Andy Williams died, I happened to be watching the episode where Big moves to Napa, and plays none other than Moon River, even leaving behind the vinyl album in his massive apartment for Carrie to find. That very same night, on Glee, Rachel's every move was shadowed by an orchestral version of- wait for it - moon river.

That's got to be a sign, right? But of what? It was a full moon, my husband was fishing on a river this weekend.... Oh, I know! It means that just when you think you're getting a sign from the universe telling you to do something that could lead to a big dramatic event, it's time to start thinking.

Knifed

Hidden deep in the folds of a corner behind a zipper, I have carried in my purse a wee jackknife for about 25 years now.

That knife has come in handy innumerable times, not only because it has a corkscrew, but because its blade held its edge beautifully all these years.

To be fair, my little knife usually gets only one use: it's my apple-cutter-upper, and since it's fall now, I need it every day. It's likely because my dad always cut his apples into pieces that I prefer my apples sliced, too. It might also be a fear of losing a tooth or some concern about tidiness. Who knows, but I'd just rather use a knife.

That knife is what told me I was a suspected terrorist. When I took a trip to Mexico with my girlfriends this spring, I stashed it in my checked luggage. While we were on the beach, I tucked it into my beach bag. There was no threat, but, well, it was Mexico after all, and it made me feel better to have the knife with me. Also, the knife came in handy to help remove an unwanted bow from one of my fellow travellers' swimsuits. Well, it was handy until I stabbed her by accident. You'd be surprised how many women on that beach offered us a bandaid.

On the way home, no doubt drunk on sunshine, I neglected to move the knife back into my checked luggage, and when I was stopped by Mexican security, I was genuinely confused why my bag was being x-rayed multiple times. I was bemused until the guard pulled my knife out to show me, and I nearly passed out, visions of a lengthy Mexican prison term dancing in my head. Instead of cuffing me, all the guy did was pitch my knife into a big bin of similar banned items and waved me on my way. My shocked and embarrassed face must have helped my case.

Yesterday, I felt like a suspect for a second time when I picked out a new knife at Canadian Tire. I decided against the shiny red Swiss Army knife with the corkscrew, since most of the wine in my life these days comes with a screwtop or in a tetrapak. Instead, I chose a simple folding model which reminded me of the one my father used.

Here's where the suspect part comes in: after I chose the knife, the clerk had to find the model of my choice from inside a locked cabinet below the counter and then he was required to accompany it and me to the checkout. I couldn't carry my own knife to the front of the store. It was policy, he explained, even while the knife in question that I might stab and rob with was packed behind a thick swaddling of hard plastic.

And here's the other thing: now that I have it home, I can't open the blessed packaging. I need my jackknife to open the packaging on my jackknife!

Fair Ladies

Like most years, I will spend a lot of this weekend at the Collingwood fair.

The rain (if it comes, which I think it won't) won't really matter. The GNE (Great Northern Exhibition for you newbies) has a terrible reputation for being a washed-out affair nearly every year, and yet, most of my photos at the fair feature sunshine. Funny, that.

I was recruited into helping install some of the displays this year, and came away a bit worried about the future of the event.

Oh, there were a lot of entries in the sewing and cooking and quilting competitions, but the people who were volunteering to judge and display them were all of a certain age. The age at which the future becomes no longer certain. I was the youngest person there by at least 25 years.

These women and men are all from good solid farming stock, and while they have worked long and hard hours most of their lives, it wasn't generally 9-5. There is some flexibility when it comes to fall fair time if you're a farmer or a member of a farm family. But things have changed down on the farm. Most of the farmers I know have another job. All of the farmers' wives I know have another job, which is why they weren't out helping on a Thursday afternoon. They were working. Allthe fair's work was being done by retirees.

20 years from now, who will help me to set up the quilts on a Thursday afternoon?
Will there be any quilts to display?

I'll see you at the fair - helping at the beef ring on Saturday afternoon and I'll be everywhere else the rest of the weekend, chowing down on Dave's lamb on a bun, and wishing I'd had time to make a quilt or bake a pie this year.

Dressing for the Occasion

It was nine years ago this week my sweetie and I did what we should have done in the first place, way back when we were... young. We got married and started what has been quite a happy life together.

Of course there have been a few of 'those' days. You know the ones. But on your anniversary, you don't dwell on the days your spouse is lucky to have lived through the night.

We generally go to the same restaurant for a very expensive and very delicious dinner to celebrate our anniversary. We went there on a memorable night in 1990, and the restaurant is still going strong with excellent food and perfect service. Some years, there has been entertainment.

We plan to be the entertainment tonight, since we've decided to wear our wedding outfits to the eatery.

Sweetie wore a kilt to our wedding and he's donned it often in the nine years since, so it's not unusual to see him in it, but my wedding dress has been languishing in a closet since the big day. I put it on periodically to be sure it still fits.

It does, and it's going out on the town tonight, including the wee footprint left by my nephew who was a teeny tiny baby on our wedding day. Whether our fellow diners will think we're cute or pathetic, I really don't care.

I'm just glad to have had these 3,288 nights. I'd like about a million more.

Wrong Side of the Bed

When was the last time you had one of 'THOSE' days, when everything you touched turned to crud, and you started off the day in a bad mood even before things started going sideways?

I'm having one of those days this week.

It's not waking up on the wrong side of the bed that's making me cranky, it's a confluence of news items that's annoying me.

My questions swirl:

Why would anyone kill a US diplomat sent to Libya? Surely even crazed mobs must know Libya is not the place where anyone with any real influence would have been sent. Further, surely even a crazed mob might know that since the guy was in Libya, he probably didn't shoot or produce the very badly made movie poking fun at Mohammad which ostensibly began the protest. Well, actually, the movie didn't make fun of Mohammad, but did address that The Prophet, (peace be upon him) married a nine year old, which I'm sure was fun for no one.

Why do so few people appreciate the irony on display by the Republicans in the US? The party goes on and on about the evil of government control of the markets but advocates government control of women's bodies. Surely they know they're being just like the Taliban on women's issues, the very group they want to spend increasing amounts of government money to fight. Jonathan Swift could have done no better, and yet no one is laughing.

Why can't teachers in Ontario just accept their 30 percent worth of wage raises received over the last eight years from the 'education premier' and be grateful? Surely teachers know that the people who still have jobs this year didn't get a raise for most of the last eight years? Surely they know the average Ontario teacher takes home pay that is more than double the national average? Further, why isn't gratitude on the list of fuzzy 'character' attributes they're supposed to be teaching?

Why would a town councillor bother wasting even one breath to ask about public consultations when they know darn well the outcome, not only of any complaint but also of any consultation that is scheduled? Seriously, if you know of even one 'public consultation' where the plan being put forward for a quarry, a school closing or a casino changed one whisker of what was planned, please let me know. I dare you.

See? Cranky!

A Safe Space for Grief

There's a time in your life when it seems every weekend features a wedding and a time when it seems every week contains a funeral.

I have entered the funeral stage, it appears.

In the last two years, I have attended no fewer than nine funerals.

A cousin, an uncle, a friend, a former neighbour, all of them of a certain age and all of them taken by cancer or heart disease.

Tomorrow, another one, for a farmer and father of six I had known all my life, who was good friends with my parents, whose children are my friends and to whose house I was shipped for a few days each summer when I was a kid, to give my mother 'a break'.

The thing about funerals is, they're never solely for the person being mourned that day. Of course you're crying for the person being eulogized, but aren't you also crying for your own previous losses? That's why we still have funerals, I think, when so many other public and formerly religious ceremonies have gone by the wayside. There's comfort on offer for the family, but also a safe and public space for each of us to mourn other departures.

While in the United church in Creemore offering support to the Millsap family tomorrow, I will think of Glenn, but I will also shed a tear for my uncle, my cousin and the other people I've already mourned this year, plus my own Dad and my grandparents who have been gone for more than two decades. I know everyone around me will be doing the very same thing, and that's OK.

Warming Dinner

For pretty much every birthday dinner of my life, my mother has served me the same dessert.

She produces a cake, naturally, but also invariably provides sliced, peeled fresh peaches mixed with thimbleberries. You might know thimbleberries as blackberries; big, juicy, tart/sweet berries containing a lot of seeds whose canes feature the nastiest thorns in the world. I love the berries, but the thorns are so horrible I hated picking them on the farm where I grew up, so I try not to eat them, not wanting to be a hypocrite.

However, every year, my mother brings out the 'special' antique cut glass bowl used for birthdays and other special occasions and fills it up with a concoction of berries, peaches and sugar, which leads to a sweet and sticky syrup. It's all very delicious.

This year, there will be no berries in the mix. The berries flowered in the early sunshine, a big crop came in (albeit mostly for the racoons who ravaged the patch), and it was all over three weeks ago.

There have been years when there were only a few berries and they were very small at the end of the season, but I've never had no berries at all in the soupy deliciousness.

Three weeks.
Think about that, in an 'inconvenient truth' kind of way.
It has me wondering if my birthday dinner is a sign of climate change.

Closer and Closer

Don't come knocking at my house in the evenings for the next while, don't call and don't expect facebook status updates, either. I'm busy. I have a date with Brenda Leigh Johnson.

The Closer is my all-time favourite cop show, and Kyra Sedgwick my all-time favourite TV cop, and the seventh and final season DVD showed up in my mailbox last night.

Didn't you hear the squeals of delight?

Here's the strange thing, though: I had to order the DVD from the US version of Amazon, not the Canadian site, because the Canadian site wouldn't sell it to me until October. The Canadian site's price was also nearly double. The US site had it to me less than a week after the show was released in the US, and at half the price.

I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering what's the point of having a Canadian site if Canadians get better, more prompt service from the US site?

Again, I'm not complaining, I'm not saying anything. I'm just eating chocolates and watching Brenda Leigh do the same while solving strange crimes with style, grace and that awesome Southern accent.

A Better Man

It's important to get a periodic reminder of just how special and wonderful your life partner is and what key traits drew you to them.

I got that reminder last night when the 'phone rang and an old flame of mine was on the other end of the line. It was my Sweetie who picked up the 'phone, and the two of them had a great old chat before he handed it over to me.

Not only did the men talk, Old Flame was calling to plan a visit. The three of us will dine and drink together and I expect to have a grand time. We see him only about once every 18 months or so, but I think it's very telling that Sweetie is open to the relationship.

How many husbands do you know who would be willing to entertain their beloved's former beloved? I'd wager not very many. And Old Flame who's coming to see us isn't the only fellow from my past who remains a friend. This summer, another lovely guy I dated briefly came for a sleepover, too. We had been set up but the spark wasn't there and we became fast friends instead. Sweetie even helped with the design and creation of a quilt for Lovely and his gorgeous wife. Lovely and Gorgeous claim they were having trouble conceiving until they received the quilt. Three kids later, that quilt has been relegated to the spare room.

This is not to say every ex is welcome in our home, but Sweetie is rightly confident in my loyalty and knows there is no threat. He also believes there is no such thing as too many friends so as long as people are good people, why not be friendly?

That said, not even one of his former loves had better darken our door. He's clearly a better man than I.

Yellow Bellied

I may have finally done it. I may have gone too far in my love affair with yellow. I didn't think it was possible, but it appears to be.

When it comes to decorating, I find things pretty easy when it comes to colour.
Will the walls be yellow or green? That's pretty much it.

Keep in mind how much is room there is for variation when it comes to shades of yellow. The office, for example, is a bright yellow, whose name is Lemonade. The dining room and living room are a calmer hue whose name is Buttercream. The foyer and upstairs hall are Tea Rose, which is somewhere in between the other two, and the mud room and kitchen are in the bright and airy Firefly, flat and semigloss respectively. Of course they're Martha Stewart colours. Duh.

So, it's yellow flowing into yellow flowing into the next yellow and as I took down ancient blue striped wallpaper last winter, I began to wonder if perhaps I was going a little too yellow.

Now, I'm nearly sure I've taken it too far.

I put the first coat of paint on the 'back' stairs last night, turning them from a tawny brown I am sure was named Baby Poo to, you guessed it, yellow. Tea Rose to match the walls.

But somehow, it's looking like it might be the tipping point.

Sadly, I think I'm going to have to take the advice of a lisping minister and, (here it comes...) "Repaint, you thinner!"

In the news

It's very awkward to be telling a news story that's about your own home and family, but that's the strange position in which I found myself this morning. Happily, there was no murder involved, only a bit of mayhem.

This morning's newcasts included the story of a house in Collingwood that had been rammed by a car early Sunday morning.

The house? My house.

I was away for the night, at a cousin's wedding dance while Sweetie and Dear Darling Dog slept the sleep of the innocent, never knowing there were four cop cars, a tow truck and several witnesses on our front lawn. I find it strange that no one knocked on the door to inform them of the crash. Although with a demolished car and scary mess in the way, how would anyone get to the front door to ring the bell?

Sweetie found out about the crash only when he opened the front door on his way to a day of fishing. There at his feet, sunshine where no sunshine should be. The car had hit the concrete steps so hard, there now are gaps a foot wide between some of the concrete blocks, blocks which have been solid since they were installed sometime in the 1900s.

The porch is totalled. The very lovely OPP officer I talked with last night told me the car which hit it had been stolen. Apparently, the owner had left the car unlocked in their driveway, keys in the ignition and our culprit must have thought he'd hit the jackpot when he was rifling through vehicles, stealing change.

I expect some very interesting days ahead when it comes to insurance.

The good news is, I have always kind of hated that porch. It took me nearly a year to figure out what colour to paint it to make it disappear as much as possible. Other than paint, I hadn't figured out what to do about it. I'm already trolling websites and magazines for design ideas.

Here's another weird part to this story: we sent out for Chinese food last night and my fortune cookie told me I would find luck in an unexpected place. Maybe this is it.

Pointless

There's no point in buying a new mattress without a new bed underneath it, and no point in having the bedroom empty if you're not going to paint the floor like you've planned to for several years, right?

These were the discussion points in my head in June when Sweetie and I innocently began a teeny tiny renovation project.

Sadly, when I went out for my stroll with the doggie last night, nearly three months later, I still had white paint splotches on the back of my right thigh.

Here's why:

There's no point in painting the bedroom floor if you're not going to paint the baseboards, too.

There's no point in painting the baseboards if you don't paint the doorframes.

While you're painting the doorframes in the bedroom you'd better paint the door, too.

There's no point in painting the bedroom door if you're not going to paint the trim around the bedroom door in the hallway.

There are four more doors in the hallway, and there's no point in having just one of them trimmed out and painted.

There's also no point in painting out those other doors if you don't paint the baseboards in the hallway.

There's no point in painting the baseboards in the hallway if you don't also paint the window frames and the windows.

There's no point in painting the baseboards in the upstairs hall if you don't also paint the baseboards down the back stairs.

And really, there's no point in painting the baseboards in the back stairs if you don't also repaint the stairs themselves, which are in sore need of a new coat of something.

Please, please could someone point me to a lounger?

Review: Borin' Bourne

Sweetie and I have a longstanding joke about our relationship with movies: We TALK about going to out the movies but we never actually GO out to the movies.

But we do. About twice a year. Mostly when there's a big action flick like Mission Impossible 692 or a new Bond film or, as was the case this weekend, a new addition to the Bourne franchise, which, in case you missed the hype, does not actually contain a Bourne.

Nope, there's no Matt Damon in the latest Bourne movie.

There's also barely a plot.

Sweetie and I were discussing this on the way home from the theatre, bellies gurgling from too much double buttered popcorn and too much overpriced candy. (Really? Maltesers? Really? What was I thinking?)

I asked whether the first Bourne flick really had a plot to it, rather than merely plot devices, and we decided it certainly did have an actual plot: guy wakes up with no notion of his own identity and slowly discovers he's a killer being targetted by the people who trained him. I loved the scene where Bourne speaks to and then beats up a pair of Germans, discovering to his surprise that he speaks German! And can fight!

The subsequent two movies featured plots that were a bit ... convoluted, shall we say, however, there was definitely something going on. This one? Not so much.

Ostensibly, the Bourne Legacy is taking place concurrently with the Bourne Identity, and the main character is also an agent, but in a different program. Because of what's happened with Bourne, the entire program is cancelled. When the program is cancelled, the agent's lives are forfeit. One survives.

While Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz put in good performances, it just feels like someone at the movie studio said, "Plot? Character development? Bah! What we need are more killers with no conscience and more chase scenes through crowded city street! Oh, and jerky camera movements! Yeah! That's what people want!"

And that's what you get. Surely for all the money spent on blowing stuff up, which they do a LOT and very well, there could be a couple hundred bucks slipped to a writer to come up with a bit more of... something.

And while I'm being taken advantage of at the movie theatre, don't get me started on paying $43.18 for two tickets, popcorn and pop to share and two wee bags of candy -urp-

Games Impressions

It it just me, or are the women the more fascinating athletes at the games in London?

Yeah, yeah, Phelps, Bolt, whatever. It's the girls that appear to be doing the most interesting stuff.

Jessica Zelinka, for example. Heptathlon. And no, I didn't remember from the last games there even was such a thing, but Zelinka is fascinating for her work ethic, and the sheer volume of effort it takes to perform in seven (SEVEN!)events. I thought Zelinka was amazing before the games began, and then I saw her within her cohort of competitors. Among them, she was one more normal, fantastically fit amazing fighter. What does it take to have every single muscle in one's body so perfectly chiseled? Most of us are afraid even to contemplate the work.

Now, things didn't go so well for Zelinka in her event, but she and her fellow Olympians. Just...wow.

As for triathlete Paula Finlay, who cried her way across the finish line, I admit to being less than sympathetic until I learned her story. She hadn't competed in a year because of an injury, and split up with her coach about eight weeks ago, but went on to compete and did finish the race, albeit dead last and apologizing as she limped along the way.

One my of my father's favourite sayings was, 'Don't crow if you win, and don't cry if you lose,' but I think this girl deserved to break that rule, finishing in spite of pain and embarrassment and upset. That's what I call a winner.

All that being said, I simply cannot wrap my head around some of the events; they're just too confusing. What's with the bicycle race that appears to be about who can go the slowest? Can someone please explain why the bicycle guys have to go up and around each other so much? Furthermore, can anyone tell my what it matters whether Gabrielle Douglas has a bun or a ponytail? Yes, while we're marvelling at some women's strength, others are still judged by their looks.

...and the planning is easy...

One of the smartest strategies I have come up with in my domestic life is weekly menu planning. Saturday or Sunday afternoon, I ask my sweetheart about his dreams and desires when it comes to his dinner plate, then contemplate my own wishes and rifle through recipe books to come up with a grocery list and menu for the week. Fridays are taken care of since we have pizza from Mountain Shores every single week.

This planning is not only about efficiency at the grocery store and in the refrigerator; it's about my sanity. My alarm goes off each morning at 4:03. No matter how well my day goes at work, by the time I get home, I'm pretty much incapable of cogent thought, much less any kind of decision-making when it comes to meals. The list I make on the weekend takes all that pesky 'thinking' out of my routine.

As of this week, and until about September 5th, menu planning gets even more streamlined since it's full-on summer harvest time.

This week's menu:

Monday: Sweet corn, field tomatoes
Tuesday: Sweet corn, field tomatoes
Wednesday: Sweet corn, field tomatoes
Thursday: Sweet corn, field tomatoes
Friday: Pizza!

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Back for the Pooch

Everyone who has met me has heard tales about my beloved dog. I can't help it; I don't have kids to brag about and it's too sad to talk about nieces and nephews who live far away or with whom we don't have much contact.

For my sweetie and me, all the leftover love in our lives, the stuff we would spend on our nonexistent children, gets showered our very receptive and delightful Weimaraner, Emma.

Which is why when she was tentatively diagnosed with a weird neurological condition more often associated with horses, we freaked out. Wobbler's Syndrome is a defect in the spine whose effects don't show up until later in life, so it can't be bred out of the animals. So far, Emma's case is mild, but eventually our lanky runner will be crippled. I'm not ready to contemplate a wee wheeled cart for her arse end, but you never know.

To push back the inevitable, I took our girl to the delightful Dr. Anglea King in Meaford yesterday, a kind and seemingly talented chiropractor whose ministrations appear to me to have already reaped rewards.

Now, I have always had a healthy back, so I haven't taken chiropractic treatment myself, but my sweetheart swears by it, and so do dozens of other people I know. Clearly, my insurance company agrees there's something to it, so why not for doggies, too?

It was deeply heartwarming to see the competence and compassion from the good doctor, as she held Emma firmly and gently manipulated her back. It was odd to be sure to see some of Emma's muscles jump while the manipulation was happening and equally strange to see surprise at the sensation pass across the face of my pampered pooch.

One of the symptoms of Wobbler's Syndrome is that the doggie or horse loses some control over their hind feet - imagine Bambi on the frozen river with Thumper if you need a visual. Her back feet seem not to be stuck to the ground and when she wags her tail, her feet pivot around.

But not last night after her first treatment. My Emma is on solid ground after day one! It's not a cure, but if we can have her as healthy as possible for as long as possible, we'll continue to have a repository for all our extra affection. Yes, she's a terrible bed hog, but she's OUR bed hog and we don't want to think about our life without her.

Spoiler

I got in trouble from a listener this week. Well, a former listener, apparently, who says she has switched away from my station, 97.7 after I gave away the ending of the first of the 50 Shades of Grey books.

I have apologised and assured her that there are two more books in the series, so I didn't really wreck it. I don't know if she's back with us but I hope so.

I'm in good company in the spoiler world, apparently, as David Letterman seems to have given away the ending of the new Batman movie that opens tonight. Earlier this week, Letterman joked with Anne Hathaway after giving out the spoiler, that he'll wait to see whether what he revealed will have an impact on ticket sales.

I'm pretty sure it won't. It's not like it's the Sixth Sense, where the whole point of the movie hinged on one key fact not revealed until the end. I would give it away but I've learned my lesson.

Here's the thing - would you stay away from the theatre if knew what Letterman said? I doubt it. Just like I doubt my upset listener put away her copy of Fifty Shades when I gave away a piece of the plot.

I would be willing to bet that finding out what happens to Batman at the end of this series won't affect even one movie-goer.

Fifty shades isn't about the ending- it's about the sex scenes. Batman isn't about whether Bruce Wayne lives or dies, it's about blowin' stuff up, the gadgets and holding on for the ride.

And even if you find out how this Batman ends, there will be another one someday soon, and movie industry experts are estimating about a billion reasons to make it.

Book Review: Fifty Harlequins

I've been reading romance novels since I was about ten, at first, pilfering them from my mother, who would sometimes sneak off in the middle of an afternoon to have a wee read and a break from her quarrelsome kids. Now, I download one to my iPod periodically, so no one knows I'm reading such silly stuff.

My mom preferred the white-covered 'Harlequin Presents', I think. There was a fair amount of sex in the ones I stole, nothing too steamy and very rarely anything resembling violence. Certainly, there was no spanking or bondage. 'Bulging thrust of his manhood' is one of the phrases I remember with a giggle about the sometimes hapless writing.

I'm pretty sure those books made a mess of my romantic life as a teen and into my twenties as I looked for the handsome and rich stranger to sweep me off my feet.
In these escapist fantasies, the guy is always rich, always handsome, always damaged in some way. He also always warns the goodhearted girl away but she is drawn to his charisma and looks and while he sweeps her off her feet, she's rescuing him from his damage. There's a formula to it, and I'm not just saying that; the writing guidelines are right there on Harlequin's website.

It appears the author who's raking it in with Fifty Shades of Grey might have read those guidelines.

Yes, I read the damn thing. The first one only and I was relieved (SPOILER ALERT!) that Ana the protagonist left the bastard after he hit her too hard. Yes, the sex scenes are hot hot hot. Yes, they give you a tingle in your naughty bits. But steamy sex scenes are in a lot of books, and so I'm not sure what's causing such a frenzy.

As for the spanking and tying up, it's actually kind of tame stuff, and yet, wow, what breathless excitement from most of my girlfriends!

Here's my happy theory on it: it's testimony to the massive changes in our society in the last few decades. A woman being 'smacked around' by a romantic partner was fairly normal at one time and now it's a crime. And now, it's also erotic, to read about, anyway. But if you've read and were titillated by Fifty Shades of Grey, ask yourself this: if you were cleaning out your bookshelves, would you even consider donating your copy to My Friends House?

Ending the Bedroom Adventure

I'm clinging to hope that our bedroom adventure will end tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.

It's been cute and all, camping out in the spare bedroom, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, but I'm about done.

Actually, my part of the adventure IS done, as in, complete.

Our ancient old subfloor made of four inch wide pine boards had been bare in spots, brown paint in others and harvest gold in still others. Now it's a handsome solid dark green, somewhere between kelly and forest. For once, a paint colour in my home does not have a cutsey Martha Stewart name.

The old wooden headboard, the kind that is also a bookshelf, is a Martha Stewart colour, though: Ironstone, a colour which now has to be specially mixed since there seems to be some rule about changing the formulations of paint every two or three years.

We decided to buy an actual bedframe upon which to put the new mattress, but while we got the mattress in town(great service and price at Home Furniture...), we couldn't find the frame we wanted at a price we were willing to pay, and thus, Sweetie moves tonight into a town many of us dread. Allen Key City. (no!) You see, while I'm in charge of storage and decorating, he's the master of killng winged creatures and spiders, lifting heavy objects and assembling flat-packed European furniture. It's an arrangement that has worked well for us thus far.

The illustrated cartoon critters in the instruction .pdf I downloaded look like they're having fun, but I expect a lot of cursing, perhaps enough to melt the new paint on the bedroom floor.

Anyone want to take bets on how devilishly difficult the Swedish puzzle will be and how long it will take until we're finally ensconced in our own room once more?

The Bad Sister

How late is too late to admit you've forgotten someone's birthday?

At what point do you just pretend no birthday took place?

What about when the forgotten person is your brother? Your big brother?

I talked to my 'big' brother two days before his birthday last week. We don't talk all that often, but on this particular afternoon, we had a lovely long rambling conversation, the kind that only takes place when one of the people involved is driving and killing time on the 'phone. I was the one on the land line, and while I had lots of other things to do, I didn't mind a bit that I was helping him through his commute.

But as I hung up, I didn't think to say, "And Happy Birthday, if I'm not talking to you on Friday."

Friday morning, as I made my daily to-do list, I put, Call Brother right there at the top, and several times through the day, thought to myself, "I'll just do this one last thing, and then I'll call Brother." But I never did. And I didn't remember on Saturday until I was tucking into my supper, but I wasn't about to delay my steak and lobster for a 'phone call, and after dinner, of course I promptly forgot again. It came to me again as my mind rambled on Sunday during the sermon,(boring!), but disappeared until the cold knot of dread hardened at the bottom of my stomach on Monday morning as I was making my yet another to-do list.

So, I did what any normal, rational person would do: I procrastinated. Because really, he wouldn't want me calling him at 4 am, especially to offer belated wishes for many happy returns of the day, two, now three days ago.

And then, my mind went the other place most normal, rational minds would go: The Rationalisation, and I started adding up all the crummy things he had done to me over the years so that he didn't deserve my 'phone call anyway, right back to the time he kidnapped my Barbie dolls, some 35 years ago.

Boy, that sure worked, and now I don't feel guilty at all, no sireee, not me!

I should just pick up the bloody 'phone, eh? Fine.

Reason, Season, Lifetime

A girlfriend of mine has a phrase that makes me squirm a little bit for its dead-on bloodless accuracy. Phasing Out.

It's the girlfriend equivalent of breaking up, but slowly and with a fair degree of subtlety.

Over the years, this girlfriend has 'phased out' several women friends and made not very much of a secret of what she was up to. I find the honesty refreshing.

It appears her honesty doesn't hurt her social life at all since her coterie of friends and acquaintances is vast and ever-changing; each year, she squeezes about 100 people into her 900-square foot loft downtown for a party.

I was surprised recently, though, when I asked about a woman she'd introduced me to, and the breezy answer I got was, "Oh, she's phasing me out." The girlfriend in question is recently married and appears to be busy dumping pretty much all of her former life, becoming immersed in her hubby and his life, so my friend wasn't taking it personally.

Starting a new romance generally does mean changes when it comes to the rest of our relationships. Having a child does the same thing. I generally expect any friend who becomes a mother to disappear from the lunch and party scene, and am immensely surprised by mothers who manage to have any social life at all. Frankly, I would be suspect of their mothering if they did have enough time for me.

While I'm not a mother, I admit I've 'phased out' my fair share of women friends, but I generally do it in dramatic fashion after a 'final straw' incident informs me that a person I once held dear was never really a friend in the first place. For some reason, I seem to be fascinated by drama queens and then am terribly disappointed when they behave like, well, drama queens. It's a lesson I like to think I've finally learned after at least five such incidents over the years.

But when my friend 'the phaser' told me she was being phased, I realized just how often we let people slide out of our lives without deliberate phasing or dramatic dumping. In the last year, I have lost touch with three terrific women whose lives have dramatically changed because of boyfriends or children, husbands or commutes.

I'm happy I knew them and we had great times together, but upon reflection, I realize I'm not doing a whole lot to track them down or make plans. Would that be considered a "mutual phase", then? I'll have to ask my friend who came up with the term to better define it.

Bedroom Adventure

It all started with a sore back, and now I'm in the midst of a summer project that has taken over most of my house and left me camped out in the spare room.

My sweetie and I have finally replaced the mattress he thinks he bought at least 15 years ago. We're not sure of the exact vintage of the thing, but it certainly owed us nothing. Since buying a mattress is supposed to be a once-a-decade adventure, we made the most of it, shopping at every store in town and making lists and doing a lot of musing over how to maximize our sleep and storage while minimizing expenses.

We decided on a minor paint job and a new mattress and bedframe, but the same old headboard, also refreshed with paint. It's amazing how involved a little job like painting a floor can become.

Here's the order of operations from day one:

disassemble digital piano in office, store in office closet
disassemble spare bed, move to space where piano sat
curse
install bandaid on fingers pinched by hammer when removing sides of antique bedframe

discover four containers of stored clothes, wrapping paper and off-season shoes under spare bed
try on clothes in clothing container
shriek at discovery of long-lost dress worn in photo with Eddie Cibrian and Josh Morrow in 1995
shriek at discovery long-lost dress actually fits
gloat
move spare room furniture to accommodate newly purchased mattress on floor
greet mattress delivery people two minutes before their expected time
remove bedding from old mattress so delivery guys can become takeaway guys
disassemble bed
shudder at scary amounts of dust behind and under bed
vacuum
shudder some more at thought of terrible housekeeping and dust mites
vacuum some more
store pieces of bed in hallway
move dresser to hallway
move nighttables to hallway
remove Sweetie's clothes from armoire
attempt to move armoire from bedroom
fail to move armoire from bedroom
get armoire caught in doorframe of bedroom
curse
squish toe under armoire while moving it within bedroom
curse some more
vacuum
vacuum
vacuum
open paint purchased at Restore
wince at smell
paint area where blasted armoire will reside, tape off quarter-round
paint half of floor with brush
wince at sore arm
clean brush
wince at smell of cleaner
take Tylenol for headache caused by smell of ancient oil paint
install sheets on newly purchased mattress on spare room floor
sigh deeply at comfort of newly purchased mattress
nap
the next day, proudly wear lost and found dress to work

Footy Explained

My favourite moment from a terrific long weekend:

Sweetie and I watched the first half of the EuroCup final. We gave up after the second goal since Spain was dominating so completely and my honey was only being nice by deigning to watch a game he considers so vastly inferior to hockey.

It was after that first spectacular Spanish goal, but before the second. An Italian player slammed into a Spanish player who had been making his way toward the net, expertly moving the ball past several other players.

Here's the dialogue:

Me: Oh, that's going to be a penalty...

Sweetie: Why? He had the ball...

And that, my friends, is why football will never be Canada's game. Never mind the athleticism, the thrill of the bend, the fact that The Beautiful Game is the most popular sport on the planet, where's the fun if you can't hit the guy who's got the ball?

Bitter Ender

There are only two books I have begun and failed to finish in my reading career so far: Thomas Friedman's Hot Flat and Crowded, and Al Gore's The End of Reason. I think the titles pretty much speak to why I didn't finish them. Generally I stay with whatever work I have begun. Right to the bitter end. This week, it paid off.

The Cure for Death by Lightning won a bunch of awards when it came out in the late 90s. I don't know why I didn't get to it sooner, but I picked it up in one of the two used book stores in Collingwood two weeks ago, and slogged through the typical Canadian morass of dysfunctional depressing family life on the prairies, the kind of book that tends to win the awards.

Twice I nearly gave up on it as not one good thing happened to anyone. Crops destroyed, madness, feuds, molestation, the whole gamut of unhappiness. I thought it was irredeemable, and if you haven't read it, I'm not going to spoil it, but I am going to recommend it. It won't ruin the reading if I tell you the whole story turns on a fifteen year old girl shouting, "Stop It! You're my father, for Christ's sake!"

The lead character had been put upon, bullied, beaten up, touched inappropriately, disappointed and assaulted at every turn by pretty much everyone she ever met, and finally said the above to her abusive dad.

And here's where novels can be instructive for 'real' life: what would happen if more of the bullied among us said something similar?

What if that woman on the bus in New York bullied by those four hideous young buggers had said, "Cut that language out, you're kids, fer chrissakes!"

What if someone had told the banks in the US, "You can't sell those asset-backed derivatives, it's unethical, fer crisssakes!"

What if the Greeks had been told, "You can't retire at 45 with a full pension and also pay no taxes; the numbers just don't work out, fer chrissakes!"

I'm not bitter, I'm just wondering.

Batty for Bunnies

There's a new critter living in my backyard today, but it doesn't move much.

I fell in love with a wee statue of a bunnyrabbit at a store I was in this weekend, and just couldn't go home without it. Now, it's not me who's obsessed with bunnies; it's my sweetheart, and it appears we're not alone.

I've been talking with a whole subset of people who slow down on Hume street near the hotel and dentist office, looking for the rabbits who have colonized the area. It's a regular Watership Down over there. Sweetie says he knows it's going to be a good day if he happens to see a bunny as he drives by.

But we must be drawing some of the luck our way, because our yard has now been colonized, too. There's a wee white tailed sweetie living among the dying poppy plants. I know it has a white tail because that's all I've ever seen of it as it scampers away.

I figured, since we're so enamoured of them, why not have a permanent bunny in amongst the plant life? I snuck the wee statue into the flowers and waited to see how long it would take Sweetie or the dog to find it.

Turns out, only about two shakes of a rabbit's tail.

More Food for Thought

I use a lot of this space writing about food, mostly because I spend a fair amount of time thinking about what I eat.

I am the one who does the cooking in our family, but also, I got serious about getting and staying slim about 18 months ago. My plan started with a food journal, to figure out just what I was putting in my mouth each day. It was quite an eye-opener. Since then, every day, I keep track of what I consume with a little app called loseit! I've hit my weight goal and stayed there for nearly a year, but I plan to keep using the app, just to remain aware.

I've also spent a good deal of time in the last while reading about food and food production: Fast Food Nation, Eating Animals, Tomatoland, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Dukan Diet, In Defence of Food, The End of Food, even a novel centred on food, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.

All of this explains why I'm so intrigued by the thought of a food cooperative in my neighbourhood. Of course, when I heard the words "food co-op", I thought of beans. Lots of beans. Beans in doughy salads being eaten by hairy-legged Birkenstock-wearing peacenik vegetarians. After all, those are the people who belonged to the co-op when I was in university and the one in my neighbourhood back in Toronto.

I'm pro Birkenstock by the way, and a big fan of hairy legs. Although I'm not ready to be a vegetarian.

If 150 people sign up for the co-op at $100 off the top and $60 a year, the venture can get started by this fall, with dry goods and some produce for sale to start with, and more selection after a while.

I'm seriously contemplating joining, putting my money where my mouth is, sorry for the pun. Judging from the large number of cheques being passed across the table last night, I'm not alone thinking this is a good idea.

My sweetie, though, is skeptical. He wonders why we would pay for the privilege of buying. I couldn't explain it very well, only to say that it's about knowing where the food comes from, which is important to me, and being part of something that might make a tangible difference for a small farmer trying to stay on the land.

Surely that's worth it, I thought after the meeting as I chowed down on dill pickle potato chips and some of my homemade rhubarb nectar. And doesn't that little vignette provide a perfect picture of the battles we all face these days when we eat? Oh, we want the good stuff: the homemade, the safe, the real, the local, but we also want the 'other' good stuff: high fat, empty-calorie nothing food that tastes so very fine as we mindlessly munch.

Clutter Busting Regret

I spent an unhappy hour rooting through a trunk this weekend, desperate to find a dress I thought I had thrown at the bottom of the heap, thinking it would never again fit me.

At the end of the mess, I realized again why I have so much junk cluttering my house and basement: nearly every time I do a clean sweep, I regret it, having dispatched items I later want.

The first time this happened was just a few weeks after my sweetie and I moved into our house. I was appalled by the sheer volume of crap I had moved, and I went on a big purge. At the bottom of one of the six bags of clothes, I had tossed the navy Italian leather pumps I had worn to my grade eight graduation. Yes, I already had size tens and a thing for shoes in grade eight.

I remember the shoes had been a big splurge at Beckers on the main street of Collingwood, $60 was a lot of money for a 13 year old girl's footwear in 1983, but they had classic lines and would last me forever, my mother justified.

They might have lasted me forever if I hadn't cleaned up that day. As it was, they were 21 when I let them go. The shoes had gone in and out of fashion twice, and the last time I'd worn them, a year previous, I'd blown out the side of one of them, and somehow, it hadn't dawned on me that I could get them fixed. Why I imagined anyone at the thrift store would want my 20-year-old, heavily damaged shoes, I can't say.

But that night, the very night I should have been proud of my clutter-busting tidiness, I was suddenly gripped by panic. Why, I could have repaired those shoes! Monday afternoon, I made my way to the store, but could find no evidence of the shoes in the stacks of stuff in there. Neither could I recognize the bag in which I'd stuffed them.

I've always regretted that little fit of tidying, and I think of the pang of regret every time my sweetie sighs over the disaster area we call a basement.

Every summer, I plan to do a big cleanup, especially when the weather gets really really hot. Where better to spend a crazy hot day than a cool basement? But then I'm gripped by the familiar panic - what if I throw out something I will need later?

I'm certain the latest item I've mistakenly given away is a lovely little dress that didn't fit last summer or the summer before, but would fit me this year, if I could find it. I worry my careful tidying today will be my regret tomorrow.

I think it's likely time to apply for the TV show, Hoarders. If things continue this way, in about a year, my house will be reality-ready.

Never Too Old to Graduate

As we head into graduation season, I'd like to think the commencement remarks made by an English teacher in Massachusetts mark a turning point in our attitudes toward our kids and indeed, toward ourselves.

More than a million people have now watched the speech given by David McCullough Junior at Wellsely High just outside Boston. It's been posted on Youtube, and unlike the cute kitten videos so many of us love to watch, it contains wisdom we would do well to take to heart.

Nine times in McCullough's speech, he told the kids, "You're not special." In a wealthy enclave in one of the wealthiest parts of the wealthiest country in the world, it just might have been the first time some of those kids heard such a sentiment expressed.

McCullough went on to tell the graduates they should climb mountains to see the view, not to be seen. They should do good works in foreign countries in order to do some good, rather than to feel good. They should go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross Paris off their bucket list.

I've noticed in my conversations at parties and gatherings, more and more of us do stuff so we can tell others that we have done it. We tweet rather than talk, we post rather than partake.

McCullough also told the kids to savour achievement instead of accolades and remember that praise should be only a happy consequence, not the reason for action.

His advice is good stuff for all of us, even if it's been 25 or 40 years since you last wore a mortarboard.

Food Adventures

My own personal local food movement is seemingly eschewing the 100-mile diet in favour of a ten foot diet.

Rhubarb from my backyard has become the most lovely drink I have had in a long time. Usually, rhubarb becomes pie, but one of my girlfriends served me this very pink, sweet and tart drink the other day, and I was hooked. She was very secretive about the recipe, so off I went in search of my own, and before long, I had produced my first batch. The recipe I found calls it rhubarb nectar, my friend calls it juice. I call it surprisingly pink, since the rhubarb stalks I boiled and strained were mostly greenish. As of today, I have two jars preserved and stored away in the basement, ready for Christmas morning, and one ready for consumption in the 'fridge. I'm a bit worried about the ones in the basement, since this treat is so nice with a splash of vodka, they might not survive all the way to winter.

I'm turning into quite the pioneer lady, with only two jars left of last year's home-squeezed tomato juice sitting next to the rhubarb, which is next to the four jars of pickled asparagus I 'put up' today. I had pickled asparagus for the first time last year at an amazing dinner, rolled inside a sliver of home-hung proscuitto. There are simply no words to describe it.

And don't get me started on the strawberries. You-pick starts today. I can't wait!

Helicopter Music

I can totally understand how people become the 'helicopter' parents so many people disparage these days.

If I could take the place of my two little piano students, brave the long walk down into the sanctuary at First Pres. today and play the songs from the Royal Conservatory Grade Two, I would do it in a heartbeat. I'd love to spare them the stress and ensure their success.

But of course, I can't do it for them, and I shouldn't. My job has been to inspire, cajole, advise and threaten them so they will do the work themselves, and for this year, my job as their teacher is over. Well, except for the post-test ice cream.

One of my wee students seems to be quite nervous about today while the other seems pretty sanguine about the whole thing. I know they're both completely capable of playing well enough to pass the test, but whether nerves will get the better of them is the question that cost me some sleep last night. Yes, I was so nervous about whether they'd be nervous, I lost sleep over it.

Right now, I'm kind of glad I don't have any children of my own. I'd be a complete wreck!

New, But Not Exactly Fresh

Most days, at the end of my workday, I'm in rather a rush to get home. Usually, I have a long list of chores I want to get done or a book I want to finish. Today, I don't want to go home at all.

My sweetie called me at about 7 o'clock this morning. He almost never calls me at work, and upon hearing his voice, I was instantly apprehensive. Sick mother? Accident? Can't find the coffee?

Well, it seems our dear darling dog made a new friend very early today. Emma is a pointer and she takes very seriously her self-appointed role of keeping our property free of birds and chipmunks and squirrels and other vermin. They seem to always return, but are generally chagrined for a few minutes after she's chased them across the lawn and through the flowerbeds.

This morning, Emma met a critter that didn't run, at least, not very far. Yup, a wee skunk ran from the crazed barking dog, found its way between the fence and the tub, and then let fly with the most awful, horrible, foul and nasty stench imaginable.

Sweetie says he managed to get the doggie away fairly quickly, but with a cloud of skunk spray rolling through the backyard, he's not sure whether she took a direct hit or if perhaps he did.

He says it's pretty bad, his nose so full of the stuff, it's like he's Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon, with a cloud around him wherever he goes. But he had to escape to work and would I pick up some of that 'stuff' people use to clean up the dog and the house?

Does anyone want to join me for a long, long lunch date today? I don't wanna go home!

Update: It appears neither dog nor husband was badly hit by the skunk fumes. The hot tub, however, and the wall behind it may never be the same. The doggie is getting a bath regardless. Just to teach her a lesson.

Product Review: The Pipe

It was well worth the wait for my fabulous new little device, although I do feel a bit guilty for shopping online instead of locally.

But when the perfect item is simply unavailable this side of the border, much less in town, what's a gal to do?

The Skullcandy Pipe is a battery operated speaker set for iProducts like the iPod or iPhone. I've been looking for something like it for a while, but have had no luck at the stores around here. I sort of thought what I wanted didn't really exist until my friend brought hers along to our vacation in Mexico. I fell madly in love with it, but she flatly refused to let me play any Handel or Grammar Girl on it by the beach, so when I got home, I thought I'd look for my own.

After quite an online search, I finally found the same model in a different colour at an outdoor outfitter in Utah. Happily, it was on sale! While the shipping nearly doubled the price, it was still only 80 bucks and as a bonus, I got a few days of entertainment as I tracked its progress across the border and then across the country. Yesterday, the UPS man dropped it in my front porch. Maybe you heard squeal with delight.

It's just as great as I remember from the beach. About the size of a relay baton, there a wee indent in the middle for docking your iWhatever, and it puts out just enough sound to fill the area under a beach umbrella or to surround a backyard hammock or lounger.

With a hot summer on the way, you'll find me sans earbuds, drinking in my food podcasts from KTLA and Grammar Girl and frankly, anything else I want. Including Handel, and maybe even some bluegrass gospel. But no 80s allowed, no sirreee, not on my pipe.

Birthday Bonanza

Sore feet and exhaustion are the hallmarks of a good party, right?

This weekend was the culmination of about four months of planning and preparation and it came off with only a few hilarious hitches.

One day last fall, at the second family funeral in four months, I thought, "Wouldn't it be nicer to honour people and say kind things about them while they're still alive?" Just then, a picture of a tribute to my mother drifted through my mind. She had a big birthday coming up and is an avid quilter. By avid, I mean obsessed.

If my mother sat down at her sewing machines this afternoon to cut and scrap and stitch 24 hours a day, she would still have fabric left in the boxes and bags that line the walls of her sewing room five years from now.

You cannot go to her house without seeing the progress of her latest project, and starting in 1976 her standard wedding gift to my cousins has been a quilt. There are 25 of us on my Dad's side, 14 on Mom's side.

I thought that day, "What about a quilt show for the big birthday?" The folks at the fair rented me the hall and the racks they use for the quilt competition each fall, and I put out the call to my cousins about their wedding quilts. Could I borrow them? I kept it to Ontario, thinking it might be too much trouble collect the quilts from Alberta, New Brunswick and BC, and slowly, starting in April, the quilts started arriving at my house. Some were dropped into my porch on a weekday afternoon, some were left at another cousin's house for pickup, some were nearly falling apart, they'd been used so much. One cousin wouldn't give me hers until this past Friday, since she wasn't sure what to use on her bed for the weekend.

In the end, with a lot of help from my mother's friends, there were 24 quilts on display.

Mom knew about the party but not about the quilts. My big brother and my husband had a bet on what she would say when she came through the door. Neither of them put any money on her being speechless.

Mom also didn't know the fair board had installed wifi so the grandkids in Australia could come to the party, too.

She has shown her warmth and love to so many people, I was glad 200 friends and family members took the time to give a bit of it back while she can appreciate it. I'll have to start planning something for her 90th, but that can wait while I catch a nap and get a massage for my poor aching feet.

Running Partner

I am trying hard not to put any pressure on my new running partner, but I can barely contain my excitement and hope.

I guess I should call him my 'additional' running partner, since I already have the one, my beautiful and amazing Emma. But while she's fun and funny, she doesn't always keep up her end of the conversation when we talk, mostly because she's a dog. Furthermore, since she is now what's called a 'senior dog', she sometimes doesn't keep up with the running part of our runs, either.

Yesterday, my sweetheart and I spent a good part of our afternoon at Sporting Life, getting amazing service from a young helper, and buying two pairs of men's running shoes. Later in the day, Sweetie took his first tentative steps in what I'm hoping will be our running career together. He has a history of foot problems, but he's game to give it a try after seeing the success I've enjoyed over the last year. Frankly, he's enjoyed my success, too, I say with a wink and a nudge.

We're following the same program I started a year ago, called 'Couch Potato to Five K". There is no plan for a race just yet, but over the course of the next 10-12 weeks, we should be able to run together for about a half an hour at a time.

It's not just about companionship on the trails, it's actually about companionship later in life. You see, I think running could be a valueable part of my devious plan to avoid early widowhood. While I know lots of lovely widows who are active and mostly happy and fulfilled, I don't want to be one, and with a history of heart problems and early death for the men in Sweetie's family, I'm pleased as punch he's willing to take a few steps toward better health and a longer life.

Here's hoping he can walk this morning after yesterday's adventure, so we can toddle off for run number two tomorrow.