Chiclets



As a teenager, my crooked teeth caused me a great deal of self-consciousness. In particular, I had an eye tooth that protruded and was elevated above the others. If my lips were dry and I would smile, my top lip would remain hooked up on it, which made some schoolmates point and laugh. Kids can be cruel that way. It would happen fairly often, as I have a big smile and I use it a lot.

It didn't help that my brother Fred called me "Fang" and asked me to open cans for him, or that every Halloween he would suggest that I save money on makeup and just dress as Dracula.

School pictures were a nightmare for me. I would practise in front of the mirror for days, trying to smile in such a way that my fang wouldn't show. It always looked artificial, or else the photographer would say something funny and out would come my big smile again. One year I tried smilin without my teeth and my mom said I looked like a bullfrog.

I was at a social one evening (a social is a distinctly Manitoba function, a fundraising dance where hundreds of people gather in a rented hall to drink and party), when a loudmouthed stranger joined our table. We were all laughing and talking, and he suddenly yelled across the table at me, "Boy, your mouth is an orthodontist's nightmare." I cried in the ladies room for an hour.

So when my teachers' union negotiated for a dental plan that would cover 50% of orthodontics, I leapt at the opportunity. I was 28 years old, and in those days it was rare for adults to get braces. My students thought it was cool, and I started my own "The Tin Grin is In" movement, counselling many kids who were apprehensive about going through orthodontia.

The trouble was, I used to be terrified of dentists. I'd had a number of very painful experiences with hamhanded quacks who left my gums ragged and bleeding. The dentist I'd finally learned to trust, died suddenly of a rare flu virus, and now I was to venture into frightening territory with a stranger.

Thank God for Alex Zimmer. He was a brand new dental graduate at the time, and I was immediately enamoured by his quirky sense of humour, not to mention the "Painless Dentist" sign hanging on his wall. He referred me to a very hunkalicious young orthodontist, and we began our long journey together.

Alex is the kind of dentist who sends you jokes in the mail, and pays your parking ticket if he keeps you in his chair for too long. When a failed root canal caused a massive infection that went into my cheekbone and jaw, he gave me his cell phone number in case I needed more draining over the weekend. I used it, and he left a restaurant dinner with his wife and son to open up his office at 9:30 pm on Friday evening, to give me blessed relief. You gotta love this guy.

I had to have four pre-molars extracted in order to make room for my overcrowded teeth, and I was terrified. I was scheduled to have the top and bottom ones on the left side removed during one appointment, and the other two a couple of weeks later. My butt never touched the chair; I was as stiff as a ramrod, but when I thought he was just gettin a grip on the first tooth, I was surprised to see him holding it in his pliers. That was it?

Alex gaped at me and asked, are you alright? and I said, Yeah, that was nuthin - go ahead and take the other one out. And he shook his head and said no way, you should see yourself; you're as white as a sheet. He told me he'd take the other one out on my next appointment, and we'd worry about the last two later. When I arrived for the next appointment I casually said, shoot the works, Alex. He asked, are you sure? and I said, yup, let's get this over with.

I have never been so frozen in my life: my whole head was numb. I blinked my eyes like a sailor who'd downed a tankard of rum. I had to manually push my bottom lip up to my top one, and I was drooling like a teething toddler. Alex offered me a couple of Tylenol, because he said my gums might be tender after all the injections. His dental assistant handed me two paper cups: one with water, and the other containing the painkillers. Well, I couldn't even find my face, let alone my mouth, and I dumped the water all over me, and the Tylenol somewhere near my mouth. One pill ended up stuck to my chin, and the other to my bib.

This, and the way I tweeted through the gaps in my mouth every time I tried to pronounce an "s", were great sources of hilarity for Alex. He clung to his x-ray machine with one hand and his stomach with the other, bent over in hysterics, and between gasps for air, yelled, say Mississippi! say Mississippi! to which I would respond, Ssssssss(tweet)ssshhhhhaddup, you asssssss(tweet)sssshole. It's pretty funny when I look back on it now.

Almost as funny as the sympathetic looks I got in the elevator on my way to the underground parkade of the clinic (poor disabled young woman, it's a pity when their faces go like that), and the startled reactions from the THREE central air conditioning guys my ex had thoughtfully scheduled for estimates at our house that afternoon.

It was all worth it. Smiling is important to me, and for almost twenty years now, I've been able to do it without a hint of embarrassment.

Sssssssss(tweet)ssssso there.

Catastrophe Opus - Third Movement



I mentioned in my last post what a beauty Duffy has turned out to be. However, graceful he is not. I have never known a cat who knocked over so much stuff, fell off of things or missed his aim to jump on something so often. He is desperately uncoordinated and accident prone, which is the source of much merriment in our household. He is also, not only the biggest, but the biggest wimp of our three cats. Milo torments him mercilessly, and tiny little Monkey - less than half his size - bullies him on a daily basis. He never stands up for himself, running (and crashing into things) instead. The most he'll do is hiss, but the other two know there's nothing behind it and give him no respect at all.

Milo and Monkey are the best of friends, and they often chase and play with one another (Milo grooms Monkey, but Her Ladyship does not return the favour), which gives Duffy the opportunity for a little quality time with me. He gives affection the way he does everything: roughly and clumsily. He loves to knead, or "make biscuits," as Curtis calls it, and he pushes HARD, right down to the bone. It hurts. He often chooses to do it on my boobs, or even on my face, when I'm sleeping. (At least he got over that curling up to sleep on my face thing - that made for some interesting suffocation nightmares, let me tell you.)

For some reason, Duffy especially craves attention when I'm at my keyboard. He stomps all over it, causin boxes to pop up all over the place, and he's been responsible for some swahili messages to friends on IM.

One evening, when I was playing online poker and chatting with some friends, I had a beeswax candle burning next to my monitor. Duffy jumped up and swished his tail right through the flame, catching it on fire. Now, his round yellow eyes give him a perpetual, "Hey, who goosed me?" expression, but when he felt the heat at his rear end, they about popped out of his head. Before I could grab him, he dashed out of the room, lookin rather like Halley's comet, and I chased him and managed to clap the flames out between my hands. Amazingly, neither he nor I was burned, but what a stink. There's nothing quite like the stench of burnt hair, and there were black ashes floating everywhere in my just-cleaned house.

You may not believe me, but as I was typing this, I heard a loud crash in the kitchen. It was Duffy, falling off a kitchen bar stool in a failed attempt to get to his dinner. (We put the cat dish up there to keep the dog out of it.)

Good thing he has nine lives.

Catastrophic Opus - Second Movement



My chow chow Jinx had always loved other dogs and cats, so a week after my ex suddenly flew the coop, I consoled myself and her by adopting a goofy little kitten at the Humane Society. He weighed less than 2 pounds, and had a kind of Bill the Cat, unkempt look, his assymetrical black and white markings, ginormous white whiskers and eyebrows, and surprised yellow eyes lending him a comical look. His coat was greasy from the newspaper lining in his cage (our newspaper ink is made with vegetable oil), and no matter how often I tried to tame it with a brush, it would immediately *sproing* back into 10 messy directions. My mom referred to him as a "misbaksel," a Dutch word for the cookie that didn't turn out right - you know, the last one in a batch when you didn't have quite enough batter, so you just kind of smooshed it together? He reminded me of a duck-billed platypus, an animal made out of spare parts, which of course was precisely why I had to take him home.

About a week after Duffy joined our family, he was fascinated when I took an aromatherapy bubble bath. He perched on the edge of the tub and pawed carefully at the suds for a while, then lost interest and went looking for mischief elsewhere in the house.

You know how cats get sometimes? When they go all nuts and tear around like maniacs? My mom used to call it their "gekke vijf minuten" - their crazy five minutes. Well, Duffy got himself into that state and came blasting into the bathroom, and before he could stop himself, leapt from the toilet seat, right into my bathwater. I moved my legs away from his sharp little claws and tried to fish him out from under the bubbles, as he thrashed and scrabbled, too tiny to make his way back out of the tub on his own. Finally, I was able to get one hand under him and boost him over the edge of the tub. For the next few minutes I was entertained by the sight of a tiny black and white streak trailing suds, as he sprinted back and forth up the hallway past the bathroom door at mach speed. It seemed as if he thought he could run away from the wetness.

I got out of the tub and picked up the shivering little critter, cradled him in a big fuzzy towel, and rubbed and cuddled him until he was dry and sleeping heavily on my arm. The remarkable thing was, his coat was absolutely glorious from then on - silky, soft, with snowy white and glossy black markings. He sure smelled good, too.

He has grown into a lean but enormous cat, a real beauty with an incredible lush tail. Who knew?

Catastrophe Opus - First Movement



One sunny Saturday morning, I decided to give my bicycle the royal treatment: a thorough washing, waxing and chrome polishing. That's the kind of thing that little obsessive compulsive Dutch girls do. I had my bicycle inverted on the lawn and said goodbye to my parents, who were leaving to do their weekly grocery shopping.

Dad had been puttering in the garage and left an unfinished project involving the use of turpentine, which he had poured into an old saucer so that he could dab into it with a rag. He left it in a corner on the garage floor. Our little tabby kitten trotted back and forth with me companionably and then decided to rest by innocently planting his little bottom in that saucer.

Oh, the screaming and yowling that ensued was like a dagger through my heart. He scootched his burning hiney through the grass in a vain effort to find relief, and I plucked him up and ran into the bathroom with him. I ran cool water into the tub, dipped his poor little fire engine red bum into it, and began to gently soap it with Ivory. At first contact with the bath water, his eyes widened with alarm, and he did a pretty good job of shredding my forearms with his razor sharp baby claws, but he quickly relaxed as his discomfort eased. My parents returned from Loblaws just as I was cooing at my soggy little charge and dabbing Vaseline on his tushie. By then he was purring with gratitude.

The bigger challenge that day was comforting my dad, the paragon of all animal lovers, who felt terrible for leaving the offending substance out where it could cause one of our critters harm. From then on, he only ever kept solvents and the like in closed containers.

Now I Remember

Today, Curtis and I went golfing, and I was reminded why I love the sport so much. It's because of:

the fresh air
the mirth
the exhilaration of hitting a good tee shot
the joy of making a long putt
the fun of pairing up with an old duffer and his daughter
the greenness
the pleasure of searching for a golf ball in the bush, only to discover a tiny baby bunny
the anticipation of hamburgers grilled in the backyard after the round
the sheer enjoyment of time spent with the one you love in a beautiful, natural setting

Hospital Stories

Funny, the things that define your childhood. For me, it's a number of major surgeries that my mom had. Thankfully, none of them was life-threatening, and she always came through smellin like a rose.

When I was ten years old, my mom spent 5 months in hospital - the first couple, because they tried to relieve her excrutiaing back pain by subjecting her to traction. Yeah, there's a great idea: take someone whose worn and collapsed vertabrae are causing agony, and put her on the rack. Eggheads.



Anyway, when that didn't work (duh), she underwent major surgery to have some discs removed and her spine partially fused. The doctors had initially told my dad that she'd never walk again, that her pain would be alleviated, but she'd be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. I guess they forgot to tell her, because a year later she was a charter member of the Dutch Club's bowling team. Granted, she couldn't bend all the way down and lofted the ball so badly we'd yell, "Hey, Mom, throw overhand; ya get better distance!" (I think the pins fell over from the sheer vibration of the ball landing on the lane), but, nonetheless, she was on her feet.

The hardest part, for me, about her lengthy hospital stay, was that I wasn't allowed to see her. Visitors had to be at least 12 years old. Patients who were more ambulatory than my mom, would come down to the lounge to see their children, but my mom couldn't do that, bein all wired up to weights and all. Dad and my brother Fred would go, and bring me greetings from Mom, but after several months I thought they were scammin me. I believed she had died, and they just didn't want to tell me. One day I broke down and cried so hard that Dad said, "Okay, that's it: put your coat on," and he took me to the hospital. When the staff tried to stop me from entering the elevator, Dad said, "This little girl needs to see her mommy, and she's gonna see her mommy, so excuse me, but I'm takin her to my wife's room." Normally quiet and polite in public, there must have been a sternness in his tone that intimidated the woman, because she backed right off and let us go.

After her surgery, Mom was transferred to the Rehab Hospital, a marvellous facility that made extensive use of physiotherapy, especially in their swimming pool, to give my mom more mobility than she'd had in years. Their visiting policy was more relaxed, and I was able to accompany my dad and brother on visits.

Dad was different when Mom was hospitalized: more lenient, gentler, and softer spoken. Looking back, I believe he felt sorry for me, and was trying to compensate for Mom not being at home. He took me and whichever girlfriends I wanted, to the beach, stoically enduring our chattering and giggling, and doling out money for treats and jukeboxes. And he made the best fried potatoes ever, whenever we wanted him to.

When I was about 13, Mom landed in hospital again, with a kidney stone. Luckily for her, she didn't have the horrific pain (which I can testify cannot adequately be described in words), because it was lodged in her kidney by a little barb that was tearing at its lining and causing massive bleeding. The blood loss was the problem, and after several days of unsuccessful attempts to flush the stone out by having her drink gallons of fluids, she had to have another big operation to have the tiny but troublesome stone removed (nowadays, they'd just whip that sucker out with a scope). During the pre-op "flushing attempts", she felt fine, except for some fatigue, so she kibbitzed a lot with the other three patients with whom she shared her hospital room. One of her roommates didn't speak any English, and was perplexed by the menu selections being offered. My mother took it upon herself to explain "ham", by getting down on all fours, grunting like a pig, and slappin herself on the butt cheek. It was this incident, among others, that became the subject of the following poem, penned by MOI, at age 13, which Mom has kept all these years:

Dedicated to My Mother

In a hospital clean,
Lies a lady not lean,
With a gallon of juice by her bed;
Beside her another,
Who snores like my brother,
It's enough to make one lose one's head.

Across from my mother,
There lies yet another,
Who can't say in English a thing;
So to explain what a ham was,
They all, in pajamas,
Proceeded to mimic a pig.

Next to the other,
Lies the friend of my mother,
She tells me that Margaret's her name;
With pain pills she's hazy,
And acting real crazy,
Makes us all laugh 'til we're lame.

So the lady not lean,
In the hospital clean,
And the gallon of juice by her bed;
She doesn't feel jilted,
With her flowers all wilted;
She laughs 'long with Margaret instead.

Can ya believe it's taken this long for me to get published?

Another Rerun

A short while ago, when I was too busy to blog, but wanted to keep my page alive, I reposted a story from my archives. This morning, John reprieved one of his gems in an audioblog. Never one to pass up a good idea, I decided to copy him and revive one of my favourites.

Author's Note: I sound 12 years old. Why do I sound 12 years old? I thought maybe when I hit menopause, I'd get my grownup voice, but I guess not. Ugh.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik



The street on which I was raised was commonly referred to as Little Italy because, like my family, a lot of immigrants had made the move up from the rentals in the city's economically depressed core area, to their own homes on Morley Avenue. Our narrow shady street of former railroad homes, teetered on the edge of a more affluent neighbourhood, one that our eager parents hoped would give their children a better chance for success. Extended families crammed into small storey and a half homes and immediately began renovating. Most of the Italian men were tradesmen, and they were an industrious bunch. And musical.

Boy, they loved their accordions. Someone had to, I guess. On hot summer nights, they would sit on their front steps - swarthy hirsute men in snow white undershirts, who took pulls from jugs of homemade wine between boisterous choruses of Italian folk songs. They were exuberant and loud, their women were shrill, and they all talked at once.

I had box seats to a cultural cornucopia, dwelling as I did in a small house with just enough space to walk between it and the houses on either side. (There was no place to throw snow when you shovelled the walk during winter, and you could pretty much paint the trim on your house and your neighbour's at the same time.) Air conditioning was rare even in restaurants and stores during that era, so during the hot summers, you had to have the windows open to prevent suffocation. My bedroom window was catty-corner from our neighbours' livingroom window, and the livingroom was where Mr. Chudy, a Ukrainian immigrant, would hold band practices. POLKA band practices. And his band S.T.U.N.K.

Now I can enjoy a rollicking polka at a wedding as much as the next person, and I'm pretty darn good at it, too; but when you're eight years old and being tortured by bad, tuneless polka jam sessions, you quickly lose your appreciation for it as any kind of entertainment. And when Mr. Chudy's ensemble and the Italians across the street were whoopin it up simultaneously, I began to pray fervently for a sudden case of hearing loss. Many was the night I tossed and turned, slick from the heat, humidity and frustration. Sometimes I even resorted to sleeping on a camp cot in our musty half-basement, which spawned slime mold and daddy long legs the size of cocker spaniels.

There are a lot of people who take air conditioning in homes and vehicles for granted. I'm not one of them. And I have no problem with wearing a flannel nightgown and socks to protect me from the chill in July. As long as I don't have to hear my neighbour passin gas or gargling, it seems to me, to be a reasonable trade-off.

Boo

I have a thing about Halloween. There's something deliciously chilling about playing harmlessly with aspects of The Dark Side for one night of the year. It distresses me that the preachers at my church are so opposed to the whole thing - I mean, what's the harm in playin a little dressup? It's not like I'm gonna start mutilating chickens and worshipping the Devil or anything. I love my church and our clergy, but they need to lighten up a little. Last December, our Caribbean assistant priest told us to go home and "take our Santy Claus and put 'im in a box and close the lid." No way. I don't see why the religious aspects of Christmas and the mythical fun stuff have to be in direct opposition; in fact, they coexist quite peacably in my home. And I don't think God or His Number One Son object; They know exactly how I feel about Them.

Anyway, back to Halloween: I do firmly believe that it is supposed to be scary. To me, it's not about cloyingly cutesie Smurfs and My Little Ponies - uh uh. A couple of weeks before Oct. 31, my classroom looks like the Chamber of Horrors. And any neighbourhood kid who wants to collect one of my super duper goodie bags, has to pay the price with a wee quickening of the pulse.

I don't make my yard too spooky – at least not at the street edge of the lot, or the little ones will be too afraid to venture to my door. Yes, there are placards in the yard of witches and ghosts, rendered by the use of an overhead projector and poster paints, but they're quite cartoonish. Things get more ominous as they get closer to the front stoop - a gravestone with a hand breakin through the mound of dirt in front of it, fake cobwebs, rubber bats, a pretty horrible door covering, a rubber eyeball covering the doorknob, and a chilling sound effects audiotape.



When they get to the front door, it's no holds barred. I deliberately haven't oiled my front door for 20 years, and when I slowly open it, it creaks very eerily. Then I let them have a nice long look at whatever frightening props I have set up in the hallway, before I leap out from behind the door, shrieking and cackling in my witch getup.



One girl around 10 turned tail and sprinted down the street screaming, with me hot on her heels, tryin to give her a goodie bag. I chased her for several blocks. She kept looking over her shoulder with bulging eyes, screamin her head off; I finally managed to throw it and hit her in the back with it, and she retrieved it after I had headed back home and was about a block away from her.

But the most memorable trick or treater I ever had was a little fella about three years old. He was wearing a powder blue Care Bear costume that his mom had obviously made him. His dad had plunked him on my front stoop and stood back to watch me open the door. The kid stood there, paralysed, clutching his little plastic punkin before him, his startled blue eyes a match with his outfit, and his wet pink mouth in a perfect "o". He never moved or made a sound as I went through my act, nor even after I deposited a goodie bag into his punkin. He just stared. Then I heard a splashing sound, and realized that he was peeing a torrent right through his costume. His dad, laughing, swooped him up under his armpits and carried his son in front of him, the boy still frozen in the same position.

Sigh. I love Halloween.

Frost Warning

I'm not kidding. Looks like I'm gonna have to cover my begonias and tomato plants tonight. I'm really fed up with this frigid weather, which forecasters say will continue for another week. We're supposed to get normal summer temperatures next week.

We had better.

The good news is, I had sushi for lunch. And guess what, guys? I found Nemo.

Heh heh.

Coming Up For Air

I finished marking all my exams and tabulating, recording and submitting the marks. Now I will have to notify the kids who failed my grade 11 course (not a fun part of my job) and do a great deal of preparation for the fall. I'm teaching a new course (it might as well be new, as it has changed completely since I last taught it), so I have a lot to do to get that ready.

For those who are interested, Wanda has responded to my June 16 post, which I will leave up for a couple more days before I delete it so that we can put all that ugliness behind us.

I didn't want to pee on anyone's parade, so I kept my thoughts to myself when a grade 12 student, elated that he'd finished writing his last high school exam, shouted over and over again, "I'M FREE!"

If he only knew.

Dear Daddy,

Happy Father's Day. I miss you.

Love always,
your little girl

Me

Wanda directed readers over to Otto, where you can find the link to this nifty little face generator. Results in a pretty accurate resemblance (if you discount the warts and scars heh heh)....

Quick Time-out to Gloat

The day before yesterday, a parcel arrived from my editor, with a cheque and eight copies of the magazine with "Aquatorture" in it. She did hardly any edits, running it pretty much how I wrote it.

Also in my mailbox was notification that my poem, "Goodbye" is being published in another anthology.

My mom's response to all this (because it doesn't matter how old you are, you still tell your mama when you do somethin praiseworthy)? "Oh boy, before you know it, you're gonna be in the newspaper." Sigh.

Gotta jet - time for exam supervision.

Forget-Me-Not

I'm swamped by a huge pile of exams to mark, and will be busy tackling them for the next few days. So, unless I take a break to read a few favourites from time to time, you won't see much of me the next few days.

Save a spot for me.

Dutch Water Torture



I read with respect and shame, flax's accounts of the loving care she takes of her mother, who is afflicted with Alzheimer's, and Leslie's heartfelt advocacy of human rights for seniors. In comments, others describe families for whom caring for their elders is a natural course of events.

I admire all of this, and I believe in the rightness of it, with all my heart. But I could never take my mother into my home, even if I had the time; and therein lies my shame.

I'm not makin excuses, but perhaps if I give you just a tiny glimpse of what she's like to deal with, you'll forgive me.

My mother uses techniques akin to Chinese water torture to get what she wants. She nags and natters and bugs about something until she finally erodes your resistance (or busy schedule, or sanity, or common sense, or whatever is preventing her from gettin her way RIGHT NOW). Drip drip drip.

I've already blogged about the horrors of shopping for a dress for my mom. Don't get me wrong; I know that some of her behaviour is caused by confusion, by synapses that are misfiring or rusted due to age; but what flusters me is her obstreperous insistence that she's right, and her tendency to be abusive. Here's an illustration of why, if she lived with me, I might do her harm:

For about six months last year, every time I brought Mom her groceries, she'd pull a Visa credit receipt out of her wallet and declare that she'd better hurry up and spend it before it expired. No, Mom, I'd explain, every freakin time, that's not a gift certificate or a voucher; it's just a statement that shows that your Visa account was credited for that pantsuit you returned to Sears catalogue. Remember? The pantsuit I picked up and exchanged for you three times before you decided that you "didn't want the da_n thing"?

Yes, but she'd better order something else soon, or that piece of paper wouldn't be any good any more.

It's no good NOW, I'd say, ready to snatch myself bald with exasperation. Tear it up and throw it out.

Yeah, right, she'd scoff. Throw it out? Throw it out? How would you like me to take $90 out of your wallet and tear it up and throw it out? What do you think, that I'm made of money?

But it isn't worth any money, I'd growl between clenched teeth, tryin to keep my voice down. And I'd try to explain, AGAIN, how her Visa account had been credited months ago for that purchase.

But she didn't get any money back. And it didn't show in her bank book.

Of course you didn't get money: you were simply credited so that the refund cancelled out the purchase amount. You don't profit from that; you break even. And of course it didn't show in your bank book; your bank book records your chequing account transactions, not your Visa ones.

Well, she'd say (lookin at me like I was an idiot), I'm not throwin this out. Back into her wallet it would go. And on my next visit, she'd pull it out and say, I'd better hurry up and order something from Sears with this before it's no good.

So one day during my summer holiday, I offered to take Mom shopping at Sears. They had a terrific sale on women's casual wear, and she was still, at 87, a clothes horse. Taking her shopping is not easy: Sears has only one or two wheelchairs and they're rarely available, so I had to lug hers in and out of the trunk of my little car.

Anyway, she found mounds of tops and pants that she liked, and after a thousand trips back and forth to the fitting room for her, I was able to help her put together numerous mix and match outfits. When I helped her dress for the final time, she was a happy camper...until the teenage cashier rang up her purchases.

That's when Mom, with a triumphant smile, handed the girl her Visa credit receipt. The girl stared at it, then Mom, then me, in an uncomprehending way. I shrugged and let the poor young thing try to explain to my mother, what I had aged 10 years vainly trying to: that this was a non-negotiable receipt.

Yeah, it's a receipt, my mom said shrilly: I got it for returning a pantsuit to the catalogue. She dug out a twenty dollar bill and waited impatiently to "pay the difference" for her purchases.

I stood by helplessly as Mom, convinced that she was being cheated, demanded that the girl phone catalogue sales to have them verify her refund (they did), then wound herself up into a full blown tantrum, flinging her purchases at the bewildered clerk and pounding her fist on the counter.

I'm not payin for this twice! I don't want it then! You can keep it! And I'm never shopping here again! You steal from people!

When she had winded herself, I wheeled her away from the till and went back to apologize to the cashier. I asked her to hold the items until I could straighten things out. Then I wheeled Momzilla to my car, wrestled the wheelchair into the trunk, and took her to her bank. Someone was gonna end this mess once and for all, and I figured the bank teller was the one for the job.

I endured her ranting all the way to the bank, and it's a blessing that drivin a stick shift requires two hands, or I might have strangled her. I muscled the wheelchair out again, pushed her to the special seniors counter, and went outside to fill my lungs with exhaust fumes. At this point, a slow death was better than none.

When we left the bank, Mom was all sweetness and light. Silly her; that's what happens when you get old. Don't get old, Ellen. (Don't worry, Mom, you'll have me hackin at my wrists long before I get the chance.) My back was sore from manoeuvering the wheelchair in and out of my car, but I wanted Mom to make amends with the young cashier for her bad behaviour. Back to Sears we went. Out came the wheelchair again.

The sales clerk fairly cringed when Mom rolled up; I think the girl was more alarmed by my mom's demeanour than ever: giggles and dimples, tryin to be cute and charming, coyly using her age as an excuse for her earlier boorishness. Her purchases were rung up and paid for without incident.

On the way out of Sears, Mom saw another top she liked. I loaded her and her chair into the car and ran back to make the purchase for her. Let her bark at the people as they walked by.

After I had deposited her, her 10 ton wheelchair, and her new clothing in her apartment, I drove home, too exhausted to even cry. The phone was ringin as I stepped into the house; it was Mom, chattering excitedly about her new outfits. She had edited all of her unpleasantness from her memory of the day. Of course, she still wasn't convinced that the girl at the bank knew what she was talking about. She'd never shop through Sears catalogue again.

Drip drip drip.

Re-Run

I first posted the following story on June 24 of last year, but I've put it here again, because I'm just too busy to write at the moment, and I don't want to leave my page completely inactive. Besides, there are few of you who've read it, and even fewer who've probably dug your way through my archives. So here it is again....

Galoshes

Little kids back in the stone age when I was a little kid, all wore the same kind of boots in the winter: warmly lined brown galoshes with fold-over, clip-like buckles that clicked when you walked. I guess because their thick treads tracked slush and muck onto the floors, we were instructed by our teachers to remove them outside of the classroom and set them neatly against the hallroom wall. Twenty-some pairs of identical galoshes can make it pretty difficult to identify your own, especially in the mad rush to make the most of your twenty minute outdoor recess, so, in the interest of efficiency (and tidiness, which appealed to the obsessive-compulsiveness I was already exhibiting in grade two), we each carried a wooden clothespeg with our name neatly printed on it, to clip our pair together. Some of us - yours truly included - took great pride in decorating our clothespeg to make it distinctive and stylish.....as stylish as a clothespeg on a pair of homely galoshes can be, that is.

I made the long trek to school every day with a neighbourhood classmate, Diana Hamblin. Yes, I know, all of us geezers always say we had a long way to go to school, but I really really did. We were often sidetracked - sometimes because of deep snow and slippery conditions, sometimes because we found playin on the snowbanks created by the street plows just too tantalizing to resist - and so Diana and I would often arrive during opening exercises. Our tardiness meant that all the choicest spots for galoshes were already taken, and it was a serious breach of etiquette to move someone else's galoshes and take his or her spot.

One day, as attendance was being taken, Diana and I scampered into the building, whispering, and saw that there was really only one desirable parking space left for our galoshes. The only other spaces were behind the door to the nurse's office. Well, THAT wouldn't do, because any time the door opened, it would knock your galoshes awry! (Funny the things grade two kids value.) Bein the more nimble of the two of us, I dove for the good spot and placed my galoshes neatly into it. Diana didn't like that, and she did the unthinkable: she moved my galoshes to a spot behind the nurse's door and placed her own pair in the spot I had rightfully claimed. As "Oh Canada" began to play over the p.a. system, I stormed over and switched the position of our two pairs of galoshes. Diana grabbed my pair and hurled them across the hallway and moved hers into my spot again. I returned the favour. Then Diana KICKED my pair and - say it isn't so! - BROKE MY CLOTHESPEG. This was war!

I have never been a violent person, but a jury of my peers would have exonerated me for what I did next, as an act of justifiable vigilante rage for Diana's heinous crime of clothespegicide: I popped her one, right on her sensitive nose. I say sensitive, because Diana Hamblin would get nosebleeds on the seesaw, nosebleeds on the swing, nosebleeds on the merry-go-round, nosebleeds on the top of an anthill. She was always talkin about her adenoids and wearin packing up her shnoz and haulin bloody strings out of her nostrils - YUK.

Anyway, Diana kicked up a fuss as if I had cold-cocked her with the business end of a shovel. The innocent piping voices of my classmates came to an abrupt hault, and as the anthem came to a flourishing finish, my classroom door flew open and Mrs. Belyea (we would call her Mrs. Bellyache behind her back, giggling insanely) emerged to see what all the ruckus was about. Behind her all the other kids craned and rubbernecked. To evade questioning, I did the only thing I could think of: I bent over the water fountain and started guzzlin like mad. Diana was too busy howlin to report my crime, and I kept gulping water, holdin my finger up to Mrs. Belyea in a "just a minute please" gesture. I think I drank about forty gallons before I felt I would burst, and finally turned to face my inevitable interrogation. As I did so I glanced at Diana. Her face was vermillion, there was a trickle of blood down her chin, and her mouth was open so wide as she wailed, that I could see that little thing hangin down in the back of her throat. It was vibrating. Somehow, that struck me as hilarious and I started to snicker, then chortle, then giggle, then guffaw. That made Diana bawl even harder, which made me laugh even harder.

I don't recall what happened after that. All I know is that Diana never again messed with my galoshes. And she got her nose cauterized.

Buried in Paperwork

Nothing brilliant, side-splitting or erudite to post today, folks. Just a wee bit swamped by marking, planning and calculating. Tis the season.

If you don't hear from me in 24 hours, send chocolate.

Heck, send chocolate, anyway.

Inukshuk

The Inukshuk (pronounced IN-OOK-SHOOK) meaning "in the image of man", are magnificent lifelike figures of stone which were erected by the Inuit throughout the Millennia. They stand along Canada's most northern shores, and are unique to the Canadian arctic. As we move into the third Millennium, they also stand as eternal symbols of leadership, encouraging the importance of friendship, and reminding us of our dependence on one another.

These meaningful messengers were used as directional markers on the treeless horizon guiding those who followed by pointing the way back to the Arctic Ocean. As such, they were a tool for survival, and a tangible symbol of communication - a universal means of voicing guidance and leadership.

The efforts of an entire group were required to build these massive stone sculptures. Each stone is a separate entity, each supports, and is supported by, the one above and the one below it. The strength of an Inukshuk lies in its unity.

The Inukshuk are the product of cooperation, revealing to each of us that as good as our individual efforts may be, together we can achieve even greater success.

The significance of an Inukshuk comes from its meaning as a whole. The stones, which make up the Inukshuk, are secured through balance. They are chosen for how well they fit together.

Inukshuk are symbols of the human spirit. They recognize our ability to succeed with others, where we would fail alone. Inukshuk serve as a reminder of the responsibility to invest our efforts today, towards building a better tomorrow.

There is a site on the internet that has been for a couple of years, my Inukshuk, for it is a place built and sustained by the collective nurturing, support and collaboration of all of the community's members. Like the stones that formed the original Inuit Inukshuk, the members of CSOLN (Cancer Survivors Online Now) collaborate to support everyone at the site; they showed me the way, guiding me as I navigated the cancer experience.

Some of my friends were taken by the Monster, but I feel their presence still, and I am buoyed up by their courage and gusto for life. The ones who remain to carry on the fight are lead by the site managers, Ann and Bill Baldwin, two angels disguised as humans. They keep the site warm and protected from spammers, trolls and snake oil salesmen.

Last year on a holiday in Lake of the Woods, Curtis and I carefully chose the rocks we wanted to build our own little Inukshuk. It stands in our front flower garden as a symbol and tribute to all my wonderful friends at CSOLN.

Impulse Shopping

The weather here has been lousy, and although we didn't get the torrential downpour and thunder that was forecast for the entire weekend, it has been cloudy and terribly windy - windy enough to drag our newly repainted patio furniture down our concrete driveway and into our neighbours' yards. These are the kinds of conditions that make me want to spend money. Don't ask me to explain the correlation between gale-force winds and a shopping frenzy; it just is.

I would have liked to go to Grand Forks to indulge in some cross-border spending, but fought the urge, what with a liter of gasoline nearing the cost of the Hope Diamond. Instead, Curtis and I went to THE MAN PLACE with the intention of buying a package of ceiling tiles. They cost about 7 bucks, but we ended up spending over $730.

In addition to the tiles, we bought a measuring tape, the most amazing cast iron table/candleholder thing for the patio, and the mother of all gas barbecues. I mean, this thing is Flintstone-sized; you could cook an entire mammoth on it, while preparing a nice vat o' cream sauce on the side burner and a keg of salad on the side counter. It has drawers and ledges and two hinged doors which can house a couple of propane tanks and a family of three. This baby is BIG, and all shiny, and it was on sale, and we just had to have it. The thermometer gauge goes up to 800 degrees, so we can make a little extra income on the side smelting steel if we are so inclined. What increased our lust for this uberbarby, was when the Home Depot guy said they'd put it together for us (the assembly instructions are 10 pages long) for free up until Father's Day. Well then, of course, I had to buy a $35 deluxe cover to protect it - at least until we can build an extension onto the garage for it.

It'll be ready on Tuesday, and Curtis will pick it up on his way home from work. What will our inaugural meal be? Well, I have these two bacon-wrapped filet mignons in the freezer, which are about 3 inches in diameter. Should take about 1.8 seconds to flame-broil those puppies.

I can hardly wait.

Somebody, Anybody, Please, Just Say No



Some ideas are just bad. You can tell by just looking at, or even hearing about some of them, that they're dumb.

Whose brainstorm was it, for example, to run a razor sharp metal track for a shower enclosure, along the top of a bathtub? I can't be the only person to make the ugly discovery that, should you perch there to towel off, the edges have an effect approximate to that of a bologna slicer on your soft warm bottom.

And why are so many kitchen faucet manufacturers convinced that separate hot and cold taps are a good idea? Clearly, these designers have never faced the challenge of achieving a lukewarm water temperature to wipe up the spill from the potatoes boiling over - the pot of potatoes you grabbed with one of the only two hands you have. Have these visionaries even been inside a fully functioning kitchen?

I'd like to have a word or two with the people who developed my toothpaste, which collects and hardens like concrete in the drain of my bathroom sink. I can't think of an alternative place to swish and spit, as the houses are close together on my street, and my neighbours would likely complain if I re-stuccoed their house with Aquafresh.

Sometimes bad ideas come from unexpected sources. We mistakenly assume that, if a person has come up with a succession of winners before, that s/he will always continue to do so. Not necessarily. Among the worst television programs of all time, was the brainchild of one of the medium's most gifted writer/producers. COP ROCK. Okay, so Bochco had catapulted NBC's ratings with "L.A. Law", "NYPD Blue" and "Hill Street Blues"; but a musical police drama? Drug lords bursting into ballad as they're being cuffed and frisked? A jury morphing into a choir - robes and all - and breaking into a spiritual hymn? Come on, people, wasn't there anyone in the board room sober enough to clap Stephen on the back and say, "Stevie, baby, you know I love ya, but this'll never fly. Besides, your wife Barbara sings like a rusty gate."

There are a lot of things that never should have made it past the drawing board, like hair removal appliances that rip follicles out by the roots, toy marching band sets, shoe-shaped rawhide dog treats, and rap music.

But maybe I'm just cranky.

Woo Hoo

Okay, if I ever drink about a half dozen Cuervo Gold margaritas in a row, I might be persuaded to put on a cheerleader's outfit, and I'd be lucky to look this good...

Not much time to blog today, my dear handful of semi-regular readers. Had a mound of marking to take care of, and received an email from my editor requesting an invoice for my "Aquatorture" story, which she has published in the June issue of Our World magazine. She's considering using three more of the stories I've already sent her, but she asked for more; so I'm labouring away doing edits.

I don't think the thrill of this will ever wear off for me.

Life is gooooooooood.

The Wedgie to End All Wedgies


a more modern version of the ride, now called the Gravitron, in which the walls slide up away from the floor

I thought I'd never encounter a carnival ride that truly terrified me so much, that I wouldn't go on it again....until The Rotor. The Rotor was an enormous spinning drum whose centrifugal force would keep riders plastered to its interior wall, even when its operator slowly lowered the floor about twenty feet below them. The ride had live microphones hooked up, so that the screams of its "passengers" would attract passersby on the midway who could not see what was going on inside it.

Initially, you'd slide down the wall a bit, but if you spread out your arms and legs, you'd stay put. Trouble was, my hot pants outfit (they were all the rage back then, and I was wearing a really cute top and shorts set that day) were givin me an uncomfortable wedgie, so when I sought to pluck the bunching cotton from between my buns, I slid alarmingly farther down the wall. By now, my shorts were all but disappearing, and my desperation to correct that - with both hands and with knees pressed primly together, caused me to slide down several feet below everyone else. That's when I began to panic.

I was shrieking and crying, in real danger of losing my innocence, and pleading with the operator of the ride to raise the floor and let me off. He gazed down dispassionately from his cage and continued to lower the floor. My screams intensified, and I attempted to crabwalk down to the floor, while imploring him to just stop the ride long enough for me to escape it. Finally, he smiled and nodded, and began to raise the floor gradually. I scrabbled towards it, gibbering, "Thankyouthankyouthankyou, ohthankyouthankyouthankyou," and just as I grazed the floor with my outstretched big toe, the SOB did the unthinkable: he dropped the floor again.

Some thirty years later, I'm still doin penance for the names I called him, anyone who looked like him, his mom, his dog, and his neighbours. I mean, I lost it. And everyone on the midway heard me. A huge crowd gathered around the upper rim of The Rotor to get a look at the screaming banshee inside it. I was good for business.

The ride operator was less than appreciative of that: he stopped the ride and kicked me off, forbidding me to ever return.

And I haven't, to this day.

Miracles and Bells


Prior to our marriage, Curtis and I planned to spend the summer of 2001 together, as kind of a marital trial run. I guess we wanted to assure ourselves (and concerned loved ones) that the heat of our long-distance relationship would not extinguish when we finally were together permanently. Plus, I needed to see how ably I would climatize to the relative isolation of country living.

We purchased airplane tickets for Curtis to come visit and spend time with my family for a week starting July 17, then for both of us to fly down to West Virginia together, and finally for me to fly back home at the end of August before school resumed. I made arrangements for my house and two cats to be cared for by a trusted neighbour.

One of the highlights of my visit was to be attending Curtis' huge family reunion, an annual event that is held on family land at the centre of which stands the old one room schoolhouse where many of the older relatives had been educated. Around that little building is the gathering place for the big meal. Curtis owns the original school hand bell, and since I am a teacher, it was to be my job that day, to ring it to summon everyone to dinner.

God had other plans for us. On July 6, a severe bladder infection alerted ER surgeons to a much more serious problem: advanced kidney cancer. Six days later, I had my left kidney and renal vein removed. My prognosis switched, miraculously, from very bleak to total remission. But now began the long and difficult recovery from a traumatic, invasive surgery.

And here is yet another miracle: The day of Curtis' arrival - a date we had set months earlier when we had no inkling of the health crisis to come - was the day I would be discharged from hospital. My best friend Marina picked Curtis up from the airport, swung by the hospital to get me, and drove us home. I was so weak, I don't know how I would have managed without Curtis' gentle care, especially when post-op complications necessitated two trips to the ER that week.

It was during his visit that Curtis proposed a complete turnabout in our plans: that of him emigrating to Canada, instead of me to the US. Of course, considering the health care benefits up here, my job and my dependent elderly mother, it made perfect sense; but I wept with grief over the beauty of West Virginia that we would both forego. We immediately put a stop to my immigration process, and when we announced our change of plans to my family, that was a miracle in their eyes. My mom kissed Curtis' hands with gratitude.

Putting Curtis onto a plane that would carry him 1500 miles away was very difficult. Our summer plans had been dashed, and we would be lonely for each other, but I was A.L.I.V.E., and it looked like I would be for some time yet, having miraculously overcome a deadly malignancy. I focused on regaining my strength with a new goal in mind: a two week visit to Curtis in the fall, during the latter part of my convalescence, before I returned to teaching.

One morning I saw the closest and most vivid rainbow I've ever seen in my life. I waited breathlessly all day for Curtis to get home from work so I could tell him how deeply it had infused me with a feeling of hope and rebirth. Turns out he had a miracle of his own to relate, for at the precise moment that I was marvelling at my rainbow, he had gazed out his kitchen window to witness the birth of a fawn. We were convinced these were signs from above, and that we were meant to see and understand them.

The tragic events of 9/11 unfolding live before my eyes as I lay in my bed, caused me to suffer survivor guilt: Why had I been spared, when so many innocent souls had not? I became more determined than ever to actively pursue the joy of simply breathing in and out every day. A big part of this was to plan a future with my hillbilly. The airline, still reeling from shock and compassion, graciously refunded my unused tickets in full, so I was able to rebook for my fall visit.

Autumn in West Virginia is nothing short of miraculous. The natural surroundings in that place that is truly "Almost Heaven" were therapeutic for me. I spent the daytime hours of the week that Curtis had to work, cleaning and cooking; and we had a birthday party for him on Oct. 9. I felt myself getting stronger every day, and I had never been happier.

I left for home after two weeks with a beautiful engagement ring on my finger. The departures got more agonizing each time. We would have to endure only one more, on New Years Eve day, after Curtis had flown up and helped me host a blissful Christmas celebration with my family. On an impulse, we eloped on Dec. 28, promising to have a church ceremony as soon as we could.

We kept that promise on Jan. 10 of this year, after we had recovered from the staggering expenses of the immigration process. We are happy and more in love every day.

This afternoon I attended a very nice reception to which I'd been invited by my school board trustees. Among the honourees were retiring teachers and those of us who've given 25 years of service to the profession. I was given a gleaming engraved school hand bell. It will stand proudly on top of the hutch beside Curtis' old one room schoolhouse bell, and both of them will serve as symbols of the miracles that have blessed us.

X-Rated Academia

In pursuit of an Arts degree (1972-75), I took a half course in Folklore and Mythology. We were assigned a paper that was to include a collection of material to be gleaned only by oral tradition. And we had to hand in an audiotape to prove the authenticity of our sources. The professor cited skipping songs, jokes, clapping rhymes and campfire ghost stories as examples of what she was looking for. I wanted to do something original, and, inspired by Gordon Lightfoot’s tragic song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” I got this stupid idea to interview navy veterans to collect songs about ships, naval battles, shipwrecks and sinkings.

I say “stupid,” but “naïve” would be a better word for it, I guess. I had no idea of the logistics involved. Where, for example, could I find a concentration of career navy personnel, livin right smack dab in the middle of the Canadian prairie? Not to be discouraged, I determinedly contacted HMCS Chippewa to gain access to their reserve trainees. I also wrote a letter to the administration of Deer Lodge (veterans’) Hospital, where I figured a number of naval retirees or war injured might still reside or go for treatment.

The machinations involved in trying to weave my way through bureaucratic red tape, were staggering. Six weeks and letter after letter later, I had made very little progress. The deadline for my paper was fast approaching; I was in a panic.

I never did make it “on board” HMCS Chippewa, but I did finally manage to arrange a hospital interview with a senile old codger who called me filthy names and flung his bedpan at me. I cried all the way home on the bus.

What was I to do? Salvation came in the form of a Saturday night party, which I learned would be attended by a half dozen young naval cadets. Armed with my cassette recorder, I watched as the guys’ inhibitions melted away with every beer they consumed; then shyly asked them to sing a ditty or two. Reluctant at first, they soon began to fight for the microphone, bellowing out one raunchy song after another – each one dirtier and more profane than the one before it. I went home with a cassette tape filled with disgusting songs. My paper was due in two days; now what?

I did the only thing I could think to do: I changed my topic to “Bawdy Songs,” scampered to my parents’ house, persuaded my mom to sing a mildly off-colour song with which she had entertained me when I was a kid; and pulled an all-nighter transcribing obscene lyrics. Hot with shame and embarrassment, I slipped my project on Monday morning to the bottom of the pile on the professor’s desk. How would she respond? Would she applaud its originality (she was an avant-garde hippie type), or have me expelled from the university? For the couple of weeks it took to get our papers back, I could not look her in the eyes. I could not have predicted the outcome.

She gave me an A+. And asked for a copy of the tape. She even played the tape segment with my mom’s song for the class:

Dutch Lyrics:
Dar was een vogeltje,
Die beestje kond niet kakken;
Dar zat een viertje an zijn poopertje gebakken.
Toen riept hij, “Nijf, nijf, nijf!”
Toen riept hij, “Nijf!
Dar zit een viertje an mijn poopertje geklijfd!”

Rough Translation:
There was a birdie,
And that little critter couldn’t poop;
There was a little feather pasted to his hiney.
He called out, “Nephew, nephew, nephew!”
He called out, “Nephew!
There’s a little feather stuck to my hiney!”

Note: This is my voice singing the song; I let my prof keep the original tape. My mom taught me never to own any property that might cause scandal if discovered upon my demise.

'Twas a Rough Night



These are Macbeth's words in response to the violent weather on the night that a regicide has been committed - an act for which, unbeknownst to his hearers at the time, he himself is responsible. The Elizabethans, like many people throughout history, believed in "sympathetic magic" - that nature often mirrored human behaviour: If there was war or discord among people, the weather would be unsettled in response. It's a notion that moviemakers and horror fiction writers have borrowed heavily: Ever noticed how often stormy weather is used to set a spooky mood?

Of course, Macbeth is making an oblique reference to the torment of his guilt, the blood he feels he cannot wash from his murderous hands. I'm afraid to think of what aberrant human behaviour might be responsible for the unruliness of this night during which I sit tappin away at my keyboard instead of sleeping.

To say that my husband Curtis is a heavy sleeper is putting it mildly: If a wrecking ball smashed through our bedroom window, splattering me against the dresser mirror, I doubt he'd even stir. In fact, my dying cries for help would be drowned out by his 1000 decibel snoring, I'm sure. The man can open and close drawers. But even he, and our tabby cat Milo, who was curled up on my pillow above my head, started when the wind blew our blinds and then sucked them with a loud smash into the window.

The rain has come down in torrents, accompanied by a cacophany of thunder and a pretty spectacular show of lightning. The canopy on the patio swing beneath our window overflowed and released such a gush of rainwater that I was inspired to get up and take a sympathy pee. Our wind chimes (yes, apologies to Leslie, we have wind chimes, but at least they're tuned, unlike our neighbours', which clang tinnily like kitchen utensils) are raising a clamour that is matched only by the howling in my arthritic knees.

Our little calico Persian, Monkey, usually maintains her position on Curtis as he tosses and turns, with the skill of a California surfer, but even she gave up on his restless trampoline act and deigned to lie on me instead. She even purred and allowed me to pet her, although to her, I am little more than a surface. She has barely tolerated me since she moved up here with Curtis and took over the household, allowing me to feed Her Ladyship, returning my attempts to win her over with disdainful glares and yowls of protest. Of course, she chose to lie on the knee that is aching like a bad tooth, and I, grateful for her rare gift of "affection," lay there suffering for as long as I could bear it.

Ah well, only another hour and a half, and then it's time to get ready to take it all out on a hundred or so unsuspecting teenagers.

My Early Life of Crime

It was my older brother Fred who launched me on my youthful crime spree; had it not been for him, I never would have tasted the forbidden fruit that I learned to covet, crave, and thieve by the bushel.

Crabapples. Other people's crabapples. On the other sides of neighbourhood fences there was such bounty. Neglected bounty. Unappreciated bounty. Why shouldn't we have them and enjoy them, when they were just hanging there, waiting for the birds to pillage them, or to fall to the ground and rot?

We often did knock on the crabapple owners' doors and ask politely if we could pick some. Most people said yes, and we were careful not to make such pigs of ourselves that they wouldn't allow us to return to pick again. If they said no, we'd pick them out of spite. If they weren't home, we'd take that as a yes and pick em anyway. My brother Fred would boost me up into the higher branches to get the bigger apples; that way, if we were discovered, he could make a fast getaway, and I would take all the heat.

We learned to dress for crabapple stealing: layers of clothing with lots of pockets and hoods. I even wore one of Mom's aprons so I could create a big pouch for my booty. Our mom pretended not to know where the apples came from; it was convenient for her to "assume" that all our picking was legit. Hey, there was free applesauce and pie in it; who was she to quibble with that?

I loved the applesauce from the crabs. Mom had this oval glass dish with raised bumps in the centre and a trough surrounding them; you peeled the apples and scraped them along the bumps, and the resulting pulp collected in the moat part. Mmmmmmm.

As much as I loved crabapples, they sometimes didn't like me so much: they tended to give me abdominal cramps and then the scoots. But did that stop me from pinchin them and then overindulging in them? Not on your life.

Last summer, Curtis and I discovered a huge tree loaded with large tangy crabapples, beside a tee box on one of our favourite golf courses. We have definite plans to load a cooler onto our power cart and load up this summer. Gonna make us some crabapple jelly, I am.

I'll even give some to Fred and Mom.

I Certainly Say "Ah" and "Um" a Lot, Sheesh

Colouring Outside the Lines


Let's face it: I'm a square peg. I always have been, and it doesn't look like I'm ever gonna conform to what people expect me to be. Over the years, I've taken a number of those personality tests, and no matter what kind of mood I'm in at the time, the results always turn out pretty much the same: I'm an anomaly, ending up statistically in the smallest population group. I'm just not that easy to pigeonhole because I'm a conglomeration of incongruent personality traits.

I'm an extrovert: no surprise there. But I am also very shy, and I tend to be reserved and private when it comes to certain aspects of my personal life. I'm no prude, but you will never get me to speak about my sex life, no matter how close we are.

I'm a pacifist, kind of a survivor of the flower power era; yet I enjoy boxing, bullriding and hockey fights.

The inconsistencies go on and on: If my computer takes longer than a second to load a page, or if I can't get the lid off of a jar, I'll throw a hissy fit; yet I can work out the knots in a tangled chain, or cross-stitch the teeniest picture, with the patience of Job.

Some people assume that if you're creative or artistic, you are disorganized and spontaneous ("abstract random"). Not this cookie: I write every day (pretty creative, huh?), and my publishable stories are filed alphabetically by title on index cards - word count and acceptance and rejection dates and sources recorded (anal to the larynx, that's me). Random? I'd plan a fart, given the opportunity. I am the implausible: abstract concrete.

I don't even think the way I'm "supposed to." In university, I infuriated friends studying psychology who had to conduct tests on peers, in order to prove their predetermined outcomes. I screwed up their data, because I didn't draw the conclusions I was expected to; nor did I arrive at them progressively, in the "predictable order." It's like I fail to see the obvious, and instead jump all over the place, lookin for subtext, symbolism, complexity - even where none exists. Maybe that's why I'm so sensitive. I fall apart emotionally when someone deliberately hurts me; yet - and here it is again - my response to that hurtful action will be cool, efficient and calm.

I've surprised my family, close friends, and even myself in this regard. "Poor, soft-hearted Ellen;" they've predicted, "she'll never be able to handle this." And then I do, no big deal. No brag, just fact.

It's not that I'm a moody person; I'm not. I have moods, sure, but generally, I'm a pretty even-tempered, cheerful woman. But I do confound people at times. It's my way, and I doubt if I can do too much to fix it, although I promise I'll try. I'm just bein me.

Whoever that is.

The term "multi-tasking" has become very vogue, of late. I tend to call it "goin nuts" from having to do too many things at the same time. It's a state in which I have found myself many times during my twenty-five years as a public school teacher.

I'm not one of those who can handle multiple stressors clashing simultaneously, with cool calm. Not me. I tend to get harried, flush-faced and easily confused. And my rate of error goes wayyyyy up, examples of which I'm sure will end up in some former students' blogs, should they ever take up the hobby. Lemme see if I can beat em to the punch....

At one point several years ago, I was juggling a very busy schedule: coaching volleyball, fund-raising for new uniforms for my team, collecting entry fees for a tournament I was organizing, raffling off prizes to raise money for Christmas food hampers and gifts for needy families, and collecting money from my drama and English students for a Royal Winnipeg Ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet. Consequently, I had about eight envelopes of money and tickets of various kinds, filed in my bulging purse. Kids were lined up six deep at my desk and I was collecting and dispensing as hurriedly as I could, glancing up just long enough to identify each student. One boy, a strong student and talented actor named Dale, handed me his money and, head buried in my purse for the next retrieval, I thrust at him, what I believed to be his ticket to the ballet.

Dale did not take the ticket from my hand. Without looking up at him, I wagged it at him, my arm still outstretched while I dug through the envelopes. He still didn't take it. Why wouldn't he take it? Flustered, I looked up to see that what I was wavin in his face was a mini-pad.

That's when I realized I needed to slow down a little.

Taking the Bully By the Horns

It's funny how the world, and everything in it, seemed so impossibly huge when we were kids. Your best friend could move to the suburbs and, after an initial flurry of letter-writing, you might never see or hear from one another again. You didn't have your own cel phone, like half of my students do, you were too young to drive, and even too young to take two buses across town to visit.

Nowadays, you can converse regularly with people all over the planet, with the click of a mouse. You'd think this would bring us all together, into one warm, sharing, caring community, wouldn't you?

For some of us, yes. Regrettably, some people use the media at their fingertips to spew hatred, to attack, to malign, even to threaten. And interestingly, the ones who most adamantly proclaim their right to freedom of speech, are the ones least tolerant to those who dare to disagree with them.

I have a theory, and it is this: Some people are not comfortable with the fact that, in cyberspace, the physical boundaries between peoples of the world are removed. This makes them feel threatened and vulnerable, so they erect emotional ones, dividing themselves into ideological camps, separating their school of opinion from others with verbal barbed wire.

Oh, it's easy enough to avoid these unhappy people: delete and block, and refrain from torturing yourself by reading their poisonous spoutings.

Just makes me sad for them, is all. It hasta suck to be them.