Things I Had to Relearn

Now that I've gone back to work three days a week (partially to offset some of the costs of moving into a condo later this summer and partly to keep me from sharpening my teeth on indigenous stones), I've had to relearn some things. It's been mildly painful.

• you can't get up at 7:45 and be at work, even if you're teleworking, by 8:00
• Lorna and Dave cannot get up at the same time to get ready for work, unless one of them is willing to forego showering and brushing teeth
• shoes with a heel higher than two stacked sticky notes are not appropriate for walking to work
• people with grey hair can get good seats on crowded busses if they're willing to smother their dignity
• people who want to take chocolate goodies to work for lunch should get up at 5:00 and make a run for it
• don't give all your work clothes away when you retire
• choose a route that doesn't go by Tim Horton's if you want to get to work on time
• speak slowly so people don't notice you've forgotten half the words you used to know
• although it may seem like it, 30 is not a ridiculous age for a manager
• an 8-hour day is not the same as a week on a medieval torture device
• "Merde!" is not French for "Ooooh, I think I made a mistake."

And that's my relearning for the first week. Bring on the second.

For your edifying pleasure

Merriam-Webster’sWord of the Day
May 22

subreption: \sub-REP-shun\noun

Meaning
: a deliberate misrepresentation; also : an inference drawn from it

Example Sentence
Shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit against the company for its subreption of earnings and losses.

Did you know?
In canon law and Scots law, subreption is the obtainment of a dispensation or gift by concealment of the truth, whereas obreption is the obtainment of a dispensation or gift by fraud. Both terms are from Latin nouns: respectively, “subreptio,” meaning “the act of stealing,” and “obreptio,” meaning “the act of stealing upon.” The derivation of “subreption” also traces to the Latin verb “surripere,” meaning “to take away secretly,” which is the base of the Anglicized term “surreptitious,” a synonym of “stealthy.” “Obreption” shares an ancestor with the word “reptile”: Latin “repere,” meaning “to creep.”
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Here are a few things that I have been subreptious about:

• I am not really an old granny. I just tried to avoid getting hit on when I started blogging, and now I'm stuck with an image
• My husband is not a cheapskate old fogey; he's quite a bit younger than me
• I don't hang around the downtown mall with earphones on. That's some other music-lover
• If it were me, I'd not have the volume up to 11, and I'm still waiting for that speaker chip implant
• I never leave comments on your blog---I hire a 6-year old kid in India
• I don't really sit in my gracious living room reading books and sipping wine, unless you want to count People magazine and Baby Duck
• I don't own 80 pairs of shoes; that's just a flattering rumour I decided to take advantage of
• I am not known far and wide---for anything
• I do have 40 cats in my house, but when I told you, I wasn't boasting, I was reporting for Collector's Rehab
• My apartment is not as small as I complain it is---but it was designed for Verner Troyer
• When I said "cooking" or "baking", I meant "shopping"

Please feel free to confess your own subreptitious acts.

I am not amused.....

Today, Victoria Day, is the last day of a long weekend---a long rainy weekend .

Ordinarily, I'm not distressed by rain. It only gets you wet and that's a temporary condition. This weekend though, was also the end of the Canadian Tulip Festival and it would have been pleasant to have had sunshine for those people who needed the long weekend to take advantage of it.

I, on the other hand, got to enjoy the Tulip Festival on Friday, when we took our two local granddaughters to the International Pavilion where we ate Thai food and Dutch mini-pancakes, the girls got their faces painted and Dave and I lost our camera.

I was so inspired by the face-painting which yielded a sequinned blue butterfly for Julia and a pink rose for Emma, that I zipped off to Chapters to buy the Klutzbook on Facepainting. We had this book when our kids were small, and it came with very good instructions and paint. There's a newer version of it now, which includes jewellery, false tattoos and other body art. I can't wait for the next time the girls are here so we can try it out. Of course, I won't be able to post any photos because we lost our camera.

I have been months waging a very subtle, I hope, campaign to be the owner of my own digital camera. I wish now I'd thrown subtlety to the winds, wielded one of the quasi-verboten credit cards and just shown up at home with my own, my very own, my small, big view-screen, digital camera---the one with my fingerprints on it at Black's Camera in the mall.

As we get closer to our move, I've signed on to a 3-day a week job so that the financial shock of moving into a new place can be blunted a little. I wonder how I can slip "digital camera" into the list of curtains, flat-screen TV, outdoor rattan furniture and new towels.

I Save Myself from Unwarranted Behaviour

I am prone to nostalgia. Not an entirely shocking thing for a person of my romantic nature and encroaching croneliness.

Lots of things can set it off---music is especially potent, the feel of certain fabrics will fill my head with memories of old couches, attic hideaways and weddings, any black and white movie sends me back to the days of Saturday afternoon double features (with cartoon).

Yesterday, I was walking past the provincial court house, very much in the present, when I was assailed with a memory, very strong but not at first identifiable. It was encompassing , a this-is-the-way-men-smell, evocative of both my grandfathers, and it left me with a sense of warmth and a sense of loss. I looked around, trying to identify the source, and there on a bench in the sun sat a totally at ease man of about my age with gown and lawyer's collar, smoking a pipe. You don't see that much these days, and it smelled surprisingly wonderful.

I actually had to stop myself from going over and sitting in his lap.

It just crept up on me....

Today, because there was no running water in my apartment building, I schlepped over to the Public Library in my neighbourhood. They have comfortable chairs, clean bathrooms, a very pleasant café and BOOKS. What could be better?

Well, what could have been better was less air-conditioning. I sat in my comfortable chair, with my coffee and tea biscuit, skimming books that I was keen to take home (if only the water was running) and watched the hairs on my legs raise up and beg for mercy. Man, was it cold in there. Granted, I seemed to be the only person who was bothered by the aggressively frigid breeze, but in my defense, I was also the only person with bare legs and feet, and almost the only person without a jacket wrapped round my nether regions.

I had left the house confident that cropped pants and a cotton shirt would be perfect for the weather and that flipflops would be perfect for walking to and in the Library. I was partially right. As long as I was outdoors, I was fine. We Canadians are not used to this anomaly---we expect to be sheltered when we're inside a building. We expect to have to dress for the weather outside, not the manufactured inner weather.

Oh dear, I think I just committed an age-related generalism. Forgive me.

Anyway, I fled the library and found a nearby bar that had the requisite armchair, the desirable wine and the non-existent A/C. My library books and I were very happy. The way-too-young bartender was puzzled by my choice of books---an old biography of Agatha Christie and a new SF best-seller. I was enigmatic.

I have Grace Kelly-ish thoughts

I am not a country girl.

I never wanted to be a country girl.

I didn't even listen to Patsy Cline until I was in my thirties.

But yesterday, we took a drive out to the country to visit friends who had just bought the home they intend to retire to. We were with our youngest daughter and her husband who've been married about 7 minutes, and I was already feeling sort of soft around the edges before we arrived.

The long meandering drive up to the house should have been a clue---the geese in the meadow could have helped me figure it out, but it was really only at the sight of the farmhouse---soft, yellowy brick, sunporch strewn with plants and bamboo furniture---that I began to get worried.

We are moving soon into a new, modern apartment with no lawns to care for, no snow to shovel, every square inch exactly as it appears on the blueprints. I love the cleanliness, the downtownness, the predictability of it, so why was I coming all over verklempt at the sight of this 160-year old house, sitting at the end of a gracious rolling lawn, miles from a Seven-Eleven ? Wlhy could I suddenly picture myself with flour on my nose and powder-blue Crocs on my feet?

Going inside didn't help. Walking past the sun-baked laundry blowing in the wind didn't help. Hearing windchimes that weren't annoying any neighbours didn't help.

I'm going to spend the day trundling from Starbucks to Bridgehead to downtown shopping centre getting my perspective back. I'm going to sit in the part of the library where there's always someone sleeping with a backpack and a guitarcase. I'm going to follow the couple with the two huge dogs that always look like they've just had their teeth filed.

I am not a country girl.

Introspection on the Great Mysteries, or one anyway

Note to self: May 9, 1996

Never forget this day! It's the birthday of Phoebe Grace, our first grandchild.

Note to self: May 10, 1996

Never forget this day! It's the day Dave came out of the bathroom totally clean-shaven and looking about 23 years old just because someone called him "Gramps" yesterday.

Note to self: May 11, 1996

Never forget this day! It's the day after Anne and Phoebe came waltzing back from the hospital, fresh as daisies and quiet as mice; and maybe it's the day one of us grown-ups stops crying over the amazing change in our lives.

Note to self: June 12, 1996

Never forget this day! It's the day after Chris, Anne and Phoebe slept through the night.; and the day after Lorna and Dave slept through dinner.

Note to self: May 9, 2008

Never forget this day! It's the day our girl turns 12---it's the day you have to stop writing notes to yourself, get your gift-giving instincts in gear and remind Phoebe how loved she is by us all. Happy Birthday, sweet girl. You're about the age your Aunt Sarah was when she got a beautiful card from her grandmother saying

"Have a lonely birthday and a lonely life".

Unofficial note to self: practice your handwriting---especially the "n"s and the "v"s.

Quirky is as quirky does

One of my friends, Anvilcloud, posted a meme about six unspectacular quirks. I thought I would do the same.

"Spectacular" is a relative word, and one that I shy away from as a rule. Please remember that in the reading of these six quirks.

1. I always eat breakfast. Lately, breakfast has been the Special K with the chocolate bits, or breakfast in bed from Dave because I did something he would consider "spectacular". Nah, that would be balancing a cheque book.
2. I dyed my hair as often as I needed to since I was 14---at the rate of once a month, that would be 612 times I spent $10 in my effort to look like a million bucks. Unspectacular because it was so unnoticeable, except the few "silver" (as in Storm and Marilyn) episodes.
3. I do not believe in monogamy. That is not spectacular, because millions of people do not---however, only dozens of us admit it.
4. My six-year old self had already forgotten how to speak French. I got it back when I was 16.
5. Until I was 40, I had never owned a pair of athletic shoes that weren't Converse. And I only owned those because they were cute, and had stars on them.
6. My feet are two different sizes. That would be quirkier if I wore two different sizes of shoes---I don't; I just have a major, and always unspoken-of, tolerance for pain.

I didn't know I wanted to go look at ducks. I thought that with this silly, soon-to-be-over cold, I wanted to stay in the living room with my coffee and a book while Dave took the girls for a walk. After all, we had just had 30 harrowing minutes of crafts---paint and beads and sponges that had left me painted, beaded and sponged. I thought I wanted a break. When Dave came home and told me that the ducks and geese had been eating out of their hands, I still thought I'd made the best choice. Then I looked at the photos and changed my mind. Too late. They got to have fun. I got to have coffee.

Wait! aren't these seagulls, the ravaging plunderers of the parks?

Now , there are ducks and geese...and grandchildren.

And I want some of those rubber boots!

No, it wasn't just the wine

I seldom wake up to crippling feelings of regret.

Oh, sure, I've had my mornings. I know that no one needs that many sequinned shoes; I know that sending snippy notes to the Archdiocese doesn't really do anything except show intolerance; I know that four Pinot Grigios is two too many. But none of those regrets is crippling. None warrants insominia or determined attacks on the dark chocolate stash.

So this morning, I didn't really expect to still be beating myself up.

When I retired from my job at Parks Canada, I also retired from my volunteer life. Granted, I thought I was giving myself 6 months to assess retirement, probe my consciousness and realign my priorities. I didn't realize that except for some hands-on stuff, I wouldn't have a volunteer life and that I would spend four years focussed on my granddaughters and learning why the white plastic horses can talk, but the black ones just say "neigh!!!".

I didn't really intend to abandon what had given me so much pleasure just for those three girls.

But, last night Dave and I went to a gala---the twentieth anniversary of a group I'd been involved with since its beginning. It was a classy, artsy, edgy evening and reminded me very forcefully how rewarding it was to work with the arts. I am not an artist but I've aligned myself for all my adult life with the arts, and have made many friends over that period of time, many of whom I hadn't seen for a while.

Experiencing the passion, the commitment and the sheer joy of so many people last night was, for me, an eye-opener and a reason to cry the blues. I really, really wished I had kept my connections with those people and organizations. I really, really regretted the years that have passed since I sat at a board meeting, worried or pompous or excited---arguing for something that mattered so much to me that I was prepared to talk all night. I really, really missed going to events where you could have a glass of wine with someone of indeterminate sex in a Commedia del Arte mask and exchange sober and deeply-held opinions with a woman whose pink hair matched her tights. I wished it hadn't been so long since I talked about funding the arts with a guy wearing bright blue patent shoes and brown velvet trousers with silver stars. And then there were the trivial, fun things....

That crippling feeling of regret is still with me this morning. I'm determined to turn it around and get back my volunteer life---at least the part that doesn't keep me from dancing in the park with Phoebe, Julia and Emma.

What's in a name?

Quicktax! It has such an evocative name for a software. Only two parts, each part self-explanatory.

That is the closest this software comes to being explanatory.

I used to do my taxes with coffee, long-division, discreet moaning , and pencilled drafts, followed by a strict lecture to myself that given it was timeconsuming but so easy, I should stop waiting till the last minute.

Now, with Quicktax, my laptop, several screens of help sites, coffee, Dave, my daughter Sarah, days and days of procrastination, and hours of animated, creative cussing, I find that either I owe the government $8000 or it owes me $30,000. Neither of these scenarios is likely to be true, although the first one could just come up and whack me.

I seldom long for the good old days, but SHEESH!!!

Got Time for a Diatribe?

Although I am a consummate multi-tasker, and a humble one, I do like the occasional malingering. I have been known to sit on the balcony tanning my shins, which for some arcane reason I think are resistant to the nasty effects of the sun; I occasionally travel on the bus without opening my book; I have lost whole hours of my life looking for the perfect daffodil in Rockcliffe Park.

The common thread there was that when I zoned out, when I wasted time, when I chose to do nothing , it was indeed my choice.

That's why I woke up this morning annoyed with Michael Keaton and Kevin Costner.

Last week was the penultimate one before the Canadian income tax deadline. I had been busy using my not inconsiderable powers of daydreaming trying to change the scenario in which I earn so little and pay so much. I spent lots of time searching out helpful websites, while drinking coffee, doing isometric stomach clenches and trying to manage the dust on the various PC parts.

Last week I fell off my black sequinned wedge sandal, jarring every one of the bones on the left side of my body which necessitated both some time with ice and Advil, and a search for new black summer shoes.

Last week I accidentally made a bunch of desserts and swore to follow a weekly menu plan which meant shopping, and I have to say as an aside, I think it's exceedingly smart but not very Lorna-friendly of my favourite food store to start carrying shoes and incredibly inexpensive but fashion-forward clothes.

So you can understand why, when I came home from my little job on Saturday afternoon(incredibly, the bus I take goes right to the downtown shopping centre) I was looking forward to spinach-and-cream-cheese-stuffed croissants for dinner and a night of TV movies.

I don't think that watching TV is a time-waster in itself. There's Law & Order in its various combinations to sharpen the thought processes, Lost and Heroes to make all your emotions dance, Damages , Dexter and Big Love to make you feel like a sophisticated and urbane Peeping Tom; there's BBC Canada, PBS. TVOntario and a few other channels that can actually enrich your lilfe. And of course, there is Star Trek in all its many glories to make a pleasure out of ironing and sewing on buttons and fixing botched manuicures. So after the week I'd had, it seemed quite reasonable to flip over to the Space Channel for their Saturday night presentation.

Their double bill was White Noise and Dragonfly. My magazine reading had told me that neither of these was a very good movie, but I think the critics must have been feeling extra-generous when they reviewed these two babies. I couldn't believe that Michael Keaton could ever have signed on to White Noise, or Kevin Kostner to Dragonfly.

Maybe they've each been snatched by aliens, had their brains sucked out and been sent back to covertly destroy the minds of the Western world. Maybe, together or separately, they've made a pact with the devil to disguise mind-numbing unbelievably saccharine love stories as soft horror. Maybe, they just don't give a damn.

But that's why I woke up annoyed. I never held out much hope for Kevin Costner, although he did make Silverado, but Michael, you sly and sexy Batman, you hilarious Night Shifter, you Tim Burton buddy: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING AND HOW ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE IT UP TO ME?

It Had to Happen

Well, it was inevitable. This morning, I opened my e-mail, and there was not a personal thing in there---newsfeeds, advertising, consciouness-raising, offers to allow me to attend a conference,even a notification that my grandfather's mistress, who has long held me in high esteem, has died leaving me a fortune and all I have to do is pledge my trust by putting nine thousand dollars in a bank account in Macao. But there was nothing personal from a friend or loved one.

I suppose I could always send myself a note from my G-mail to my hotmail, thus ensuring some love every morning and becoming not only an entrepreneur but an entreprenee. Double whammee!!

However, I have thought of a more inclusive, embracing solution. Given that it made me feel forlorn, and given that I am known far and wide for my empathy, I have decided to offer a service for anyone else who hates junkmail masquerading as real mail or who has irreversibly alienated everybody on their contact list.

Every day, I will send you a note reminding you that life is real, life is earnest and that every cloud has a silver lining, and I will personalize it by starting off: " Dear Friend". and signing off: "Yours sincerely". But wait, there's more.!! On each and every statutory holiday, I will change the background colour of my note to something appropriate for the day!! And I'll send two notes, one for the morning and one for the long, long evenings that seem co-dependent on holidays.

What do you think? Is there a future in it? I

Go ahead----sign up!

And by the way, the big "L" on my forehead is for Lorna.

Abuse of Authority Makes Me Mad!

My parents lived in another city, one about 7 hours from us. Although I had lived in that town, I never really thought of it as home, except when I was actually there. My parents, though, had many connections there, most of them through their church, and despite my urging, they didn't want to move away.

Their church is one that I left, for myriad reasons, but one that they supported and were supported by all their lives. It is not one known for adaptability, but for my parents, it worked, which is the reason that they are buried where they are.

After my father died, my mother ran up against some fairly arbitrary rules that governed the cemetery associated with their church. First, she found that she couldn't put up a gravestone; they only permitted flat markers. Then she found that anything she wanted engraved on the marker had to be approved by the church, and the wonderful, meaningful memorial she wanted didn't meet the criteria.

For the seven years following my dad's stroke, my mother always said goodnight to my dad by singing the Beatles song "Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise..." It was lovely, and loving, and she should have been able to have it engraved on the marker she didn't really want.

The grass on their gravesite is scant and brown, we're not allowed to plant anything there, and visits there leave us all depressed, outraged and resentful.

Last year, after receiving a standard letter asking for support for the cemetery, I wrote a scathing reply to the cemetery management, and in return, received a form letter telling me that I should feel assured that the most important thing about the cemetery is the sense of comfort it brings to the families of the deceased.

Last weekend, my son and his daughter found my parents' marker covered with soil from a recent nearby burial, and the groundcover brown as always but skimpier than usual. They cried.

If we weren't seven hours away and living on pensions, and if I were the sole decision-maker in the family, I would have their coffins removed and brought here. Ottawa is the site of the National Military Cemetery to which my father as a Second World War veteran is entitled.

Sense of comfort indeed.

And now for something completely difffferent....

I have a friend who is a playwright. A talented, funny playwright. But when he was younger, going to his plays was a bewildering experience.

First of all, I am not a discriminating audience. Love my friends, love their work. It's hard for me to get perspective, and I look on it as my role in life to be 600% supportive.

Second, he was not a happy man, so although his plays were funny and smart, they were dark, sometimes bitter.

And most importantly, when I went to see his plays, I always felt like I was invading his privacy. It was as though he'd just done the Monty Python thing and opened the top of his head so that you could see his every thought and feel his every emotion.

He is now a happy man, and I haven't seen any of his work since his life changed for the better. I know I would still love it and maybe I would be feeling his joy.

I've been thinking about him because lately when I write to Blogger, I feel the Monty Python thing happening to me. Let's be honest, I've probably always written that way, but I just recently started to wonder if it's not "too much Lorna" and "not enough world".

When people first started blogging, I remember one of my friends telling me with some astonishment that she'd received an e-mail with a link to another friend's start-quotation, BLOG, end-quotation. (We used to talk that way about blogs). She couldn't imagine why anyone would think that she'd be interested in reading the blatherings of another person, even a friend, and she'd just deleted the link without looking.

I've been blathering online for four years now, and as I wrote that and was going to follow it up with some sort of apology, I felt a real surge of SO WHATness. Apparently I need a link between my brain and the ether---I'll never be one of the bloggers-with-real-purpose. I'll be the one who makes you look at pictures of my family and cat; who tells you about the scary and the joyful things in my life; who explains dreams in excruciating detail; who writes a blog because she can.

I just did a google search for pictures of people with hinged brains. This, downloaded from http://www.ecliptic.ch/ , was the least messy.

I get maudlin

If it turns out that we're on some kind of recycling program, and that I get to come back for another run at life, I hope that I stumble upon some nostalgic old biddy's blog and listen, really listen, when she talks about the wonder---no,the absolute wonder---of being a parent.

When you're a young parent, the day is so busy, the experiences crash in on one another like nuns on bicycles, and you don't have the perspective to know you should be cherishing each moment.

Tell stories about it; tell them to yourself and your family and your kids. Take photos. Take video. Bore your best friend to tears with the myriad details of the wonders of your life. Keep telling the stories so that the details stay clear for you. Tell them to your cat.

Believe me, when you get to be doddering, and you spend time with your adult children, the sense of wonder and accomplishment you feel is surely the same thing Michaelangelo felt when he looked on the partially-finished Sistine Chapel ceiling. I bet he said things like, "Ooooh, I'd forgotten how tricky it was to get the shadows under that cherub's wing." and "What was I thinking when I made God look like Hercules?" but at the same time that he was congratulating himself on what great work he'd done, he was wishing he could remember every brushstroke.

Hello, hello???

April 13th is the birthday or wedding anniversary or something of someone I really care about. It must be, because I've been wracking my brain all morning trying to remember why it's an important day today.


April 9th is a day I always commemmorate because it's the date on which we first brought Chris home---39 years ago, now.


April 15th is Sarah's birthday, which we'll be celebrating today with our first barbecue of the year---freezing or no. So what is April 13th?















I checked This Day in History:

1598
The Edict of Nantes gave religious tolerance to the Huguenots in France.
1742
Handel’s Messiah was first publicly performed in Dublin, Ireland.
1964
Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win the Academy Award for best actor.
1970
Apollo 13 announced "Houston, we've got a problem," when an oxygen tank burst on the way to the Moon.
1975
Civil War began in Lebanon when gunmen killed 4 Christian Phalangists who retaliated by killing 27 Palestinians.
1997
Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament and the first of African descent to win a major golf title.
2004
Barry Bonds hit his 661st homer, passing Willie Mays to take third place on the lifetime list.


Uh, uh. Not celebrating any of those.


I checked my PalmPilot. Nothing.


I meditated to clear my mind and let April 13th jump to the forefront. I think if you meditate with a purpose, you might be messing with it.


I hope that before the end of the day, I'll get a mild tap on the back of the head, a rosy light will come on, and I can call my loved one with my sincere best wishes.

spring renders me speechless

Yesterday morning, when I looked out the window, I was no longer seeing a snowscape. For the first time in months, what I could see was mostly green. Well, truth to tell, it's mostly brown, but I am a person of hope, and what I registered was green.

It surprised me to realize what an effect my surroundings had on me---I know, sometime over the last six decades I should have already had that particular epiphany. Sadly, I'm not keenly aware of what's going on around me, or at least I don't always process those thoughts of contentment or annoyance. Probably that's a bonus.

Maybe it's spring; maybe it's encroaching croneliness.

In any case, I seem to be more open to sensation this last little while and in a totally uncharacteristic way, I'm going to make a list of things in my environment that have especially touched me recently:

• my son-in-law, Bruce, all 6 ft 4 of him, in his bright red quilted slipperboots unselfconsciously puttering around his basement
• a 5-inch sapling growing out of an indoor 14-ton rock monument
• people lining up for lunch at the Shepherds of Good Hope who seem miraculously to have discovered bright yellow, pink and green sweatshirts
• geese coming home, very noisily
• little girls in purple rubber boots
• sweaterless dogs
• painted toenails in elevators
• our beautiful Governor-General arriving for an "opening" in a horse-drawn carriage with lots of red-coated Mounties
  
• Dave working on his bike, surrounded by potato chip crumbs and mysterious cycle tools
• a guy with one leg spinning an empty wheelchair around on the sidewalk
• the first outdoor tables at Bridgehead, fine purveyors of fairly-traded coffee
• marbles
• Emma and Julia's new spring sneakers flung with abandon on my welcome mat
  
• chip wagons
• a Smart Car with about 12 Ottawa Senator flags bursting out of its windows being driven by a very business-like woman in a red jacket
• an e-mail from my brother in my inbox

Maybe I need to take one of those courses in opening up.

Miscellanea

Janet often piques my curiousity, and her post today got me thinking:

She was asking for favourite quotes---only I think she said favorite.

I have a terrible memory, and don't often remember quotes---I sort of remember only the essence of them---but for some reason, this one has always stuck with me:

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

I kind of hold onto that thought when I'm washing out ziplock bags or taking my lipstick containers back to MAC or clicking on The Hunger Site.
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I was busy yesterday and didn't get to open my April 7th e-mail about the Word of the Day until this morning:

Merriam-Webster’sWord of the Day
April 7

luftmensch

\LOOFT-mensh (the “OO” is as in “foot”)\
noun


Meaning

: an impractical contemplative person having no definite business or income


Example Sentence
I worry that my nephew, who has several advanced degrees but no practical skills, will be a luftmensch all his life.

Did you know?
Are you someone who always seems to have your head in the clouds? Do you have trouble getting down to the lowly business of earning a living? If so, you may deserve to be labeled a "luftmensch." That airy appellation is an adaptation of the Yiddish "luftmentsh," which breaks down into "luft" (a Germanic root meaning "air" that is also related to the English words "loft" and "lofty”) plus "mentsh," meaning "human being." "Luftmensch" was first introduced to English prose in 1907, when Israel Zangwill wrote, "The word 'Luftmensch' flew into Barstein's mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man…. He was an air-man, floating on facile wings."

Most of the time, that describes me relatively well, unless I'm working. And of course, 5 years into my retirement, I'm easing off on work, so I was able to leisurely look at my today's Word of the Day:

anthropomorphic

\an-thruh-puh-MOR-fik\
adjective


Meaning
*1 : described or thought of as having a human form or human attributes
2 : ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things

Example Sentence
To encourage healthy eating habits, the children’s TV show features anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables that talk about good nutrition.

Did you know?
"Anthropomorphic" comes from the Late Latin word “anthropomorphus,” which itself traces to a Greek term birthed from the roots “anthrōp-” (meaning "human being") and “morphos-” (meaning "form"). Those ancient Greek roots have given form and personality to many English words. “Anthrōp-” relatives include "anthropic" (“relating to human beings or the period of their existence on earth”), "anthropocentric" (“considering human beings the center of the universe”), "anthropoid" (an ape), and "anthropology" (“the study of human beings and their ancestors”). “Morphos” derivatives often end in "-morphism,” as in "polymorphism" (“the quality or state of existing in or assuming different forms”), or "-morphic," as in "biomorphic" (“resembling the forms of living organisms”).

Well, I guess I know!

I'm the person who has a large china cat dressed in a pair of corduroy pants and a flannel shirt sitting on my subwoofer.

I'm the one who treasures her plaques of a Moon with a very contented smile and of the West Wind blowing fluffy little clouds around while shaking his long curly locks.

I have shoes with their own cradles, a fold-out table that thinks it's a serial killer, a cat who likes to get into the bathtub and a fridge that hums just like Tony Bennett.

I found this all out while I was luftmensching around the house contemplating my chequing account.

Waiting for "Dexter"

I once had a rule: No TV before 9:00 p.m.


Somehow that rule has become: Always TV after 9:00 p.m.


Sometimes it's worth it; often I just get mad at myself. Who really needs to watch Law & Order, both the new and the rerun, 7 times a week? Am I a better, or a worse, person because I agree that it's not the destination, it's the journey in Star Trek, Voyager ?

I once had a rule: No eating after dinner.

The later I stay up watching Law & Order, the harder it is to live by that rule.

I once had a rule: No blogging without content

If I were a lawyer, I'd have to rest my case.

No! No! Not the scanner!!!

As we prepare, languorously it seems, for our August move (did you notice I didn't say June?), one of our biggest challenges is dealing with the boxes and boxes of memorabilia that people of our age acquire. There are photos, school records, home-made cards, scraps of child-adorned paper that definitely mean something, letters, more photos and a whole range of precious things that can't be categorized.

We'd already winnowed out these precious things from the saved stuff when we moved into the apartment, but now we need to digitize photos, scan records, box up baby teeth and generally make choices about what to keep, what to thrust on our children who don't have enough experience to know that they'll miss these things if they don't take them and what to look at one last time.

We started with scanning photos. Our scanner, which wasn't very sophisticated in the first place, gave a shuddering yawn and went permanently to sleep, so we optimistically put three boxes of stuff in the trunk of the car and went to visit friends with both knowledge and up-to-the-minute equipment.

We brought a casserole, our friends who were already being put upon, made salad and opened wine and we got under way.

We were prepared for the time it takes to scan and label a photo---what we, (and I mean I) hadn't anticipated is how long it takes to look at a picture of your brother when he was 21, remember how eager he was to take on challenges and experience everything out there, do a quick mental run-through of his life, celebrate, mourn, laugh, find a recent photo for comparison and slap the picture on the scanner.

I was shocked to find I couldn't always tell how old my own children were in their school pictures, or sometimes which one was Sarah and which Emily. I was elated to find that pictures of my children years ago look just like pictures of my grandchildren today---Chris and Phoebe look so much alike, it is eerie. I was slightly discouraged but often quite sataisfied to see how thin I used to be. And Dave---it was so easy to see why I was and am enamoured of him.

Our friends are so patient---they've actually gone through two of these emotionally-charged sessions with us, and we've scanned about 100 of our 9000 photos. And when I say we, I mean David----even though it's officially my job to manage this while he manages the transfer of all our LPs, cassettes, CDs and audio tapes, I have yet to actually take a picture from Awwww!! to labelled and filed.

Really, when I was planning my retirement, I was thinking about which books I'd have on my bedside table, which foreign language I'd learn, what shoes I'd need to clamber around the Gatineaus or the marshes with Dave, how often I could take my grandchildren to the museum---I was not thinking about sitting in the semi-dark, transporting myself back to different if not always better times, and spending 45% of my evening in tears.

Real life knows how to keep us from getting complacent.

Facing up to my own problems

Okay, I have to admit it. I can't stand the guilt.

I'm not having fun on Facebook.

I love the finding friends part. I love the little spur-of-the-moment lines that people throw out about themselves.

But, sorry, there are too many applications for me. I can't pass up the chance to find out how someone is measuring "If I Had a Million Dollars" or "If This Were My Last Day on Earth". I want to send my friends cute little teddy bears or a Cosmopolitan.

I'm a mature, responsible woman with a full and happy life. I can't keep spending hours on Facebook. I'm going to try, next time I have an hour or so, to remove every application I gave in to joining.

Please keep posting photos. Please keep playing. Just, in the words of someone famous, (oh damn, now I have to go Google that) include me out.

I need a 12 step program

Over at Fran's the other day, I took an online test which said I'm 54% addicted to blogging.

To what possible use could I put the other 46% of my capacity for addiction?

At a paltry 46%, that rules out chocolate, weed, wine, shoes, love, family, and pretty much anything I have enjoyed, in a moderate way, over my lifetime.

Now that I'm down to a cup a day, I still have room for coffee, the back page of Vanity Fair and maybe a bit of broccoli.

A Schizoid Viewpoint

I'm not really a good critic. For the most part, my highly-developed ability to suspend disbelief means that I just love what I'm seeing when I see it. Excluded from this reaction is reality TV, hip hop videos and excuses about homework. And stories about brave dogs.

In spite of not being a good critic, or maybe because of it, I felt the need to talk about a book I'm reading :"Killing Time" by Caleb Carr. It's set in a future totally ruined by the manipulation of the world's population by unscrupulous governments and other powers, using the Internet as a tool for managing public taste, spending and especially, political decision-making.

As I read it, I can see it's not well-written---it's rife with stilted dialogue and schoolboy fantasies about women, heroes and guns---but the idea that the world is being changed, knowingly, by the introduction and manufactured scientific backing of false information is chilling.

I love the Internet while not understanding all that much about it. I'm awed daily by the "facts", facts and outright gossip that we have access to. I worry about someone as trusting as I am being totally taken in, but since I am trusting, I tend to think it's not likely to happen. How's that for circuitous thinking?

Still, as I was reading, Dave was eager to tell me about the development of thinner, smaller, stretchable, pliant microchips that can be implanted under human skin for incredible medical advances, or for the simple thing I've been waiting for: speaker implants so that I can hear the music I love at the level I think appropriate, which usually means with the bass at a tooth-rattling setting.

It's such a cosmic devil vs angel battle, this development of technology, and while Killing Time is not a very good book, it still has the capability of provoking more than a knee-jerk reaction. And that has got to, in the long run, be a good thing.

Dear Foolishness Police,

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day
March 28

disremember

\dis-rih-MEM-ber\
verb
Meaning
: forget

Example Sentence
"‘It was the British who did it,’ I said quickly. ‘I disremember the place and time....’” (E.L. Doctorow, Loon Lake)

Did you know?
English has been depending upon the word "forget" since before the 12th century, but in 1805 a new rival appeared in print — "disremember." A critic in 1869 called "disremember" both "obsolete" and "a low vulgarism," and later grammarians have agreed; it has been labeled "provincial and archaic," and in 1970 Harry Shaw opined that "disremember" was "an illiteracy," adding, "never use this word in standard English." (By 1975, Shaw amended his opinion to "this word is dialectal rather than illiterate.") "Forget" is indeed a vastly more popular word, but "disremember" still turns up occasionally, often in dialectal or humorous contexts.

Here are a few thing I wish I could disremember:

• the time I let my friends at the toney convent school I went to think that my dad was my chauffeur
• the cigarettes I bought for my brothers because I loved them, and I had money
• the very short, very shiny skirt I wore in the village I lived in in Germany, causing a not-too-horrible car accident
• the time I shaved off my eyebrows
• the move I made from the 3-storey house on one side of the street to the 3-storey house on the other side which I thought would be so easy I could do it myself
• the evening I introduced myself to 600 people by the wrong name, got giggly about it, was alone in my giggliness because nobody else knew it was the wrong name and embarrassed my children half to death
• waiting every day for 30 days, with my newborn daughter, my hair brushed and my lipstick on, for my then-husband to visit us in the hospital
• crying on public transit after finishing "The Time-Traveler's Wife" ( and shouldn't that be traveller? )
• losing the top half of my bathing suit on the beach at Paradise Island
• not caring about losing the top...etc
• the crappy cup of coffee I made for myself this morning while trying to read a "McLean's" magazine article titled Jesus has an identity crisis
• changing jobs when I didn't have to, just because I wanted to see if I had transferable skills
• shining my usherette's flashlight on the back row of the Paramount Theatre in Halifax on June 2, 1957
• losing my teal leather gloves because I went back for seconds at Tim Horton's, then wandered off in my joy
• giving away all my glass dishes in 2003 because Emily had just bought stoneware and I envied her
• my imagined love affair with Tom Selleck
• the girl whose name I can't remember but whose cheek I can still feel slapping when I was eleven
• every lime green thing I ever bought, except the suit that didn't get me a job at the interview where I wore it---and they were wrong
• my enthusiasm for all things James Bond when I was 18
• my part in throwing confetti at anyone as long as I live
• ending up in the wrong bleachers at a high school football game
• hiding in my bedroom when my dad was leaving for Cyprus so I wouldn't have to say goodbye
• telling my mother I was going to a Girl Guide Convention when I was going to spend the day in Montreal with a boyfriend
• avoiding avocadoes for the first 33 years of my life
• paying no attention when it was clear that my beautiful shoes were ruining my already less than beautiful feet
• giving in to Sarah when she called home at 15 to ask me to put on a bra because she was bringing some friends home
• embarrassing my children by loving to dance at parties (I'd like to disremember, not change, this one)
• explaining carefully to Dave how I happened to have taken my credit card when I went to Holt Renfrew
• jumping up, running out crying and collapsing in the theatre lobby after seeing something I can't remember in a movie I can't remember
• telling all my friends that I was going to go barelegged for the rest of the year the same year we had snow in June
• the second time I shaved off my eyebrows

Calling All Gourmands

Okay, so if anybody knows anything better than the things that follow, please let me know and increase my bliss:

• caraway rye toast with seville orange marmelade
• cucumber and radish sandwiches on fresh Italian bread
• sliced chicken breast on cranberry foccaccia
• tomato and avocado (lots of freshly ground black pepper) on pumpernickel
• Sun-Maid raisin toast
• toast baskets with creamed salmon
• hot fresh white bread with butter and brown sugar and a sprinkle of lemon
• those little squishy things you can make if you tear apart WonderBread and roll it between your fingers

I'm Tired of Playing Dodgeball with Smartcars, so

I put on my pink hoodie, my purple coat and my red shoes to go out for a walk today, just so that I would be noticeable should there be malicious near-blind drivers on the road, as there were yesterday when I went for a walk. They better not make me get out my big yellow slicker!

I rambled over to Chapters, our big-box book store, in which I always feel both guilty about neglecting the independent booksellers and seraphically happy at sharing space with a million books.

It used to be that I would walk into Chapters, immediately grab one of their handy blue book bags and spend 20 or 30 minutes tossing books in as they struck my fancy. Sometimes, if I had the time, I would find a chair and go through the books in the bag congratulating myself on my finds before standing in line by the Godiva chocolate stand trying not to buy any CDs.

I'm not impoverished, but I don't have as much money as I used to, and on top of that, I have a stack of t0-read books that should keep me from yearning after others, but somehow neither of those things seems relevant. Today I started to apply discipline by not getting a book bag. Oh, Lorna, good plan.

Tottering around Chapters with 8 trade paperbacks, a new beaded bookmark, 2 kids books, a magazine on beading and of course, a tin of Godiva Dark Chocolate Pearls, I tried berating myself for extravagance, then reminded myself that a 15-minute walk with 40 pounds of paper might tax me. Again, relevance was lacking.

However, one of my red shoes was hurting me, so I sat down on a non-upholstered bench to recover. I know how to treat sins of the flesh. While I was sitting, I started to go through the stash:
Irish Fairy Tales (bah! and blarney!)
Velveteen Rabbit (how many times will you buy this book before you can read it without crying?)
Japanese Phrases for Dummies (Lorna, your passport application has started to crumble)
The Mistress of Mortal Flesh (do you really need another 14th century mystery just because there's a woman forensic doctor in it?)
19 Minutes (you had a good experience with Jodi Picoult the other day, but you're under no obligation)
King Leary (don't you think you should stop buying books just because there's a pun in the title?)
....and so it went, right down to Godiva anything (face it, chocolate is not your friend...is too, is not... is too, is not!)

I spent not a penny in Chapters. So I calmly walked next door to The Bay, hesitated just a moment and bought myself an absolutely needed pair of doorknocker earrings. And it felt good.

Weekend mystery

Saturday afternoon and it feels like Sunday. Not Easter Sunday, just regular Sunday.

That's because we're having a family dinner tonight. It was a lovely sight to see Dave sitting in his PJs peeling potatoes right into the garbage can---efficient or what? It was even lovelier when I came back in from the hallway and could smell the scallopped potatoes that they'd become.

Our granddaughter Phoebe will be with us today. Because it's always months since we saw her last, it's a cliff-hanger until she comes in the door. A few months can make such a difference and especially, I think, for a 12-year old. We're both growing our hair but I had a headstart on her, so today, I've got it stuck up in a bun---very grandmotherly which shouldn't be a surprise but is nonetheless. My self-image got stranded in my 30s.

Our playlist today is made up of Ryan Adams and Richard Ashcroft and Rush---Dave's imagination got stranded in the "R"s. That should have given us Rufus Wainwright---and yes, Dave likes him too, so there's the mystery.

In deference to Easter, I bought yellow tulips for the table, and it was such a smart thing to do. I can look at them and imagine the Tulip Festival, a short two months from now. Where else in the world could you be looking out from your iced-over window, at a freezing, snowladen neighbourhood that will be covered in multi-coloured tulips in no time?

Dusty Easter Egg

I just chose a playlist that 's mostly Yo Yo Ma, and sat back ready to be overtaken by the muse.

That rascal! She guided me to type "Easter" into the search bar of my blog, and enticed me to borrow where I could have created. Given that I'm borrowing from myself, I can live with it:
*************************
The path to Self-destruction

All my life I have aspired to gentility---in fact, the phrase I always took comfort from is "genteel poverty". It's redolent of lavender sachets in patched linen, the perfect coffee in a beautiful but chipped cup, good leather shoes with discreet new soles. And I always saw it as the descriptor for my life after working.

What a crock! Since Dave and I have both retired, I find that genteel poverty is more like buying 2 oranges instead of a bag, one movie a month instead of the movie matinée marathons I'd indulged in only last year, a flight to Victoria on airmiles instead of as a result of a spontaneous decision. Still not a bad life at all, but neither the poorly-defined but highly desireable pipe-dream I had nor the easy life I would have been living if I had not been such a flighty ne'er-do-well all my life.

I always think of myself, and people would probably describe me, as someone with a short learning curve. In most facets of my life, that's true, and I can't take credit for it, but it has been a blessing. However, where finances are concerned, I couldn't be more foolish, and my learning curve of forty years hasn't even brought me up to the stage of "competent". How can it be that I learned the school stuff, the dating stuff, the good marriage, bad marriage, good divorce, blended family, lifelong friend, longtime companion stuff and have been left with a blank where the money stuff should be?

The other day I walked into HomeSense and was assailed with the gorgeous reality of about 300 different kinds of Easter bunnies---stuffed, sculptured, embroidered, painted, winged and englobed , in wood, resin, lace, wool, glass, plush and iron, with companion bunnies, companion cats, subservient chicks, easter baskets, feathered fans and milliner hats. I was in heaven thinking how wonderful it was going to be to choose some for my daughters and granddaughters, my mother, my friend Evelyn, and CRASH! Reality kicked in and I realized that if I had only not done that very thing for the last forty or so Easters, Christmases, Valentines and Gosh-I-Love-You days, I could be looking at these darling bunnies in Indonesia and China, where they were made; I could have brought my mother, my children and my friends with me. I could be drinking grande mocha frapuccinos in my own Starbucks franchise, wearing couture hippie-ish creations and fragrance for which someone has gathered petals for a year.

Nah, I wouldn't have done that---I'd have taken the kids to all the Disney locations, I'd have flown my sisters to Ireland, I would have outfitted a band so that my brothers could play together, I would have made sure Dave learned to fly. I'd never have done the fiscally responsible thing. And when I never did it, I'd have been wearing linen and leather and smelling like spicy vanilla.

Get that stretcher out of my way!

I've made a discovery about myself that I just hate. Actually, I made it a few years ago, but have pushed it way, way back in my cranium. I sometimes feel like the only person who ever felt that she could not spend another moment in the Emergency Room.

I've been spending a lot of time with a friend whose health is not good, and who has needed emergency care---and I don't regret a moment of it, but God help me, sometimes I get so creeped out at the hospital that I want to run---preferably screaming---out of the hospital and into a calm coffeehouse, or a lively mall or even McDonalds.

If I, a healthy and strong person, equipped with knowledge, compassion and a whole backup system of family and friends, not to mention a daily dose of Prozac, can't handle this, what must it be like for someone who has no choice about being there?

It's not like this experience is going to lessen over the next few years. At my age, I'm only going to spend more time, one way or another, in waiting rooms, Emergency Rooms, and wards. Because I expect my friends and family to be supportive of me if I'm sick, I have to learn to model the behaviour I'd expect of them, and I'm definitely not there.

I had an amazing role model in my mother, who spent each day of my father's last seven years as his constant and compassionate companion. Send me good thoughts so I can learn to manage my fear, antsiness, distaste and general wussiness. Even better, if you know of any book that I can read to make me stronger, I'd love to hear about it.