Wedding Bells



'Tis the season for weddings. Used to be, you could pretty much count on the traditional trappings: a pedestrian meal of bland chicken with a dollop of unidentifiable sauce, followed by a nice sentimental toast to the bride, some good-natured fun poked at the groom, thank you's, and then dancing and booze. I've noticed over the past couple of years or so that the tide and the climate of weddings have changed….

For one thing, the speeches are never-ending, and they feature gimmicks like PowerPoint presentations with hundreds of photos of the happy couple in various stages of drunken debauchery with their friends. I suspect that, because more and more couples are insisting upon making their own wedding preparations, without the benefit of their wiser elders' input, the content and tone of the speeches have become better suited for an Animal House frat party than a gathering with parents, uncles and aunts, grandparents, and friends of the aforementioned. Recently, at one such wedding reception, some guests left in disgust midway through the speeches. One female wedding guest fell dead asleep, many others shifted restlessly in their seats and some finally risked breaking the rules of wedding etiquette and escaped the ballroom for, oh, I don't know, maybe a couple dozen games of chess or something. And through it all, an elderly, hearing-impaired guest at my table kept hollering at me, "I can't hear a word they're saying," to the point that I couldn't either; then she was so mad at the world because she couldn't decipher what to her was endless mumbling, she petulantly refused to toast the bride. I swear I could feel my hair grow. All I know is they saved the father of the bride a bundle on the bar tab. When the interminable speeches were finally over, there was a brief smattering of relieved applause and then about two hundred guests stampeded to the bar like thirsty wildebeest at the only watering hole in the Mojave desert. The mother of the groom looked pained and spent, muttering that the litany of misconduct publicly revealed about her son was "more of a roast than a toast."

I did find one escape clause: although the bar was closed throughout the marathon presentations, I learned that the waitresses would keep replenishing the table wine. By the time the music man started playing tunes, I was sufficiently fueled up to boogie-oogie-oogie til I just couldn't boogie no more, recent hernia surgery or not. I knew I'd pay for it, but heck, I was so anaesthetized I didn't care. I shook what my mama gave me, let me tell you. Unlike most of my contemporaries, I didn't even care that most of the music was loud rap.

When we decided to head for home, my husband went to walk the forty or so blocks to the parkade. Let me explain - There are two seasons in western Canada - winter and construction. Hence, there was no parking within radar of the hotel. He left me to wait for him in the lobby, since he would have to make the trek, through the worst part of the city, at 1:30 am. He did not return for a full hour, by which time I was convinced he had been mugged. At least I sobered up. Finally he returned, on foot. Seems the parkade - every door - was locked up tight as a drum, and the security guard did not show up even thirty minutes after he was paged. The hotel paid for a cab to take us home, and we would just have to return the next day to retrieve our vehicle. We got home at about 3 am, something to which my aging constitution is no longer accustomed.

The older I get, the more I advocate elopement.

I'm Back



It's been a long, slow, difficult climb back from the depths of interferon hell, but I made it. This past weekend, I felt better and ate better than I have for months. What a blessing it is to feel good! Never again will I take normal for granted. Thank you, everyone, for your concern and patience.

Curtis has written about our weekend at my brother's cottage (mansion) at Caddy Lake, and there are lots of photos for you to click on to show you just what kind of paradise it is. Be sure to drop by and check them out, but wear a bib to catch your drool.

I have a lot of catchin up to do, but I hope, this week, to visit your blogs and say a word or two to each of you.

Courage



Today's Dr. Phil episode made me cry. The two guests featured were a young former deputy sheriff, who lost half his mouth when he was shot in the face while responding to a domestic disturbance call, and Dr. Phil's own sister-in-law, who was badly wounded by a stranger randomly dropping a vat of acid through her car windshield from an overpass. The suffering that these people and their loved ones have endured, and the fortitude that they have shown in overcoming their misfortune, were truly inspiring. I was particularly impressed with Robin's sister, Cindi, and her conscious decision to choose a path that did not cause her to remain stuck in the role of a victim. She wrote a book called Random Act, from which McGraw read several excerpts that make me want to run out and buy a copy.

Dr. Phil said he felt humbled and privileged to meet these two people, whose lives were forever changed by the random violent acts of strangers...individuals who have endured, and continue to endure, tremendous suffering, yet have kept their dignity, will to live, and love of family and life intact. They have been mutilated by the injuries done to them, but their spirits have not become embittered.

In my book these people are true heroes.

Stick Figures



I've been a perfectionist ever since I can remember. In fact, some say, casting a baleful eye towards my alphabetized spices, that I'm anal to the larynx. My obsession with orderliness showed in childhood ritual, which may well have been early glimpses of OCD: On my way to school, I made certain that I walked to the left of trees and telephone poles, so that I could "even things out" by walking to the other side of them on the way home later. If my friends suggested a shortcut or some different route, I never disclosed how unsettling that was to me, for fear of being labelled weird.

Sadly for me, I sometimes lacked the ability to see my ambitious goals through to a satisfactory result. Although I had a creative mind and plenty of vision, I couldn't (and still can't) draw my way out of a wet paper bag. My brothers inherited from our dad, his impressive artistic ability. The fact that I could never express my ideas on paper was a constant source of frustration to me.

Oh, I tried. I dutifully studied art theory in class at school, trying to employ the methods used by the Masters, but to no avail. My Scottish art teacher would look sympathetically at my work, shake his head, and say in his thick brogue, "Ah Ellen, Ellen, Ellen….If ye could drrraw as well as ye can talk, ye'd be a rrregularrr Pee-casso." He gave me a sympathy "C" for effort. I was humiliated.

I compensated: I became a crafter. I found I couldn't design stuff, but I could follow a pattern to construct it, and my workmanship and attention to detail were fastidious. And when "Win, Lose or Draw" became the party game of choice, I found my niche: stick figures. Using single-line drawings and symbols, I learned I could communicate such abstract concepts as "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Gone With the Wind," and "Existentialism."

The facility for this very specific kind of communication is akin to charades, a talent for which I believe I owe my mother. Years ago, when she was in hospital, the nursing staff were surprised to see her on her hands and knees, oinking and slapping her behind. It was her way of explaining to a fellow patient, who did not speak English, and was trying to decipher from the day's menu choices, what the word "ham" meant.

One of the reasons that I laugh as hard as I do at some jokes, is not so much because of the punch line, as the cartoon that is running through my head. So often, I have lamented to my students that I wish I had a switch on my temple that I could turn on, so that I could shoot what I'm seeing in my mind's eye, onto a screen, and share my visuals with them. But until such a device is invented and installed in my head, I'll just have to endure muffled guffaws as I clumsily attempt to convey my thoughts through shakily drawn stick figures.

FANTASTIC NEWS



NO CANCER CELLS in the fluid biopsied from my lung! Praise God! This is huge, because, had the fluid been malignant, it would have shortened my prognosis to 3-6 months. One of the three tumors in my lung could not be seen on the ct-scan because it is submerged in fluid, but of the other two, one has not increased in size at all, and the other has increased only very slightly. Dr C said he could now describe my disease as STABLE. Only tumor shrinkage could be better news.

My buddy Marina and I celebrated with a delicious lunch at a favourite Vietnamese restaurant of mine (my treat), and we hugged and laughed and cried tears of joy together.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and good wishes; they worked!

God is good.

A Monster is Freed in Canada



After serving 12 years in prison, Karla Homolka, one half of Canada's most notorious pair of rapists and serial killers, was freed today. The so-called Barbie and Ken couple videotaped their abuse and exploitation of their victims. The trial transcripts were so graphic that they were banned from Canadian media, but the families were not spared the agony of the tapes being played in court.

Despite eluding the press as she was driven to freedom, Homolka couldn't wait to give a press release to French-Canadian media. In her statement, she claimed that she feels remorse for her actions, cries over her misdeeds, and "sometimes" doesn't feel that she deserves to be free.


Well, you don't, Karla. As for your purported feelings of regret, I'm not buying it. Anyone who could plan and orchestrate the abduction, torture, rape and murder of three teenage girls, including her own sister, doesn't deserve any liberties or peace. I'm usually a very forgiving person.

Not this time.

Happy Fourth of July



Here's hoping that all you Murricans have lots of family fun and good food. Play safely, now.

False Advertising



We wasted a couple of hours worth of time and gas, driving up to check out the trailer that was advertised for sale in the Buy & Sell online. Clearly, the photographs that showed an attractive weekend getaway, were a number of years old (the digital reading at the bottom read "99"), and the place has been allowed to badly deteriorate since they were taken. We got there before the owners did, and didn't even bother to stick around to look at the inside.

Peoople have a lot of nerve.

Today is a holiday for working Canadians, so I get a long weekend with my Curtis - hooray! My injection went well last night, and I slept soundly, despite an abscessed tooth that flared up on me yesterday. Luckily, I swiftly phoned my dentist and got a prescription for antibiotics.

Tomorrow morning we will drive an hour north of the city to check out a trailer on a large seasonal lot, that has an extension built onto it, a shower house, shed and guest house. If it's as nice as the photos indicate, we may be putting in an offer.