Alone or Lonely?

I’m going to learn a lesson about myself this week, but I don’t yet know what the lesson will be. I'm going to find out how lonely I will be after a week alone.

My sweetheart and a friend have departed for a week on a sunshine getaway. It only seems fair that some of the boys enjoy some time away too, since we girls ran off to a beach for a week, a week ago.

While I eat takeout over the sink this week, I don't plan on being lonely at all.

For starters, I’ll be kept company by stacks of dishes and junk I plan to leave all over the kitchen counter for days on end. Also, I expect to hear growls from the dust bunnies who will survive another week with no threat of vacuuming. And, I plan to renew my acquaintance with some music that usually brings on rolled eyes and deep sighs. Come on in, Broadway soundtracks, Nirvana and Madam Butterfly; I’ve missed you!

All Holidays in One

It's a big weekend at my house, or actually, on the shores of the Pretty River at a farm about six miles from my house.

It's Fishing Season Weekend.

If you weren't raised in a certain era or certain locale, it might mean nothing to you, but for those hundreds of men you'll see parked at culverts and bridges over the next few weekends, it's a very big deal.

At my house, Fishn' Season is a very very big deal. As far as I can estimate it, my sweetheart would rate it as more important than a combination of New Year's Eve, Christmas, his birthday, Easter, Festivus and Thanksgiving. For him, it's the most important weekend of the year, and neither hell, high water, snow nor an early spring will keep him from it.

At midnight on the final Friday of April, Ontario's creeks, streams and rivers open for trout fishing, and at midnight tonight, Sweetie will be fishing. Over the years, the Friday night party has waxed and waned, but the one constant has been my guy, out there no matter the weather or attendance figures. During this magical weekend. lifelong friendships are made and cemented. Stories of past glories will be re-told. There will be Caesars, hot dogs and this year, courtesy of my mother, pie. Fish is very rarely caught or served.

Whether I attend is immaterial, which would leave me miffed if I were the least bit interested in waking up in a snow-covered tent.

Happy Fishin Season, honey! I'll see you Sunday.

Lessons from the Sun

Each time I take a sunshine holiday, I learn something new about my pasty-white self.

This time around, it was about the length of my arms. Or is it more about the length of my legs? Either way, I learned that sunscreen really works, especially on day one of the sunshine holiday. If you happen to miss two long swaths of backside, you will have an uncomfortable day two if you want to sit or lounge.

Previously, I learned through hard experience the perils of too many cocktails at lunch and how the sun changes position through the day.

I also learned on a previous trip that a thin coating of SPF 30 is no substitute for SPF 8. Instead of allowing more sun through to provide a little colour at the end of the trip, you will end up with quite unattractive giraffe-type markings.

My habits now include a three-song limit on my iPod per side, and lying in the sun only twice a day with as much SPF 15 as I can slather on as much of me I can reach (or remember).

I'm constantly amazed by the relationship other people have with the sun.

A woman on the same flight to Mexico as my girlyfriends and me last week spent all day -literally- basking in the sun. While my buddies and I arranged the wee canopies for shade on the beach, she was moving her lounger into direct sun, and stayed there for the next nine solid hours, getting up only to turn the lounger to a more direct-beam position as the sun moved across the sky.

We four strolled to lunch, frolicked in the surf, made new friends, were served multiple (!) drinks and gossiped about our friends and fellow holiday-makers as she lay there all day for at least the three days we spent on the beach rather than having adventures in the pool or boardwalk.

However, on the plane home, this woman had no more of a tan than I did, and perhaps less, depending on the body part. I'm betting she has her sunscreen habits down cold. I also suspect she's not peeling...

Vacation Follies

I once heard someone famous say, "adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it".

That adage is forefront in my mind this weekend as I jet off for a week of fun and frolicking with three girlfriends.

One of us is turning 40 and our escape to an all-inclusive resort is her birthday bash. Frankly, I'm contemplating booking a week in detox for when we return.

While I'm very excited about having a week-long party with my girlyfriends, part of me is concerned about the ability of foreign travel to highlight and exacerbate any niggling issues in a relationship.

I've known loving, wonderfully matched couples who return from vacations only to break up, having discovered unforgivable nasty habits or beliefs during the time away together. Two girlfriends of mine have never spoken again after a summer trip to Europe together. I never did figure out whether there was an incident or just a realization that they didn't share the same head space.

It's even more worrying since the group is all girls, and some women can't just fight it out and be friends again after a disagreement. Some of us (OK, I'm talking about myself here...) tend to let things fester. We hold grudges, read unexpected intentions into actions and can be prone to silly games, especially with other women, and especially when there's alcohol involved. Happily, we're all happily attached, so at least there will be no competition over the attention of fellas at the resort, at least I don't think that will be an issue. hmmmm. We're in our forties and on vacation; are we supposed to be ogling the pool boy, Mrs. Robinson?

I quite love these girls and my fondest dream is to be friends with them forever. Here's hoping we all remain on our best behaviour while we misbehave by the pool.

Now, were did I put that brochure for the detox centre?

Fishy Fridays

Friday the 13th always gets me wondering a little bit about what we believe and what we don't. For example, I'm surprised by people who say they're atheists, but who wouldn't cross paths with a black cat.

I do get why a school board in our area is deciding to remove the Gideon bible program, and I could not agree more: publicly funded education should remain indoctrination-free.

But while we get rid of the Gideons, we need to move the bible back into the history and literature and art classes, and start teaching from it, not necessarily to turn the kids into Christians, but rather to give them an education.

I despair for children taken on field trips to, say, the Art Gallery of Ontario, when those students have no idea what the masters were painting in classics like The Massacre of the Innocents.

They may know there's a story attached to the painting, but they likely haven't read the story, because we're afraid of being seen to be 'taking a side'.

They've heard that people aren't their 'brother's keeper', but haven't read the story that comes from.

When they study Steinbeck, do they get the context for the title of The Grapes of Wrath?

When they use curse words, can they understand how serious blasphemy used to be? Do they even know why the cafeteria serves fish on Fridays, why we think Friday the 13th is unlucky?

What's missing in the separation of church and state is an understanding of how much of our world has been influenced by religion. If our kids don't know the stories, they're missing the connections, the reasons and the impact of the art and literature they're supposed to learn about.

So by all means, take away any proselytizing in our schools, but for heaven's sake, give young people an education about the influences and impact the content of the bible has had on the world they inhabit.

Timewaster

I'm in a bit of a fight with my sweetie this week, and of course, it's all his fault.

Like many couples of our acquaintance, we end most of our evenings side by side under the covers, each of us engrossed in our digital devices, ipods and iphones.
We're reading, checking our email or most recently, playing silly, timewasting games.

This week, my honey was playing a new game he had just downloaded, one of those ones where you move pieces around a board to match three, which then disappear, to be replaced with new ones that drop from the top of the board. To win, you make matches of all of them before you run out of time. It's basically sudoku for dummies, with pretty colours and sound.

After I watched him play for a few minutes, making helpful suggestions about possible moves, he kindly suggested I download my own copy.

Bad move, sweetheart, since now I cannot put this stupid thing down!

It has cost me at least an hour's sleep each of the last three nights, and today, I deliberately left my ipod at home for fear your morning news would consist of silence while I busily master another level of Gemspinner II.

It's embarrassing, really, since I'm pretty sure the game is several years old, and I somehow missed it. At the drugstore the other day, I saw a similar game has been adapted to a lottery scratch card, so it certainly can't be new.

Regardless, I'm hooked.

Goodbye, homemade dinner, dear; you're getting something from the freezer section, and you can wear last week's clothes if you can wrestle them away from the dust bunnies, because I'm well and truly addicted. Oh, and could you walk the dog for me, please? Thanks.

All Apologies

Thank you, Toronto Maple Leafs ownership for your heartfelt apologies for the 2011-2012 season.

I can say without apology that I watched exactly one period of Leafs hockey this season. I just can't do it. I want to love them, I want to love hockey, but I know I will be disappointed again, so I just don't.

The Leafs should not only apologise for this year, but for every year in recent memory, and especially for the reign of Harold Ballard.They should also apologise for their ridiculous ticket prices and overpriced, watered-down beer.

Come to think of it, I want an apology from Bell Canada for its latest negative option billing, $2 to receive a paper bill.

I also want an apology from the makers of the James Bond movies for not securing Pierce Brosnan sooner and keeping him longer.

In addition, I'd like to hear a mea culpa from George Lucas for the latest installments of the Star Wars trilogy.

Furthermore, an "I'm sorry" would go a long way to soothing my wrinkled skin, mister sun! It wouldn't hurt if mother nature could chime in on that one.

And speaking of skin, I would like an apology from my chin for the one nasty dark hair that seemingly appears from nowhere every six weeks or so.

Oh, I'm just getting started...

Untimely

This is a strange time of year for me, and this year, particularly so.

The end of the curling season usually arrives exactly when I need it to, when I'm ready to hit the trails and start working on my gardens. But this year, it feels like curling should have been over weeks ago, and also isn't quite over yet.
My team won this year's club championship, (yeah, us!) but that means we are going to a bonspiel in October, and so it sort of feels like the season hasn't ended, even though as of this week, I have three afternoons and evenings each week that need filling.

Usually the week after curling ends means I'm rooting through my summer clothes and sheets, but since we had summer for two weeks, three weeks ago, that job is already done.

Adding to my 'discombobulation' is that I'm taking my 'winter' vacation next week, jetting off to Mexico with three girlfriends for rest relaxation and recreation. But with spring firmly here and summer two weeks ago, it seems odd to be going away for a sunshine holiday.

Here's hoping when I get back, the time will have sorted itself out.