The Turkey that Kept on Giving

A couple of weeks before the last Christmas my husband and I ever spent living in the Kootenays, I went to the local butcher shop and ordered their smallest, locally raised organic turkey. When I asked how small they came, the woman at the counter said about nine pounds. We had two small boys at the time. Nine pounds would be plenty.

My mom had come a few weeks prior to look after the boys while my husband and I flew to the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island to look for a place to live. My husband was being transferred there by the non-profit educational organization he worked for to start an Island branch. Our little rental house in a cozy, beautiful mountain town in the East Kootenays had been perfect for us to live in as a small family, but it was pretty tiny. We looked forward to spreading out a bit more, especially in a larger kitchen. Moving day was to be a week from Christmas day. 

On a visit with my friend Sandy, I had mentioned the fact that I had never cooked a turkey. She gave me her copy of Martha Stewart's November, 1996 edition of her magazine because it had a 'turkey 101' guide in it. I was aware of Martha Stewart, of course I was. She was everywhere, but I considered her out of my league. I wasn't rich and her recipes were. I was, however, into good food and aspirational, so I read the recipe. It actually looked do-able and delicious, as did the recipe for stuffing, so I thanked Sandy for the magazine and tucked it in my diaper bag. 

On December 24th we drove down to the butcher shop to pick up our little turkey. When the woman brought out our turkey from the back I thought she had made a mistake. "We ordered a nine pound turkey" I faltered. "This is the smallest the farmer sent us" she said. "How much does it weigh?" I gasped, eyeing the Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean-sized girth of the bird on the counter. "Nine kilograms" she said. I'm pretty sure I said, "Oh my God". Well, there was nothing for it. We'd ordered it and it was Christmas Eve, so we had to buy it. 

I went about gathering all the ingredients for our now enormous Christmas feast. We had no family coming to dinner, no friends either, since the contents of our little house was mostly in moving boxes. It was just us and our 9 kilogram bird. I studied Martha's recipe and made calculations. I was not an entirely experienced cook so I was trusting Martha to lead me to victory. On Christmas Day, I melted a whole pound of butter with an entire bottle of white wine. I soaked a four-layer large square of cheesecloth in the liquid and draped it over the turkey. Once in the oven, I started preparing all the ingredients for the stuffing. My husband kept our little boys occupied with their new toys and cleaned up after me (our kitchen usually looks like a bomb went off when I've been cooking) while I chopped endless amounts of celery and onions. The stuffing recipe alone filled an entire large roasting pan. I don't remember where I got the pan for the turkey. 

Every half hour I wrestled with the roasting pan and basted the turkey with more of the white wine and melted butter. About three hours in I removed the cheesecloth as per Martha's instructions and continued to baste the bird on the half hour. Our entire little house filled with the delicious aroma, so much so that we opened a few windows in the middle of winter. 

That the turkey was a rousing success is not the main point in my story. The fact that we ate it for lunch and dinner for the next five days after Christmas is. Sadly, we were forced to throw the last bit out. I suppose, looking back, that cooking a week's worth of meals before moving is a smart idea, just maybe not the same meal every day, twice a day.

I still cook that same turkey recipe, thirty-odd years later. It's a winner. The turkeys themselves vary in size, depending on the amount of people sitting down to dinner. I halve the stuffing recipe and it still fills a large baking dish. 

My husband loves the share the story of our first Christmas turkey. He's an expressive guy so the story is always accompanied by large hand gestures and increasing vocal volume. This post is in his honour.

Until next time, 

Rebecca

The Case of the Missing Sunglasses

Since we are still within the Twelve Days of Christmas I feel like it's okay to tell a funny little Christmas story. 

A couple of weeks before Christmas I misplaced my magnetic clip-on sunglasses. I say 'misplaced' rather than 'lost' because the times I thought I lost them I have always found them, usually in an odd place. My clip-ons aren't the kind you buy at Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart. They are specifically made for my glasses' frames and are one of the reasons I choose the brand of glasses I do. They are the only sunglasses I wear, and I especially need them up at the resort on bluebird days when the snow is blindingly white. I looked everywhere for my sunglasses but had no luck. My husband told me to order another pair from the eye doctor's; even if the originals turned up he thought a second pair would be useful to have. I didn't like spending the seventy dollars, but I didn't have much of a choice at that point. I suppose I could have walked around with my ski goggles on if worse came to worst.

I was already at the resort where my family was to spend Christmas when the eye doctor place called me to say my order was in. I told them I would pick it up the next week and hoped for cloudy-ish skies. I lucked out. The weather was perfect - just enough cloud to keep the sun from blinding me, but still lovely and conducive to many winter rambles in the woods. 

My kids arrived and our five day party started. Morning visits over coffee and lingering breakfasts, lunch with their dad on his break, then afternoons spent doing our own thing, either in pairs, or alone. We fueled our activities with the cookies I had made and soon started in on the pan of my husband's homemade and very delicious Nanaimo bars. Christmas morning arrived. My husband had to make his rounds first thing, so the rest of us opened our stockings and started making brunch. We would open our gifts after my husband returned and we had all eaten. 

Our bacon and eggs, mimosas, and panettone enjoyed, we gathered near the Christmas tree to open our gifts. We took turns passing out our gifts and watched each other open them. When it was my turn I handed my husband a box which contained a new pair of slippers. He's been having some trouble with his right heel and I thought some slippers with cushy memory foam would be a welcome replacement for his old ones. My husband tore the wrapping paper off and un-taped the old shoe box I had used. He lifted out the slippers and made an appropriately appreciative noise. I remember my eyes were cast down when he said, "Um, Rebecca?" I looked up. He was holding my sunglasses. In the whirlwind of acquiring, organizing, and wrapping gifts I must have dropped them into the slippers. I laughed. We all laughed. "It's a Christmas miracle!" I said. 

You see? I had only misplaced my sunglasses, and true to form, they showed up in the oddest of places. 

Happy New Year!

'til next time, 

Rebecca 

An Ode to my Eldest Sister, on her Birthday

Happy birthday to my bookend sister, Monica

Whose very existence for me is a tonic - ahhhh

I am the youngest, she is the oldest

I am the most hesitant, while she is the boldest

She's a good listener and also a talker

With friends and dogs she's a very fast walker

She makes a great meal, really loves to share it

She buys a nice wine with which to pair it

She has six children, all grown, most flown

A generous mom who would give her last bone

Three girls, three boys, a dog and a cat

A home always welcoming, no doubt about that

A grandma to two girls, she loves them to pieces

I love them, too though they're only my nieces

She calls her long hair colour 'Arctic Fox'

Her energy belies her age, she totally rocks!

When I was a kid and nine years her junior

She was the planet, I semi-lunar

She paid me five dollars to tidy her sock drawer

Always nice to me, never giving me what-for

As we grew older we became such good friends

She talked me through motherhood, the job never ends

Our husbands are friends, too, talking shop for, like, hours

While Monica and I sip coffee among their flowers

A journalist by trade she writes for the papers

An editor, too, now, no time for 'the vapors'

Her writing strives to always uphold the truth

She'll research and write 'til she's long in the tooth

(I believe she also has a colleague named Ruth?)

Mon's a great mother, sister and friend

To help you with issues over backwards she'll bend

She's super good fun and tells a great story

And if she goes before me, I'll be ever so sorry

Happy birthday, big sis! I love you so much.

Ode to the Eastern Fraser Valley: Marking Twenty Years

We arrived in early spring, the slurry it stank

The farmers said it put money in the bank

We found the people down to earth

Of new friends there was to be no dearth

No one asked "Are these ALL your kids, Maam?

When many families filled a fifteen passenger van

The Bible Belt, ever so many churches

Chilliwack has over 50, according to Google searches

Artists, too, but harder to find

Find them I did, and they were most kind

A fab little folk fest where I found work

For ten days I would dance, my responsibilities shirk

Fields of green and lakes of blue

Ribbons of silver rivers, too

Mountains in a ring all around

Rising like castles from the ground

Flood plain living comes with warnings

We check the weather forecast in the mornings 

People shocked by how much I walk

But they almost always stop for a talk (often about the weather)

The wind can be fierce, the ice storms the worst

The swampy hot summer will give you a thirst

The autumn is nice, discuss it we must, but

With all the rain the leaves don't change, they rust

Agassiz, Chilliwack, Mission, Harrison, Hope

Agassiz' the hub, the rest make the spokes

We love to drive between all these places

The beauty that surrounds us puts smiles on our faces

We're lucky to live here, we remind each other

Our girls have left and so have their brothers

But, we have stayed for twenty years

If we ever leave, it will be with tears

Fraser Valley, yes, you have been good to us

Formed our family, gained our trust

Life here has been rich and abundant

I'll stop now, before this ode is redundant

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Material Girl

Until my eldest sister moved out I shared a room with my brother. We were kids number five (him) and six (me) in the family. As we lay in our bunk beds we would play a little game. We called it, "What would you rather have?" The game went something like this: 

"What would you rather have? A million dollars or all the cars you wanted for the rest of your life?" My brother was really into cars.

or: 

"What would you rather have? A big house or a lifetime supply of chips and dip?" Or toys, or banana splits, or whatever highly desired, yet rarely enjoyed, item we could dream up.

We would then discuss our options and give reasons for both choices. I can't remember what conclusions either of us made, but I remember how seriously we took the game. I remember my brother saying his dream was to have a nice big house when he grew up, with a rec room with a big TV where all his friends and his kids' friends could gather, and he would supply them with all the chips and dip they desired. I was only ten and my dreams for the future were hazy, and not quite so specific. I just knew I wanted more than we had. We went to an independent Catholic school, the only 'private' school in our town, and many of our schoolmates came from middle to upper class families who wanted their children in a private school, Catholic or not. So, most of my classmates had much more in the way of material goods than I had. I remember getting into some light trouble lying in Show and Tell. I told the class my mom had brought me a rabbit from California. My mom found out about the lie when my Grade Two teacher phoned her and asked if I could bring the rabbit to school. "Why did you tell them that?" my mom asked. I told her I was sick of everyone else having fancy and exciting things to bring to Show and Tell. My mom had not yet been to California, let alone gifted me a rabbit. 

Even if ours was not a rich, or even middle class family, we were a creative and lively one, and we all had dreams. My dream when I was a kid was to, one Christmas, be given an Easy-Bake Oven. I thought anything I saw in Saturday morning cartoon ads as otherworldly, highly desirable, and mostly unattainable, but I pined for an Easy-Bake Oven against all odds for at least two years. I don't remember making Christmas lists, I just hoped if I wished hard enough, and circled it in the Sears Christmas Wish catalogue, I would get one. I never did get one, but my closest friend got one. When I finally got to play with it with her, we baked a cake from a mix that came with it, and I suppose that was kind of exciting. That was probably also when my dream for an Easy-Bake Oven ended. Life is like that sometimes. 

From Easy-Bake Ovens I moved on to dreaming about clothes and fancy bedroom sets. I remember a black velvet outfit in the Sears catalogue that I would quite literally dream about. I didn't get that either, but my mom was very understanding about clothes and took me shopping at the start of each school year, so I could have at least one outfit that was not a hand-me-down. I dreamed of a canopy bed - the Holly Hobby one - also in the Sears catalogue. One day when I was invited to another school friend's house her grandad said he had a surprise. He had bought her a complete white bedroom set from Sears, with matching linens, just like in the catalogue. I think I was too gobsmacked to be envious. I did, however, come home from her house once and began to list in great detail, all the Barbies and Barbie stuff she had. After about ten minutes of this, my mother rolled her eyes and asked me to please stop.  

When my granny died we inherited a lot of lovely stuff that she had owned. I remember well the day when the truck arrived. I came directly home from school to help my mom unpack the many boxes of crystal glasses, dishes, and furnishings. Needless to say, I was enthralled. What extra money my parents had they spent on paintings by local artists, books, and records, not pretty dishes and rose coloured sofas. I had been once to my Granny's home in Delta. It was very elegant, very colour-coordinated. I was proud that my family now had lots of pretty things in our old house.

In the Eighties, at the height of Yuppie-dom, I began to dream of a lifestyle such as I saw on TV and in the movies I went to. The clothes! The houses and apartments! The art and decor! The antiques! Let's face it, I loved stuff. I didn't exactly have the income of a Yuppie, but I was good at faking my appearance as one from my years of haunting thrift shops for vintage clothing. I was developing a great interest and passion for art and pledged to buy one piece of art per year. As a teen making my own money, I also spent it on clothes and makeup. The wall by my bed was a collage of fashion photos cut out of magazines. After I moved away from home to go to university, I had a lot less disposable income, but I continued to hunt for designer clothes in the many consignment stores in Vancouver.  After I got married and had small children, I had even less money to spend on myself, so my collecting was streamlined to whatever vintage dishes and objects I could find at garage sales and thrift stores. I would give myself a strict budget and only buy what I really liked. My desire to be a Yuppie was outstripped by real life.

Now that I am an empty nester, I have more disposable income than I have ever had, and can pretty much buy what I like, within reason. The thing is, I no longer want to accumulate stuff. I still buy a piece of art now and then, and I love to buy gifts for other people, but my desire for stuff seems to have mostly run its course. I want different things from life now, and they aren't material things. My dreams now run to seeing my children happy and having good relationships with them, and to being able to travel to visit family and friends. I care a great deal about my health and my husband's health, and our quality of life. I like to explore new places, even ones that are near home. I do buy books, yes, that is an indulgence that seems necessary to my happiness. And just a few weeks ago I bought a pretty vintage china teapot at the closing out sale of an antique store. I just could not resist. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Did my brother get his big house and his endless chips and dip? He got a sweet, mid-century house of modest proportions in Calgary. He has three great, grown-up kids and hosts many dinner parties. I don't know about the chips and dip, but last I looked in his fridge he had five kinds of fancy cheese. That must be the adult equivalent. 

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Everyone who knows me well knows I have had, until fairly recently in my fifty-plus years, a serious coffee habit. Not a morning would go by without a huge pottery mug of freshly ground, French pressed, strongly brewed, organic, fair trade java to get me going. I likened the effect on my brain to the THX sound effect on a movie screen. Once the caffeine kicked in every cell in my body would fill with sweet, electric energy that I would then use (mainly) for good. I felt like I had a superpower, and that superpower was coffee. I would have another cup, usually an Americano, mid-morning, which would get me through the work day at my former job as a baker. Did I mention that I was also a certified coffee snob? 

Twenty months ago, almost to the day, I suffered both a brain injury and a neck injury. The first made me desire sleep more than anything, and the second gave me such bad headaches that sleep came but rarely. As with most times when I have been unwell, I stopped drinking caffeine in hopes that I would sleep better. Within a few months, thanks to medication and physiotherapy, I did begin to sleep better, but I still abstained from coffee in an effort to maintain what I had gained, sleep wise. After several months I allowed myself the occasional decaf espresso, and that is still basically where I am at today with my coffee consumption. Even I thought I would have jumped back on the coffee express a.s.a.p. The truth is I had begun to realize I was, at this point in my life anyway, better off without it. 

No morning coffee meant no coffee crash a few hours later and also less pandemic anxiety. I began to enjoy the steady level of energy throughout the day and the better sleeps at night. I had, for years, awoken in the wee hours of the morning and fought hard to get back to sleep before my alarm went off. Rarely would I sleep through the night like the proverbial baby (which babies are these?) or log, or what-have-you. These days I get up and turn on the kettle, usually favouring peppermint tea or a coffee substitute like Caf-Lib - I can imagine the eye rolls this post is getting right now - I sit in my armchair with my mug of watery substitute, grateful that it is at least hot, and read a bit, then check my phone. I wash my hair, do some yoga and then start the activities I have to do for the day. The former THX sound effect has been replaced by something sounding more like a distant wave reaching longingly for the shore. 

Do I miss coffee? Yes. I miss the deeply flavoured elixer that was worth getting up at 5:20 on workdays for. I miss going to bed looking forward to coffee. I miss that first sip feeling. I miss ordering coffee at the coffee shop. These days I usually order herbal tea or hot chocolate, if I go at all. I haven't worked since my injuries, so my days can start gently; I have that privilege. Once I come out of this temporary retirement, sick leave, wellness sabbatical, whatever it begs to be called, and start working again, I know coffee will creep back into my life. I already enjoyed a little with Irish Cream liqueur over Christmas when the days were filled with the buzz of activity and socializing with my visiting children. For now, though, I will keep my fuel the decaf kind and hope that when I do re-introduce coffee back into my life, it won't be so much of an addiction but rather, a pleasurable addition I can take or leave. Well, I can try, right?

Not a Thanksgiving Post

A couple of years ago I took the required FoodSafe course for my job. It was offered twice a year at our local recreation facility and the session I took was taught by a former chef who was now semi-retired and touring around the region giving courses and teaching on call for a local university cooking program. The length of the course was, if I remember correctly, six hours long with breaks. With the aid of videos the instructor talked us through all the various chapters of the workbook. The course material was not all that challenging. Much of it was common sense, so between chapters we were treated to several tales from our Swiss-born chef-instructor's years cooking in various places around the world as well as a great deal of lecturing on healthy eating. (North America has it all wrong, did you know?) Many of us engaged in the discussions and at one point I brought up the fact that I make my own granola. Oh no! said he. You don't cook oats! That kills all the good nutrients in them! You soak oats and always eat them raw. He also lectured us on sugar consumption and how none of us needed any sugar not naturally found in fruits and other foods. I, feeling a little bit smaller with my ruined oats, carried on with the course work in between his mini-lectures, and before long, it was time for a break. Most of the students stood up and went outside. I was organizing my bag of snacks and lunch stuff when I happened to glance up and see our instructor cavalierly and within full view peeling the wrapper off none other than a Nature Valley granola bar, chock full of sugar and corn syrup, and yes, BAKED in an oven. Despite my 'shock and horror', we finished the last chapters and took our test. I passed with flying colours and achieved my certificate.

I have often wondered what kind of strange thought pattern allows a person to rage against some particular habit only to turn around (and in the chef's case blatantly) take part in it. Was it Mr. Chef's cheat day? Did he suffer from low blood sugar? Perhaps, but he knew I was staring at his granola bar and yet he offered no explanation. I was left thinking of him as a complete hypocrite.

When I was growing up one phrase I heard often was 'Do what I say, not what I do.' How I was baffled by it when I was young. Did certain people in positions of authority get a pass when it came to hypocritical actions? Perhaps we were only meant we should take the good from what people say and ignore the instances when they, themselves, go against their own direction. I suppose we are all hypocritical sometimes. Tired parents often yell at their kids to stop yelling. Most dental hygienists probably eat sugar at some point in their day (I know this to be true because my daughter worked at a dental office for three years and saw a lot of cake and hot chocolate consumed). Doctors probably don't take their own advice all of the time. Dads are famous for chastising their teenagers for being lazy while they, themselves, sit in front of the football game all afternoon and procrastinate on all the chores to be done around the house.

When celebrities and other famous people prove to be hypocrites we get angry, sometimes rightfully so. The comedian with the great family TV show ends up being a sex predator. The ultra survivor man ends up, against all appearances on his reality TV show, spending each night in a luxury hotel with heat and hot water. America's sweetheart is revealed as a drug addict. The politician campaigns on a promise and gets our votes only to backtrack once in power. And on, and on, and on.

The worst part about being on the receiving end of hypocrisy is the feeling of being robbed. We were led to believe something about a person and built up a level of trust and commitment to them and what they represented, only for that to be yanked away like a ripped off Bandaid leaving pain and even some scarring. I have reached the point where I hold new people I either meet or become interested in due to their work in the public eye with some emotional distance until they prove at least to be relatively constant. Sad, isn't it? But, perhaps safer on the heart. Maybe others do the same with me. I don't make friends as quickly as I used to.

But dammit, I still make granola every week. So there.

Things I Wrote as a Kid

Recently, I discovered a CBC Radio show called Grown Ups Read Things They Wrote as Kids. I heard  the show for the first time a couple of weeks ago when, on a Saturday evening I was driving the ten minutes to the village where my husband works in order to pick him up. I left the radio on as I waited for him in the back parking lot of the hotel and laughed until the tears were rolling down my cheeks. I listened to the show again this past weekend and then, I had an idea. I have a lot of writing I did as a teenager and I thought perhaps I would share some of it. Of course, my idea of posting things I wrote as a kid won't have the same impact as if I were to read them out loud in front of a live audience like they do on the radio show, but my hope is that they will provide at least a little entertainment to the reader.

What I noticed about the people on the radio show was their laughter at their younger selves who wrote about fantasies of glory or teen angst or harboured resentment against the perceived unjust actions of their parents. Most of what they were reading out loud to the audience was never meant to be read by anyone else, and at the time of writing it they had been most serious. I think it is important to both laugh at our younger selves and also to honour them. When I read my diaries I laugh a lot but the feelings of the time do come back with the memories. I, like most teenagers felt intense joy, pain, confusion, and all the other more subtle emotions in between. Growing up was an often baffling experience. As I read the diaries I began at aged fifteen I realize I cared about five main things: my family, my friends, food, boys and dance, but not necessarily in that order.

Myself at 15, taken in the school courtyard

June 19th, 1985 
Hi. I did o.k. on my Math final. Tomorrow I have English. I'm not looking forward to it. I have nothing except Summer after 10:45 tomorrow. I can't wait. I don't believe it's finally here. I'm growing my nails, so far it's working. I'm glad! Toni and Val and I 'supposedly' studied today. Val is very 'trendy'. I have a nice tan! In John's letter yesterday, He called me 'Miss Popular.' I guess I'm liked by a lot of people but I wouldn't say 'Miss Popular' - sort of bitchy sounding. Mark lent me a tape of assorted artists from England. Here's some of the Weird names: Vice Squad, The Vibrators, Angelic Upstarts, Attila the Stockbroker, The Dead Kennedys, Hollywood Brats, Abrasive Wheels, English Dogs, U.K. Subs, Adicts,Cockney Rejects, Instant Agony, Major Accident, Pressure. WIERD!!! Anyways, now I'm listening to Limahl and then Don Henley. Well I should go and sleep! 
Bye, Rebecca (doodle of a heart)

June 20th, 1985
I had an English final. It was pretty easy. All my exams are finished. Summer is here and next year I'll be in Grade 11. Wierd!! Today, Toni, Tanja, Colin, and I went to my house and ate, to Toni's and ate. Tanja went home and me, Toni, Colin and Jen went to Colin's and ate. Then me and Jen sat outside her house and talked about Scott. I keep thinking he'll come here (Scott was a boy I met from another city). I miss him. I saw a Good Play on TV. John's birthday is on Sunday. (John was another boy I met at a youth function).
Love, Rebecca (doodle of a heart)

June 23rd, 1985
Well, today I went to a Youth Group picnic. It was fun but I got thrown in the lake and I also don't like organized activities like games. After the picnic I went to Sam our leader's house and she did a survey on my personality. I'm an ENFP - Extrovert (outgoing); Intuitive (go on hunches); Feeling (sensitive); Perceptive. It was a good evening. My knee really hurts right now so I have ice on it. I was talking to Sam and I said I sleep all bundled up sort of guarding myself. She asked me if I had a secret to guard. I said yes and I won't even tell you! Maybe someday but right now I'm just learning to trust a diary in the house of my family, o.k.? (I wish I could remember now what that secret was) I thought about John since it's his birthday today. My survey said I would go well with a mate who was stable or a mate with his head in the clouds and sort of scientific. John and Scott!!! Well I gotta go. 
Love, Reb (heart doodle)

Stay tuned for next week's entry in which I describe my knee surgery performed by a very handsome surgeon. If anyone out there would also like to post things they wrote as kids I would love to read them. I had to look up 'Limahl' because I couldn't for the life of me remember anything about them. Thankfully, Google delivered: Synth heavy 80's tune by Limahl I'm happy to report that my taste in music improved over the next few years.

Cheers,
Rebecca

Being Canadian: A Complicated Kindness

As our lives on this globe intersect at an ever increasing rate, the desire for us to understand each other as nations grows. When we encounter another culture we often have many questions, some of which have clear cut answers and some of which do not. For example, if one of my ex-pat British friends is asked why Brits drink so much she will say decidedly, 'because they know their country's going down the toilet and there ain't nothing they can do about it.' On the other hand, if I ask why Brits make such good television, the answers are as in depth as I choose to go. The question I would like to ask Hollywood is: why is the collective imagination in the US fixated on superhero and post-apocalyptic movies? I imagine the response to be: because America's debt and lifestyle gap between rich and poor is so off the charts they crave something drastic to happen in order to save the situation, but their own answer would probably have more to do with hero worship. However, if asked why Canadians seem so polite, the answers are not quite so clear. What is it that makes us say 'I'm sorry' every time something happens that may or may not inconvenience another person? 'I'm sorry' is the typical knee-jerk response when we Canadians bump into each other, when we set out to give an opposing opinion, even when we go for the coffee shop cream urn at the same time. As children 'I'm sorry!' is what we call out to the parent bearing down on us with a threatening look in their eye, hoping against hope those two words will stem the tide of disciplinary action coming our way - that worked for me a few times, so I included it.

It occurred to me today that the 'I'm sorry' habit may be something more than what many comedians claim is the Canadian's way of getting out of a potentially uncomfortable situation.* I was in church yesterday when an elderly woman in the pew in front of me accidentally knocked the book in my hand as she sat down earlier than I. Her apology was profuse and completely unnecessary due to the fact that she had barely touched me. I automatically responded with, "Oh no, I'm sorry." We smiled at each other with sympathetic looks peppered with good humour and left it at that. Something then occured to me: the 'I'm sorry' habit is at best about having good will toward other people. Let me explain. If a man and I go for the coffee shop's cream urn at the same time, generally both of us will urge the other to use it first. One of us will be more insistent than the other and finally, after a several laboured seconds one of us will pour the cream into our cup. We will then return the urn to the counter and smile at the other person who kindly insisted we go first, and we will go back to our seats, him feeling proud of his gallantry, and I feeling grateful for it. If this reads like some sort of complicated dance, it is, but as Canadians, we learn it early in life so it stays with us always and leads to a fairly comfortable and pleasant way of going about our daily business. If I have my head down in the grocery store as I consult my list and accidentally bump someone else's cart, I will apologize immediately. If an explanation is required to calm the ire of the bumpee, I will give it and I can usually get a smile from them in the end. Like many Canadians I will do almost anything to avoid conflict, especially in public.

Why are we so eager to avoid conflict at all costs when other nations (I'm thinking France, Italy) seem to thrive on it? I have a theory about that, too. As I said above, I have a few British friends who have lived in Canada for many years, but are still a bit baffled by our social niceties. In theory I agree with them wholeheartedly when they say they prefer the Brit way of just calling a spade a spade and being done with it, rather than all this dancing around the issues. "Brits just speak as we find and move on," said one ex-pat friend after she had witnessed two co-workers in her Canadian office have a big ol' cat fight. Apparently, they had hidden their true feelings about each other for so long that eventually, and predictably, they reached the boiling point and the lid blew off.  My Brit friend who is a teacher had a hard time figuring out the parents of her students until she understood about the tendency of Canadians to avoid open conflict. She would think everything was going along fine with a parent and then one day, somehow, would find out the parent had been harbouring resentment against her for months for some action taken with her child. My friend had detected a certain chill in the air when she and the parent came in contact, but had no idea of the feelings simmering away underneath the surface. My theory about why we Canadians may act like that parent at times is essentially based on my observation that Canadians avoid open conflict because we who live in a cold climate eight months of the year place a huge value on personal physical comfort and safety, and this makes us lazy in our dealings with others. We just do not want to 'go there', but eventually we have to and by then the situation is usually beyond nasty, or at least beyond what it was originally. But, this is the 'I'm sorry' habit at its worst, and, being Canadian, I would rather not dwell on the negative.

I suppose we have historically been the Peacekeepers in global conflict because really, we would just like everyone to calm down, sit back and relax with a beer or even a doughnut. Anything pressing can usually be put off until tomorrow, and a difficult decision is generally made better by the act of sleeping on it. A Dutch man I once worked for said when he first moved to Canada in the 90's he was unimpressed by the Canadian way. No one seemed to work with any urgency, we valued our holidays more than anything, and meeting for coffee at Tim Horton's was often the highlight of the day. Mind you, he had immigrated to British Columbia, which is seen as one of the more relaxed provinces in the country. Over time, he said, he began to see the wisdom of our ways. He began spending more time enjoying life with his family and exploring the area near his home.He decided life was not just about work and making money, but that approach took some getting used to. Now, I would not be surprised if he even said to his clients, "I'm sorry, I cannot possibly fill your order today. I am celebrating Canada Day with my family," and let the chips, or rather the doughnut sprinkles, fall where they may.

*Twelve Ways to Say I'm Sorry

My apologies to author Miriam Toews for stealing her book title 'A Complicated Kindness' for this post.

Writing about Not Writing

It has been nearly a month since I last posted a blog post and just as long since I worked on my novel. June has been an interesting month, to say the least. The best part of it was going home to beautiful Nelson to see my parents and some other family, and a couple of good friends I have had the great pleasure and comfort to know since grade one. We also in our family had a high school graduation, a Confirmation and a wonderful play performance with our youngest in a starring role. The worst part has been a near incapacity to sit down and write.

This week I am recovering from a summer flu bug. I am able to sit and do things like crack the rest of the walnuts from last fall's harvest of our tree, cut up garlic scapes for blanching and freezing (a friend brought by a large bag of them from her farm), so at least a few things are getting done that need doing. The World Cup games, or Wimbledon, or a murder mystery on Netflix, or my son's violin and my daughter turning the pages of her book, are accompanying noises in the background as I accomplish these little tasks.

I am starting to go a bit stir-crazy with this lack of writing. I know this because I keep thinking about writing and wondering when I am going to feel able to get back into that wonderful rhythm I have enjoyed for several years now. Even my last blog post had been written a month prior to its posting. This is the first real slump I have had to endure in a long time. More than a slump it is a sort of rigid inability to turn my mind to the task. I won't call it writer's block because I know if I just sit down with only writing in mind I could start and something would come of it; that much I know after all these years. But, even as I write this collection of words and phrases I know it is just the tip of an iceberg I would really love to be able to get to the bottom of. At these times I feel like I am living on the periphery of the way I would like to be living - because to me, when I am writing well and often I am truly living.

I began to think of the reasons for my slump and came up with this list. Lists are somehow satisfying to make when one is trying to deal with a problem, so I made one.

Top Ten Reasons/Excuses Why I Can't Seem to Write

1. I am slightly ill.
2. My dad is seriously ill. He is the first person I think about when I wake up in the morning.
3. My kids are on summer holidays and I have to talk to them and sometimes take them places.
4. I can't seem to get up early these days (early hours are good writing hours), and I am exhausted after lunch (after lunch hours are also good writing hours).
5. My daughter has a driving test coming up in July and she has to learn to parallel park. This is stressful because I have to teach her a skill I almost never use.
6. I belong to an organic garden co-op and my fridge is half full of veggies that I have to use up before tomorrow when I will get another load of veggies. That's a lot of salad.
7. I keep thinking of things that are keeping me from writing instead of writing. When I don't put writing near the top of my list it easily slides down to the bottom. It's very slippery.
8. Facebook is way too engaging. Have you seen the video of the baby arguing with a bull dog? And all those worthy causes to care about: pipeline protests, teacher strikes, the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls, the decimation of honey bees...
9. I have a compulsion to volunteer my time to do things for other people. I should develop a compulsion to smack myself for this.
10. Somehow, at the back of my mind, I am thinking this slump is okay and my writing will be better for it when it's over. I suppose I have accepted not writing, which could possibly be part of the problem. Or not. I don't know.

I do know I have to rise up out of this slump and start picking away at that iceberg. The first draft of my novel is nearly done. I must get it done before I lose track of it. Let this post be the beginning of my recovery. I have the will. May that be the way.

The Weight-ing Game

I have worried over my weight since I was seventeen. Up until then I was a willowy thing, long of limb and lean as a rake and whatever calories I had eaten, whether they were from candy or lentils, were easily burned off by my daily activity. In September of my last year of high school a boy with whom I had often been cycling during the summer told me I was getting chubby. His words made me indignant on the surface - how dare he? - and devastated underneath. I was certainly not chubby, but I had noticed my curves were getting curvier and my pants a wee bit tighter around the waist. "You're a nice medium sized girl" said my mother. "You have a problem with sugar, don't you?" said my sister. I did. Butterhorns and ice cream were my downfall. The summer after high school I went to stay with my sister in dead-flat Winnipeg and gained twelve pounds. Her friends liked to take me out to restaurants for cheesecake and fries with gravy.

After I returned home from the 'Peg all the weight came off in two weeks. It was that easy back then. All I had to do was redecorate and paint my bedroom and start climbing the unavoidable hills of Nelson again. It hasn't been that easy to shed pounds in years and it is getting progressively harder to stay lean. I can easily gain two pounds in a celebratory weekend (birthday cake, wine, a meal with a rich sauce), and losing a pound takes a ten kilometer run and an hour and a half of high intensity yoga class. 

Until I was about thirty-five my weight went up and down depending on how much exercise I was managing to get and with my four pregnancies. After thirty-five, however, the weight climbed and stayed no matter how much exercise I got. By the age of forty I realised that if I kept up my level of yearly weight gain I would be greatly overweight by the time I was fifty and I knew that would not be healthy. Something had to be done. I was not about to go on a diet of broccoli and quinoa. I'd been there and done that in my early thirties and become so thin and obsessive about whatever I put in my mouth that my husband had begun to question both the hours I spent cooking two versions of every meal - one for myself and one for my family - and my extreme self denial at the dinner table. Other people began to comment on the bones protruding from my shoulders and hips. My fourth pregnancy ended my broccoli and quinoa diet. I craved bread and milk in the middle of the night, but I remained thin throughout my pregnancy and afterwards, too, thanks to the great calorie-burning effect of breastfeeding. Once I stopped breastfeeding I began to notice a difference in my metabolism, but I continued to eat my own good baking. Running kept the weight off until I ended up sidelined with a foot injury. So, there I was at forty, worried about the future. I appealed to a wise friend and she suggested a course of action. I would eat a good breakfast, a large lunch as my main meal and taper off for the rest of the day and finish with a small, low-carb supper. The method worked. I lost ten pounds and kept it off for two years at least. I think it was over Christmas of the third year that I veered off the narrow rails of my proven method and the pounds began to creep back on. I lost weight over the summer, only to put it back on again over the winter.

I was out for a walk the other night with my seventeen year old daughter and my son who is home for the summer from university. We were talking about diet and exercise and I heard myself say, "You know, I don't know anymore if I'm fat or if I'm thin." 

"You are thin, Mom," said my son. My heart lifted. "I mean, for someone who has had four kids, you are doing well."

Hm. Okay. 

"What do you mean?" asked my daughter the health and fitness junkie. 

"I mean, " said I, "that compared with a lot of women I see I feel thin, but compared with many others and with what the media portrays as the ideal weight for women my age, I feel fat. It is confusing." 

I think the truth about my statement is that I am not sure what I should be aiming for at this stage of my life regarding my size and shape. I want to stay the same size so I don't have to buy all new clothing. I want to stay thin enough to maintain a good energy level and to be able to keep up the running. I am back on track with the small suppers and the several glasses of water a day. I have a goal of running 20 kilometers by my birthday in September, so I am running well and often. Still, I am not yet losing much of that winter weight, although I can tell by the way my pants are fitting that some of it is turning to muscle. Perhaps the answer lies in that evil substance: sugar. I do not want to obsess over everything that I eat, but is that what it takes? I want to enjoy food without feeling like I am failing every time I eat a piece of cake. Some days I am overwhelmed at my wonderful discipline. Some days I cannot seem to get through the afternoon without chocolate.

Once upon a time I was a nice medium sized girl - although she looks pretty tiny to me now. Perhaps I have to be content now with being a nice, healthy medium sized woman. Perhaps this self-image thing is really a matter of realistic perspective. The air-brushed magazine images be damned. 

When the Silver Lining Fades

I tend to subscribe to the idea that Every Cloud has a Silver Lining. I just find it pays to be positive in general. I am not always such a Pollyanna type. I have my dark hours of self-doubt and of disgust with the world, but overall, as I heard someone say in a documentary about the uncertain future of the planet I agree that 'Pessimism is not a strategy." (Not that I am a strategic person. I tend to float along taking opportunities as they present themselves - or not - and going with my instincts.) When unfortunate circumstances arise, I tend to find the upside fairly quickly, as long as the circumstance does not last too, too long.

Take the last couple of weeks of my life as an example. First, my husband caught a cold. I had it three days later, and much worse than he did. It was just a cold, I told myself. I could still read, eat well, sip hot lemon and honey. It wasn't bad at all, really. I got better for two days and my eldest daughter caught the cold. I roasted a chicken, made soup, cleaned a little and caught up on the laundry, glad to be feeling better enough to look after her. Then, my husband came home with a tale of a guest at his hotel who had spent the day vomiting. He was concerned about catching her flu. That night, he came down with stomach flu and I was relieved I could help him out in the middle of the night when his symptoms were at their worst and he fainted in the upstairs hallway. I am not sure if it was the guest's flu or just part two of whatever we had started with, but two days later, I came down with it. I spent three days in and out of bed. I would think I was getting better, only to be up half the night with stomach cramps and spend the next sleeping to recover. Still, I was grateful that my daughter was feeling better and could help with meals, and that my husband had recovered so quickly from his flu and could look after everything else. The silver linings were still within view.

One evening, my eldest daughter, by then well recovered from her cold, asked me how I was feeling."It's only a matter of time," I said.

"Until what?" she asked me, eyebrows furrowed, daring me to be pessimistic about my prognosis.

"Until I feel better."

"Oh," she said, brightening a little as if to say, "That's the mother I approve of." She despises other people's drama, just as I did at her age.

On the ninth day of my on-and-off illness, my husband came home early from work. He came to see me in our bedroom. I admitted to him I was completely miserable and frustrated, and burst into tears. After commiserating with me he went upstairs to see our youngest daughter who had, so far, escaped any version of the flu and was just home from school. I lay in my bed, comfortable, and somewhat relieved after my tiny nervous breakdown, but I still felt plenty sorry for myself. My cache of silver linings was all used up, I thought. I would just have to wait until this misery passed.

A few minutes later my husband returned to our room and poked his head around the door. "There's an email for you," he said.

"I'll read it later," I said, waving the idea of dealing with emails away with a limp hand and reclosing my eyes.

"It's from a movie magazine in Australia. They want to buy some of your photos. The ones you took of the set of Wayward Pines."

I opened my eyes and looked at him. A smile crept into the corners of my mouth. "Really?" No one had ever offered to pay me for any of my creative product before.

"I thought you'd like to know," he said flashing me a little grin and heading back upstairs. Sometimes it is unnerving to be known so well.

I had slept most of the day and suddenly, I felt hungry. I had been subsisting for the past several days on bread and cheese, crackers, apples and yogurt. I asked for a bowl of my homemade granola mixed with yogurt. I ate it all and began to feel slightly stronger. My youngest came down to visit me and I asked if she would like to watch some TV with me in my room. She went upstairs to get a DVD and returned to announce that her dad suggested we all watch it upstairs. I decided it would not kill me to get up and join my family in the living room. I made myself comfortable in my usual chair with a blanket and we watched an episode of the comedic classic Jeeves and Wooster. I would read that email from Australia later. For now, it was enough to know it was there waiting for me. Just when I thought the silver linings had deserted me, one had shown up gleaming and, even if it came to nothing, was giving me hope for the moment.

My husband made a light supper. I ate it and felt stronger still. The next day I read that email from Australia. It even seemed legitimate.

The Power Outage

When I awoke for the first time this morning the red, glowing numbers on the digital clock read 4:48. I reluctantly got out from under the down duvet and tiptoed to the bathroom so as not to wake my warm and light-sleeping husband. Back in my feather nest I settled down to sleep once more. I woke up again, a muted morning light in the room causing me to lift my head to check the time, concerned I had overslept. This time the clock was blank. The power was out. My husband, awake by then, acknowledged the power outage and we snuggled down under the duvet to let the fact sink in.

When I was a child a power outage at my parents' house only meant one inconvenience: no electricity to power the lights, television or kitchen stove. The gas furnace still worked and our water, provided by the city where we lived, still ran hot and cold. During power outages my family sat together in our living room, talking comfortably by candlelight, enjoying the novelty.

Where I live now, in a small, rural town in the eastern Fraser Valley my well water requires an electric pump to fill the pipes and thus, the kettle. The gas furnace requires an electric ingnition to send the heat through our two story B.C. box of a house. We have one gas fireplace with the pilot light left on all winter in case of a power outage. We rarely use the fireplace because it is in the downstairs family room next to our bedroom. The family room used to be used more often and much of the space was taken up by a ping-pong table. With the boys gone most of the year now, the ping-pong table sits in the garage as the girls rarely use it. They do use the piano which is in the room along with my husband's cycling trainer, weights and medicine ball. Other than the addition of a dart board on the wall, the family room is fairly bare now.

Needing to find out the time, I rose and put on some warm clothes. I climbed the stairs, listening to the wind howling outside. The upstairs was full of early morning light; the day promising sunshine, at least, after two solid days of blowing snow. I turned on the battery powered radio - another safety feature in our house along with an easily found flashlight and a case of bottled water - and waited for some news of the whys and wherefores of our power outage. I found out that the elementary school near our house was closed for the day due to the outage, but that was it. The high school my daughters attend was open. So, ours was the only area of the town affected. I woke the girls who complained about their school being open. I asked them if they would rather stay at home in a cold house with no power or go to school where it was warm and the computers worked. They chose the latter.

My kind husband set up his Primus stove in the garage and heated water so we could all start the day with a hot drink. Then, he gathered his razor and some other toiletries, put his suit in a garment bag and left for work where he could have a shower. The girls, their hot beverages encased in thermal mugs went off to school bundled up against the windchill.

I, left at home to cope in a cold house, changed into even warmer clothing. I ate my cold granola and yogurt and willed the power to return so I could get to work on the computer. I put away the dishes and tidied the kitchen as best I could. By 9 a.m. I was cold again, all traces of the warmth of the mug of instant espresso gone. I put on my crocheted hat and the Pashmina shawl that my eldest had bought for me on a hot sunny day at a market in Venice. I went downstairs to sit by the fireplace. I pulled the chair out of my bedroom, sat down with a blanket across my lap and put my feet on the tiles of the fireplace hearth. I proceeded to read a few pages of my fat historical novel. The gas fireplace was a pathetic match for the frigid room and the wind howling down the chimney; the fireplace had once been a real one for burning actual logs cut from trees, not formed in a mold from some kind of flame-proof ceramic material.

I could have put on another sweater and pulled the down duvet off my bed to wrap around my entire body like a caterpillar's coccoon. I would have been perfectly cozy if somewhat immobilized. While I considered the duvet, my mind began to wander off the page of Rutherfurd's London to a cafe downtown where there would be heat, light and real, hot coffee.

Bundled in my heavy coat I walked down the road from my house. The BC Hydro crew was working at the end of the first block, cutting the limbs off a tall, scraggly cedar that, having finally succumed to the night's relentless wind, had fallen on the power lines, causing the outage. I made my way around the trucks and estimated the power to be back on by noon.

Larry, the owner of the Oasis cafe welcomed me. He, probably noticing my unwashed hat-hair, asked if my power was out. "It's good for us," he said cheerfully. The place was busy and I recognized some neighbours. Ordering an Americano and a blueberry scone I sat down at a table by a window to enjoy looking out at the cold, bright morning from my perch in the warm cafe. After reading through the Life and Arts section of the Globe and Mail left on the table by a previous reader, and finishing my scone, I took out my notebook and pen and began to write.

Handsome is as Handsome Does

Occasionally, as I was growing up, I heard my mother describe a young man of our acquaintance as a ‘wolf’.  A ‘wolf’, my mother explained, was someone with a predatory nature, particularly toward young, innocent girls (Little Red Riding Hood anyone?), and once identified, a ‘wolf’ was to be avoided at all costs by my three sisters and me.  Wolves came in many different styles of sheep’s clothing, but the costume of which I believe my mother was most wary was of the smooth-talking, preppy frat boy type.  Interestingly enough, she distrusted a guy with a squeaky clean appearance, and often for good reason; after all, she was a teenager in the 50’s and knew this type very well.  She knew these boys could be very crafty wolves - the type to flatter a girl’s parents and then take her out, get her drunk and take advantage.  But, as everyone knows, teenagers often rebel against their parents’ ways and wishes, if only to assert a certain amount of independence, and I was no different.  In high school I developed a crush on a boy of the preppy frat boy type which seemed to resurface in the 80’s.  He was the kind of boy featured in teen magazines, the type to make young, otherwise intelligent girls act silly.  He wore name brand polo shirts with the collar turned up in various shades of pastel, leather loafers, and sported spiky, gelled hair. To my mind he had the face of an angel, and I pointed him out to my mom one day.

“He’s very ‘pretty’, isn’t he,” she said with a curl of her lip.
“He’s not pretty, Mom, he’s handsome,” I protested.
“Handsome is as handsome does,” was her short but pointed reply.

A Very Handsome James Spader as the preppy jerk in Pretty in Pink
-definitely a wolf

To my utter bewilderment at the time, the boys my mom generally favoured were the long-haired rocker types, especially if they played an instrument.  I’m not sure why - perhaps she felt they held an honest disregard for convention.  I had five older siblings with many types of friends, maybe all the rocker kids she knew were just really nice people.  At my high school these kinds of boys were called ‘head bangers’. They usually went around with girls who sported similar rocker hairstyles ornamented with feathered roach clips and head bands.  They tended to answer teachers’ questions in monosyllables and didn’t usually top the academic charts.  Some were even classified as ‘stoners’, an even less desirable label in the upper echelon of my school.  Though friendly with some of the head bangers, I was certainly not their type and, admittedly, they were not mine.  I continued to develop crushes on the ‘wrong’ sorts of boys, often preppy jocks who usually weren’t interested in me beyond a nod in the hallway or as someone’s little sister. My preference for that certain type of boy continued until, as often happens when we begin to grow up, something came along to widen my view of the world.

I took piano lessons until I was fifteen, and in my last year I once again participated in the local music festival. My piece was very difficult and I could not get it right, no matter how hard I practiced.  On the day of the festival, thirteen young pianists assembled on the front pew of the Nelson United Church.  The lights were dim, except for on the stage, and at the desk of the adjudicators, making them look like pale distant ghosts owning only heads and pen-holding hands.  I was extremely nervous but glad to be in the middle of the pack, not at the front.  Sitting next to me was a boy I had never seen before.  He had long, blonde hair, an Iron Maiden t-shirt, and jeans on – mom’s type.   “This should be interesting,” I remember thinking to myself as he approached the bench when they called his name.  I fully expected to hear a less than stellar performance, maybe a laboured rendition of that Leila Fletcher classic ‘My Little Birch Canoe’, or at best, a choppy interpretation of Beethoven's 'Fur Elise'.  I do not remember what he played, maybe Chopin, maybe Rachmaninoff, but it was a shock to see and hear this long-haired dude blast his way through his challenging piece with such skill and confidence. I was dumbfounded, and after the thunderous applause died down, I was *gasp!* next. As I rose to go up to the stage I could hear people whispering about the long haired pianist:  “Who is he?”  “Where is he from?” Then I heard someone say, “He’s ___ ___ from The Valley.  His family is so talented”.   I was really nervous now – rattled, actually.  My pre-conceived notions had just been turned upside down.  How could I possibly follow Rocker Valley Boy's performance!  I sat down on the bench.  I started to play.  I stopped after a few bars and started again. I stopped again, and started again.  I screwed up so badly the adjudicators took pity on me and allowed me to get my music, even though we were supposed to have memorized our pieces.  I got through my nasty piece somehow and with a limping heart and downcast eyes I returned to my seat.  Mortified, and afraid to look at my mom and sister in the audience, let alone at the blonde piano star beside me, I kept my gaze downward.

Quietly, from beside me Rocker Valley Boy spoke.  “Hey, that was pretty good,” he said.
“No, it wasn’t, and you know it,” I managed to whisper.
He turned to look at me.  I finally looked up at him, barely meeting his eyes. “Yeah, it was,” he said, smiling encouragingly.  “Don’t worry about it.”
I was immediately cheered by his friendly and generous words. I could breathe again.  He wasn’t lying either, so I couldn’t accuse him of mere flattery: later, the adjudicator even praised the bits between the screw ups.

I developed a sort of admiration for Rocker Valley Boy out of appreciation for what he did for me that festival day.  On rare occasions I would see him in town and feel a little flutter of the heart.  There is no telling when the words of our mothers will come true.

A Runner's Prayer

Since, in the past week we have had both a cougar sighting (a hungry young male driven off the mountain by his stronger competition) and a mugging in our little town, and for the fact that a tractor-trailer flying by me much too close for comfort this morning nearly caused me to jump for my life into the ditch, I have resurrected a little prayer I came up with and used to say to myself as I ventured forth into the wilderness on my thrice-weekly, often gloriously solo, runs on the road and pathways of the environs of our home at Strathcona Park Lodge. Running up there in that beautiful wilderness I came across cougar tracks in the snow but never a real cougar, saw a black bear a few times that lifted its head slowly from its feast of fresh spring grass to observe my passing, did get run into the ditch by an RV once, but never encountered anyone attempting to steal my purse. Of course, I would not be running with a purse, and bear spray has more than one use.
Anyway, here is the prayer:

A Runner's Prayer

From dangerous beasts,
animal
human
and vehicular,
deliver me.
Amen

The photo above is one I took on a family trip through Alberta in 2010, and is of a typical Canadian highway along which someone like me might choose to run. 

Big Things for Blog Post 200

I saw the most enormous recreational vehicle the other day. It was nearly twice as long as my neighbour's RV, which is the size of a small motel room and much fancier. She gave me a tour one day. The kitchen was complete with cupboards above and below, a decent amount of counter space along with a tidy sink, stove and refrigerator. The dining area could be expanded out the side with the push of a button, and the bedroom was fitted with a queen-sized bed, wood paneling, carpeting and mood lighting - and hers is a moderately sized 'fifth wheel trailer', called such because the front of it attaches over the box of her truck. Plenty of people around here have nearly the same one, so I suppose one could call it the average.

The R.V. I saw the other day blew by me on the highway when I was running and just seemed, like a train, to keep on going. It reminded me of another RV I saw years ago. I remember driving (nearly twenty-one years ago now) on the Alaska Highway with my very new husband, when we were passed by a bus. Except this was no ordinary bus. It was a private bus with dark windows and a pastel pink and blue paint job which exactly matched the expensive S.U.V. it was towing behind it. After the bus pulled into our lane, purring as it went, we saw the brand name in gold, three-dimensional script: Ferrari. I am fairly sure that Ferrari does not make recreational vehicles of that sort, so the bus we saw must have been a custom job for someone. "Ooooooo," we both said, and wondered who was hidden behind those tinted windows.

With our camping gear stuffed in the back of our Toyota Tercel hatchback, we were slung low to the road, the RVs towering high above us. After living and working a few months at Panorama Mountain Village resort in the high and dry cattle country of the eastern part of our province, the dry heat was what we were used to, and anyway, we had no air conditioning in that car. We drove a long way without enough water for drinking and few places to buy any bottled drinks. While the travelers in the RVs enjoyed the luxuries we went without, a place to go pee when they needed to, cupboards full of food and a fridge full of cold beverages, we sweltered in the hot afternoons and listened to music from our cassette collection. We arrived at the campground and, if it had showers, we gratefully washed off the road dust and grimy sweat. We slept alright, everything considered, in our much needed bug-proof tent each night of our three day journey from the south of the province 'due up,' as Daffy Duck would have it, to The North to take part in a seven-day river rafting expedition down the Tatshenshini and Alsek rivers.

Living near the TransCanada Highway now, we see giant RVs, although I have yet to see another Ferrari bus, all the time, especially at this time of year. They don't impress me much anymore. I think of the amount of gas they guzzle and shudder. We are car campers and always have been. I am, however, especially as I get older, open to moderately priced and environmentally friendly change.

It was when we started camping on the West Coast, land of fog and mist and the occasional downpour, that I found myself slightly envying those with trailers. While I have never desired the Las Vegas-hotel-suite-on-wheels sort of experience, it did occur to me that being able to sleep up off the damp ground might not be a bad thing. I began to dream of a pop-up tent/trailer hybrid such as some of our friends had, with storage on board and a simple fold out kitchen on the side. I would see people pulling these tent-trailers behind their mini-vans and think, 'I could get into that.'

We still don't have a tent -trailer for two reasons:

 1)  So far, my husband is a camping purist, which means tents, sleeping bags, roll-up mats, and a camp stove in dubious working order that will burn the hair off your arms when you are trying to light it. I don't try.

2)  It is hard to justify arguing for one when we rarely go camping these days. Sad, but true, although I am determined we go this summer.

So, I will continue to be fine with sleeping in our tent as long as I can have the following: two roll-up mats to sleep on, and my husband being the first one up in the morning, boiling the water for my coffee. I will even enjoy the experience, after the first night, of course. I never have a good first night anywhere away from home. Not even if I were to sleep on a Ferrari bus.

Yes, this is my 200th post, believe it or not. I started this blog back in the fall of 2009, and it has been a rich experience, meeting other bloggers from around the world and writing all these letters. 
I also want to welcome the two people who have recently joined this blog. I hope you like it here.

Fifteen Seconds of Fame

I am going to be on T.V. I was interviewed yesterday morning for a spot on the Chilliwack cable access channel, Shaw TV, in my capacity as a spokesperson for the community arts council with which I have been involved for over nine years. I am not sure how many people watch Shaw TV, but they do have several community programs on the go, and a certain audience base. The interview will also be seen by all those who go to the channel for the television listings which take up the bottom half of the screen while my spot, and many others like it, are airing; so, I am imagining competing with what is on at 5 pm, 8 pm, 11 pm...etc. I am also imagining my son responding to my being on Shaw TV by quoting Austin Powers: "Whoop-dee-do, Basil".

I was having a wild hair day yesterday because I am letting it grow out a bit and it is presently at its winged stage, but I ran my fingers through it and put on my best moss green wool jacket over a black t-shirt and went off to meet the TVcrew at the arts council gallery. The crew turned out to be one multi-talented fellow, whose voice I had heard for years on the station, although I had yet to see his face. While he set up his equipment, gave me a clip-on microphone and adjusted the camera settings he told me to take a deep breath if I was nervous, which honestly, I was not; a bit keyed up is a more accurate description. I have given so many speeches in that gallery as to be quite comfortable babbling away by now. The great thing about being interviewed by a professional is that it is his job to make you feel at ease. I did not have to look at the camera at all and just answered his questions to his face, which appeared open, interested and friendly. The show presently on display in the gallery is a retrospective of work by an abstract artist who passed away in 2010. I had interviewed the artist's husband who sponsored the show, and co-written a newspaper article on the artist's life, so I was well able to answer the interviewer's questions at length with, I think, some clarity, which was a great relief. Of course, afterwards, I remembered all the little things I had forgotten to say in the interview, but the guy who works in one of the back offices of the gallery has been interviewed several times for the same channel in his capacity as a spokesman for the local festival of the arts, and he assured me that the interview would be edited to such a degree as to barely resemble my expectations of it.

Of course, the experience of being filmed and interviewed, which was a new one for me, got me thinking about the concept of having one's face on television for the public to see. I remember in college, an older male friend suggested, somewhat teasingly, that I become one of those news readers on TV. Perhaps it was my 'all Canadian girl' look. People are often telling me I look like I come from Saskatchewan. I'm not sure if, in their eyes, that is a compliment or not. My cheeks are always pink, so perhaps I have a permanent look of having just come in from the cold.  I think it would get a little depressing, reading all that bad news hour after hour, day after day..."and today, more bombing in Syria"...and such. Nevertheless, I considered a career in broadcasting for a short time, mainly because I loved, and still love, radio, but the consideration passed and I went on to other things. My sister Monica is the reporter in the family these days, although my dad wrote for his university paper and then the Vancouver Sun for a short stint. Monica is naturally curious, loves a good story and very much enjoys talking to people about any manner of subject. She is also quite community minded, has a good sense of the bigger picture of a situation and knows which questions to ask. She writes for a newspaper these days, but her dream job, she tells me, would be to work for CBC Radio. I'm not sure if she has ever considered working in TV.

I am amazed at the advancements in the world of television that have been made since I was born. When I was a baby cable television was a new thing. My family did not have cable, but as I was growing up I never really felt denied because all the major shows like The Muppet Show, Magnum P.I., Remington Steele, The Wonderful World of Disney, Family Ties and The Cosby Show were broadcast on our two channels via our television's antenna. Then along came satellite dishes the size of something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and PayTV. I remember watching Superchannel at a friend's house, and having to pretend that horror movies didn't scare me to death. Television and movie stars, to us back then, still had an aura of mystery about them and lived in a magical land far, far away, but with the introduction of VCR's and expensive home video recorders, suddenly having one's face on the screen was not that unusual. And, with local cable access shows popping up everywhere, any high school student who was truly interested in a career in television could volunteer at the station and work their way up from there.

With the invention of YouTube anyone with a video recording digital camera and a computer could have their 'fifteen minutes of fame'. I don't watch a lot of YouTube or other internet channels, but I have read about various television stars popping up with unusual and often quirky programs which are available for viewing only on the internet by an astonishing amount of people around the world. The attraction to those stars who make these internet shows must be complete creative control: no network executives breathing down their necks over content and accepted standards (yet), no censors really to speak of, low production expenses, and immediate release of episodes. My filmmaker daughter is bemoaning these changes  somewhat. She says YouTube used to be about the amateur filmmaker, the little guy. The YouTube home page used to have equal representation of all sorts of videos according to subject matter, not according to number of views. Now, she says, only those videos with millions of views are featured. People like her can still make and upload their videos, but the chances of them being seen are becoming more and more limited.

I have a natural curiosity to see myself on television, perhaps because television was such a big part of my childhood as it was for so many of us who grew up in the last half of the 20th century. I suppose I will have to start watching the TV listings channel more regularly to try and catch my spot. Besides in my capacity as speech maker for the arts council - we commissioned my daughter to make a montage of scenes from one of our annual gala events in which I make a brief appearance on our website - I have never been in any of the films my daughter has made and uploaded to her YouTube channel. She did once film her sister and I dancing around the kitchen singing along to "I'm on my way, from misery to happiness today...uhu uhu uhu uhu" by The Proclaimers. Fortunately, that video is stored deep in the files of this machine, where it will remain. I'm certainly not after fame at any price; yes, I am showing my age.

Here are The Proclaimers with 'I'm on my Way'. Because they do it best, of course.

The Saving Grace of Satire

It began in high school: my friends and I made a habit out of making fun of pretty much everything we could. We would gather at Jenn's house for the annual 'sing along with The Sound of Music' event on New Year's day. We would watch the film, recite the dialogue along with the characters, sing, and then when Maria whips out her guitar on the mountaintop for 'Doe a Deer', we would always say to each other as the orchestral strings of the soundtrack commenced, "And suddenly out of nowhere there appears an orchestra on the mountaintop" and we would laugh and laugh at the idea. We would put Duran Duran records on the 45 rpm setting on the record player, and Jenn and Mike would go on their knees like Duran Duran dwarves and sing and dance along to the sped up tunes. That was hilarious. When we discovered Saturday Night Live and Monty Python, my friends and I would memorize long passages and songs from their films and spend hours reciting them to each other around camp-fires and at parties, or in the back of the car on our college commute. We ate up satire and sketch comedy with the eagerness and voracious energy of youth, and we told funny and embarrassing stories on ourselves and about each other. Laughter took up the greater part of most of our conversations. Almost nothing was sacred. Almost nothing escaped the microscopic lens of our sharp wit and our desire for fun. We made a sport of critical thinking through satirical humour, and I do believe, in many ways, it saved us.

My children have the same approach to life that my friends and I had at their age. I see evidence of the fact every day, and I love it. The ability to laugh at one's self is of great importance to my way of thinking, and the ability to laugh at the world, and what it continually serves up, is vital for the survival of one's individuality and true purpose in the world. My family recently acquired Netflix and we are making our way through ten years of missed Saturday Night Live seasons - my husband and I watched the show all through the '90's but missed the 'naughts (2001-2009)' or, as they are called by some here in North America, 'the Bush years' of the show almost completely. SNL's 'good natured skewering' of everyone from politicians to the head elf in Santa's workshop makes for good TV. Some of my favourite episodes are when an actual politician, be he George Bush Senior or Senator John McCain, appear on the show and are given a chance to retaliate. The result is always a healthy experience for everyone: for the audience who get to see a more human, not to mention humourous, side of the politician, and for the actors and writers on the show, who get a bit of their own back, exhibiting a tremendous sense of fair play on their part. The first Monty Python film I showed my children was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, complete with insulting Frenchmen, anachronisms galore, a wimpy knight named Brave Sir Robin, and King Arthur riding a non-existent horse while his squire knocks two coconuts together to provide the sound of the horse, should one actually have been in existence. My kids, all of them, found the film refreshing, intelligent in its silliness, and downright funny.

We in Canada have always revered satirical comedy in general. With shows like SCTV and The Air Farce, which began on CBC Radio and made its way to television, Codco out of Newfoundland, This Hour has Twenty-two Minutes from Halifax, and The Rick Mercer Report, Canadian politicians, celebrities and Canadian contemporary society are never safe from a good natured ribbing, and I think we are better for it.The U.S. has, of course, Saturday Night Live, but they also enjoy the brilliant political satire of John Stewart in The Daily Show with John Stewart, as well as The Colbert Report with the irrepressible Stephen Colbert. Stewart and Colbert are so well loved and respected in their nation that an overwhelmingly large percentage of the people stay abreast of the political situation chiefly through their shows. I know there exist many shows out of the U.K. which provide that nation, as well as many fans around the world, with countless opportunities to laugh at themselves and the world at large. Comedians such as Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Tracey Ullman, and of course the aforementioned favourite Monty Python, all use their great talents to help make their society truly democratic. As writer and satirist Jonathan Swift said, "As Wit is the noblest and most useful Gift of humane Nature, so Humor is the most agreeable, and where these two enter far into the Composition of any Work, they will render it always acceptable to the World."

I remember reading a satirical essay in my English Literature course in college entitled A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, in which he suggested a way to deal with poverty and hunger, which were rampant in eighteenth century Ireland, was to raise babies for consumption by the upper classes: "I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children." The essay was shocking to me for something written in 1729, but it also appealed to me greatly. I am not sure of the effect it had on the social policy of the time, but obviously, the essay swept the nation much like the latest YouTube video does now, and woke many people up to the absurdity of a nation starving its own. A Modest Proposal is not far off the sort of satire produced in the present age. In fact, Swift's essay, and others like it, as well as the political cartoons of the time, most likely inspired it. Every age has employed its satirists, and they are as important to the workings of a healthy society and its institutions - churches, schools, government, etc.- as the institutions themselves. Satirists provide the checks and balances every person and every institution with power over others needs, and they accomplish this feat with the most welcome leaven of humour and the intelligence of wit; I shudder to think what would happen to us if this was not so. Apparently, a school district in Texas tried to shut down classes which taught critical thinking to students for fear that teaching children to think for themselves employing logic and reason would cause problems in the more God-fearing homes of their student body. To that I, whom some would call 'religious', cry foul and laziness - should we not teach our children to think, to question, to form opinions based on the good values we have brought them up in? To my own children I say, "Question everything by all means. Just be prepared to do the work to find the answers." And laugh. A lot.

Here is one of my favourite Rowan Atkinson sketches, satirizing the stereotypical English public school headmaster.

Emma and I have a new post over at Stella's Virtual Cafe. Check it out...please. 

What's so Great about Martha Stewart?

I am not American, neither am I rich (well, not in money anyway), I am artsy, but not particularly crafty, so why have I, every November for the past twelve years, bought a copy of the December issue of Martha Stewart Living? What do I see in that magazine that is so enticing for me to spend 6 bucks on it, read it cover to cover, and then keep it enshrined with all the others on a shelf in my dining room to be brought out and pored over every year? I will attempt to answer these questions, for anyone who cares, in the following post.

Martha Stewart is an American icon by now. She seems to be an expert on everything from breeds of fowl to how to keep foxing (those brown age spots in old books) out of your collection of First Editions. She speaks with the alto voiced drawl of the more laughable New York Yuppies depicted in Norah Ephron and Woody Allen films, and her hair is forever blonde. She will hand roll her own wrapping paper in a faux bois pattern and curl ribbon to emulate wood shavings to extend the woodland theme she has chosen for all her Christmas decorations of a particular year even to her packaging of gifts. She will hand make all her Christmas gifts, be they delicious puddings or be they begonias produced from cuttings of her own perfect plants, and present them in re-usable vessels, such as terra cotta pots made locally in her Bedford, New York neighbourhood and stamped with the name of her farm, or specially chosen bowls from her collections, all wrapped exquisitely, of course, as mentioned above, and personalized with a handmade, thematic gift tag. I'm not sure how many of these gifts she gives out to friends and family, but I am willing to bet the number is a high multiple of ten - at the very least. I also hear Martha Stewart, like many powerful people, only sleeps four hours a night. Go figure.

I started my interest in Martha Stewart back in 1995, when I was talking to a friend about cooking my first Turkey for Christmas. My friend gave me an edition of MSL magazine with an article entitled 'Turkey 101'. I followed the directions to the letter and every year I use the same recipe because it makes for delicious results. How can it not, when basted in a bottle of white wine and lashings of butter? Martha Stewart recipes make up a large portion of my special occasion recipes, as well as some of my everyday ones. My mother-in-law heard I was getting into Martha recipes and bought me one of her cookbooks for Christmas in 1996. The best chicken or turkey stock, the best chicken soup (with leeks and fennel) to cure a cold with, the best devilled egg recipe, the best pumpkin pie recipe, the best gingerbread cookie recipe, are all to be found in that falling apart book. My husband bought me a subscription of MSL magazine in 2002 and, while I enjoyed receiving an issue per month, I was a bit overwhelmed with a new baby at the time, and one solid year of fantastic gardening tips for my nonexistent garden and advice on where to find the best bookbinder for one's antique tomes was enough for me. Fortunately, 2002 was a great year for the magazine and I still have all my copies and refer to them often for the best recipes for coconut cake, quesadillas with caramelized onions and zucchini, various cookies and punches, and for a delicious recipe for the chicken and corn empanadas my daughter has requested I make for her birthday party tomorrow. Her birthday cake recipe is also coming from a back issue.

I remember a party we had to which we invited a few friends for quesadillas and margaritas. I made a rich, hot fudge sauce from MSL for the ice cream sundaes I served for dessert. Like all MSL recipes it makes an overly generous amount (I have learned to halve some recipes, particularly for dessert sauces and such), but I made the full recipe thinking I would have leftovers to warm for a future dessert. No such luck. Three of the women at the party proceeded to sit down around the bowl of hot fudge sauce and polish it off. There went a pound of good quality chocolate, but also, there lay the proof of the appeal of MSL recipes. They just taste so darn good.

Martha Stewart Living is about more than recipes and beautiful, artistic photos of food. The magazine contains ideas and instructions for craft projects, features on wonderful American artisans, decorating ideas for houses and apartments, and even occasional articles on how to invest your extra money in a seaside cottage or mountain retreat (which I ignore because I already spent all my money on chocolate). What I like about the magazine is that it sticks to these themes, and it knows what it's about - gracious, good and healthful living, which celebrates the home and family and those who care for them creatively. It's honest about its purpose, too: good taste and quality matter. I also like the fact that much of what is presented in the magazine to be created at home is approachable for 'the rest of us' if we have the time, the desire, and the energy to make some beautiful, delicious things from scratch for our family and friends, and for ourselves. To be completely honest, I'm a busy person and I do not have time or energy to embark on a lot of projects. The times of year that I do make a point of doing so is in preparation for the major holidays, and most of my chosen projects involve creating good things to eat. So, in that way, I am not a thorough devotee of the great Martha. I am not always looking for patterns to make my own dog bed, or ways to stencil my furniture. But for a new cake to make for Easter, or a pretty ornament to make for Christmas gifts? Yes, I'm there, studying the Martha manual along with all the well-to-do housewives of Connecticut.

Martha Stewart Living put out a magazine for kids for a few years. I bought several issues and found them to be full of beautiful ideas to do with my children. We made batches of marshmallow fudge for their teachers, personalized gingerbread people with the neighbourhood kids, lots and lots of cut paper snowflakes after learning the real way to do so, and various other projects. I taught one little boy I looked after to make paper snowflakes and he and my daughter wiled away many hours making them and taping them up in my hallway. One year, my kids and I made little ornaments out of pipe cleaners - little skiing Santas and skating snowmen, wreaths, candy canes, stockings and tiny deer. The project was so much fun and definitely inexpensive. We sent one to everyone on our list with their Christmas card and a mix-tape of seasonal music. The kids made those pipe cleaner ornaments the next year, too, and the year after that.

The other night I bought this year's December issue of Martha Stewart Living. I brought it home with the groceries, which my eldest daughter, Emma, nearly sixteen, helped to put away. After the groceries were in their proper places, my daughter went to bed, but not before she had picked up the new issue of MSL and asked me if I would let her take it to bed with her before I had had a chance to read it. Emma is a baker, beginning to be a good cook, is crafty and like her mother, loves pretty things and good food. The next morning she said she had stayed up late, reading the magazine cover to cover and getting all kinds of ideas for projects to make. For the past two years, Emma has made a beautiful wreath from cuttings of cedar and holly for our front door at Christmastime. Every year she also chooses some kind of special dessert to make for Christmas, and just the other night, she came up with a prototype for our annual Christmas card. It was lovely, so I said, 'go to it!' and she has. I think I will end up being her assistant for that project - if I can keep up.

Years ago, a woman who immersed herself in cooking, baking and decorating would be called a 'little Suzy homemaker,' conjuring up images of a 1950's smiling housewife in a ruffled apron and pearls, but now, she might be called something like 'the next Martha Stewart,' which means something different entirely. I mean, does the owner and brainpower behind Martha Stewart Omnimedia look like a 'little Suzy homemaker' to you?  Heck, she's even done time in the big house.

Photos found online. Happy weekend, friends!