Seven Year Switch

On May 31, 1997, my world came crashing down around my ears. My husband of almost 18 years announced to me that he no longer wanted to be married. I felt as if I'd been kicked in the guts, and couldn't stop shaking. As surreal as everything seemed at the time, I remember with crystal clarity, every word he said: I love you but I'm not in love with you (ugh), it's not you, you’re a wonderful person, it's hard because the more I drew away from you the nicer you were to me, blah blah blah.

It explained a lot of things: his cruelties, his inattentiveness, his obsession with his personal appearance (all the classic mid-life crisis symptoms, except there was no other woman). But I won't bore you with the details. I thought he had been ill, depressed, stressed, and I did what any loving wife should: I supported and forgave him for constantly criticizing and belittling me. That wasn't wrong, and I refuse to feel foolish for it. I wasn't wrong for trusting him; he was wrong for betraying that trust. My love dissolved when I learned of his thievery and deception, the planning and nest-feathering he had been doing for over a year.

I lost a great deal over the next few years: the cottage that we had built, furnished and decorated from the ground up (it was to be our retirement home in the future that would never be), my dad, my beloved chow chow, many friends, a pile of money, and a kidney.

But I gained much more: a sense of myself, a freedom of spirit, a renewed relationship with God, and a whole new bright happy life with Curtis. Turns out my ex, who hurt me, defrauded me and stole from me, did me the biggest favour he could have, by freeing me from his abuse.

Doors close, windows open.

Plumbing and Testosterone


It was nice that the rain held off long enough that I could get my flowers planted yesterday. And it was nice that I didn't have to water them. But it can stop raining any time now, I wouldn't complain.

A joint in our sump pump drainage system decided to give up the ghost last night - a joint that is, of course, above the ceiling tiles in our rec room. And at a time when the pump is constantly running because of the incessant rain. So, change of plan: no church today, but a trip to Home Depot as soon as the doors opened at noon. We came home with: lots of piping and plumbing type stuff (boring), a hacksaw (even more boring), jig saw blades (yawn), drain declogger (big deal), plants for my strawberry pot (yay), and two cans of spray paint to refresh Mom's plastic patio chairs (cool).

Some women might like these home improvement stores, but not this cookie so much. I like the Christmas stuff, especially at Menard's in Grand Forks, which has the most amazing display of thematically decorated trees I've ever seen; and the kitchen displays make me positively quiver; the garden furniture's pretty cool....but the rest of it leaves me cold. Smells too much like wood and solvent and rubber and sweat.

I think you have to have a penis to love Revy, Home Depot and Lowes. I kept losin Curtis - he was like a kid in a candy store. My ex used to get a hard-on when he got within an hour of Menard's. I'm not kiddin: that thing would point towards the store like a divining rod. Today, I saw clutches of grown men STARING, glassy-eyed, at bins of plumbing connectors. I swear some of them had strings of drool hangin from the corners of their mouths.

We got home and realized that we'd forgotten to buy a package of ceiling tile. And after wrestling with the plumbing, Curtis discovered that they'd changed the diameter of something in the sump pump we purchased last fall, so he's gonna need some sort of adapter thingy. I think it's all a ploy to make another trip to the Man Place.

What they need to do is tuck a little manicure shop into a corner of the store. Then everybody'd be happy, and home hardware sales would go through the roof.

I think I'm onto something.

Bliss

At long, long last, I was able to indulge in one of my greatest pleasures today: flower gardening. Despite my neighbours' warnings, I filled my outdoor pots, planted my begonias, coleus, petunias and pansies, potted some geraniums and hung a gorgeous lacy plant, and tweezed and weeded where necessary. There won't be anymore overnight frosts, I decided. And I could be right: The long-range forecast is for normal nighttime temperatures. Curtis top-dressed the winter kill on the grass, and put in a few tomato and pepper plants. Since this evening, we've had the perfect light, steady Springtime rain showers, which should give everything a nice start.

The forecast is for rain all day tomorrow, but if it holds off until the evening like it did today, then after church Curtis and I will put up all our patio stuff: our swing, table with umbrella, and chimnea.

Now if it doesn't snow, everything'll be perfect.

Just a Click Away


Curtis and I had a long-distance (1500 miles) relationship for a couple of years or so. Our visits to one another were far too brief, and each departure was more agonizing than the one before. Most of the time we spent "together" was online, when all we had was talk (no staring at a movie or television screen, no groping, no group mingling). Everyone knows the internet is rife with phonies and perverts, people posing as someone or something they're not, charlatans exaggerating or misrepresenting their lives and achievements; and of course that's the kind of tawdry business that gets media coverage. But when you spend hundreds of hours talking, it's pretty difficult to sustain that kind of fakery. More and more people are finding true friendships and even lifetime partners online. It's a sign of the times.

It's not only important to be honest, but articulate. If you can't express yourself and your personality adequately, then it will be difficult for people to get to know you. I'm a pretty open person, and what you read is what you get. I lay it out there, and I write the way that I speak. And so does Curtis. So when we had our first face-to-face meeting, neither of us experienced any shock or disappointment. Everything I ever told Curtis about myself, my family, my pets, or the living conditions up here was true. Some examples:

1. My cat Duffy really is the clumsiest feline ever, despite his elegant looks.
2. There really are two seasons in Winnipeg: winter and construction.
3. Winnipeg drivers are THE worst. Curtis will attest to that, and he has lived in Tampa and DC.
4. I'm good to my mom, but she drives me nuts.
5. All the stories I tell are true, and verifiable.
6. I have a big goofy laugh that turns heads at Wal-Mart.
7. I cry easily.
8. My hair is naturally blonde.
9. Summer here is glorious, but much too short.
10. When I love, I love REAL BIG.

There are still a lot of people – mostly those who don't have online computers – who disapprove of relationships born on the internet. (Would our marriage be more secure had we met at a party, in a bar, or on a golf course? I did everything "by the rules" the first time around, and it didn't turn out so hot.) They don't understand how it is that I feel so close to friends I've made via an online cancer support group; how I can worry about them, love them, cry over them, pray for them. They think it's unhealthy. How can I explain?

I have in the flesh friends. Not many, because I've never been one to have a huge circle of friends, but a small number of very dear ones. My best pal Marina and her family are among the finest people I've ever had the privilege of knowing. And now, my dear sweet Curtis, love of my life, is with me where he belongs, for good. But my online buddies are always just a click away.

And I'm glad.

Foreplay

Taking up golf was not my idea. No siree; I couldn't see anything interesting about tryin to get a little ball into a little hole, and was quick to agree with Mark Twain, who described the sport as "a good walk ruined." So when I opened the large gift-wrapped box with the starter set of ladies' clubs, and the card with the certificate for three private lessons, my thank you was a tad less than sincere. In fact, my stomach felt like lead. I would rather have received a free root canal and bikini wax.

I was not an enthusiastic student, draggin my hand-me-down golf bag up to the driving range and flinging it at the pro's feet, growling, "Okay, let's get this over with." Stephen turned out to be a tonic for me: an amiable, upbeat, and highly skilled teacher. He won my respect and my cooperation within seconds. And he got results: In very short order, I learned to develop a smooth swing and a pretty straight and reliable drive.

It makes perfect sense that I should enjoy golf: I love sunshine, the outdoors, and lush green surroundings. I became an avid golfer at a course near my cottage, shooting 27-36 holes a day during summer holidays, the rates being very cheap. I'd be at the first tee box at 6:00 am, and would customarily play my first round of 9 alone, when the heavy dew on the grass ensured that I'd never lose track of my ball. One glorious morning, as I was about to attempt my first putt, I sensed a presence near the green. I looked up to see two young deer gazing at me with liquid brown eyes. One scampered past into the woods, but the second stood calmly regarding me for several minutes, steam escaping his nostrils. I could have touched his flank, but I didn't; I stood motionlessly breathing in his musky smell and admiring his sleek coat. I felt awash with joy, and thought there was no place else I'd rather be at that moment, than precisely where I was. The young buck took a few slow steps past me, and with one quick flick of his tail, dissolved into the trees.

Golf is a humbling sport, and can destroy that idyllic calm with one errant shot, if you let it. It's all a matter of proportion. You can fuss and fume over divots and lost balls, or you can focus on the fresh air and the occasional flawless chip. I was once having a disastrous hole, lying 7 in the rough, 75 yards from the green. Sulking, I hammered haphazardly at my ball and watched in wonder as it arced beautifully and plopped into the cup. It was all I could talk about for the rest of the day. The six times I had worm-burned the ball or shanked it into the woods were the fault of the wind, a foot slip, a farting chipmunk; but that perfect shot was pure skill.

I recommend that everyone take up golf. It's good for the soul. And if you find yourself continually frustrated by your performance, here's my best advice: Lower your expectations.

Dad Sounds

Our first Christmas together, 1954

This, the final instalment in my series of posts about my dad, was the most difficult for me. It has been edited dozens of times, and I have cried buckets of tears in the process. I consider myself very fortunate to have had a dad whose loss is so painful to me, even 5 ½ years after his passing. Kahlil Gibran put it best:

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the same well from which your laughter rises was often filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
The cup that holds your wine was burned in the potter's oven. The violin that soothes your spirit is made from wood that was hollowed with knives.
When you are joyful, look deep into your heart and you will find that what brings you joy, springs from sorrow.
When you are sorrowful, look again into your heart, and you will see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some will argue that joy is greater than sorrow, and others say that sorrow is the greater. The truth is they are inseparable. When one fills your heart, the other is not absent, but merely sleeping."

And so, deep breath...

By the time my mom was forced to admit that she could no longer take care of Dad, life wasn't much fun for him anymore. It was hard to watch a man who had always looked 20 years younger than his age, a man who was robust enough to work full-time as a carpenter until the age of 70, fall victim to the ravages of a series of strokes. He was disappearing before our eyes. My feisty dad had become a confused, mild-mannered little lamb robbed of even the ability to speak. He spent the last four months of his life in the geriatric ward of Deer Lodge Hospital.

Mom took the bus 5 days a week, from Monday to Friday, and spent part of the day with him ensuring that he got enough nourishment at lunchtime. Paralysis made it difficult for Dad to swallow, and the hospital staff simply could not spend the couple of hours it took to coax droplets of food into him. I went at least a couple of days a week after school to help him with dinner, and every Sunday, when I brought my beautiful chow chow, Jinx, to visit. The day Dad's eyes didn't light up at the sight of her, I phoned my brother Fred and told him our father wouldn't be around much longer. I was right; he passed away two days later, a couple of months after his 90th birthday.

I miss him, but he really isn't gone: He's in the squareness of my shoulders, which I inherited from him. He's in my face, for as I age, I see his firm-set jaw and sagging jowls (thanks, Pop). It's his spirit I feel warming my entire being when I play affectionately with my pets or listen to the loons call on the lake. And it's a fact that he pops by for a visit now and then, just to make sure I'm okay. How do I know? By the Dad sounds.

When my eldest brother, Laurens, who is a skilled carpenter like our father, whistles while he works - just like Dad always did - that's a Dad sound.

When I'm out somewhere and I hear a man with a heavy voice make a loud "Wa-HOO!" sound while sneezing - that's a Dad sound.

When an older fella stands around and jangles a whole bunch of keys and change in his pocket - that's a Dad sound.

And I smile.

A Man of Contradictions

A favourite shot of my dad at age 62, looking rather like Aristotle Onassis ("Hmph," he grumped, "if only I had his money.")

Things weren't always easy between my dad and me. He had different aspects to his personality, and I found his inconsistency disconcerting. Although introverted and quiet for the most part, when angry he would yell in a thunderous voice. He doted on me when I was a little girl, but during my teen and young adult years I didn't see much display of affection from him. Much of the time, he was a tight ball of fury that could erupt at any moment. Anger was the only emotion he expressed openly and without reserve, and that anger was unleashed by minor transgressions. I remember him browbeating me for leaving the light on in the bathroom while I went to fetch a comb from my bedroom dresser.

"Why did you leave the light on in the bathroom?"

"I was going to get my - "

"Were you in the bathroom?"

"Well, no, I tried to tell you, I just went to -"

"Were you in the bathroom, yes or no?"

"Well, no, I –"

"IF YOU WEREN'T IN THE BATHROOM, WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE LIGHT ON? No wonder the electricity bill is so high."

How could I watch TV and do a crossword puzzle at the same time? Why was I holding the door open - Was I trying to heat the whole city? Why was I jiggling my foot? Stop chewing my nails. And on and on.

It was hard to reconcile his constant picking, with his tremendous calm and efficiency in a real crisis, when it would be Mom who'd become completely hysterical and shrill. Hard to understand how he could so patiently repair a delicate piece of jewellery, carefully handling it with his thick, cracked fingers. And it was with sheer wonder that I'd behold his face soften with unreserved love whenever he looked into the eyes of an animal or a small grandchild.

It was Dad who taught us to have a deep and abiding respect for nature, Dad who sat on the front steps with me during lightning storms and rhapsodized about the beauty of the boiling sky, Dad who rescued injured animals and gently nursed them back to health, Dad who repaired and painted second hand bicycles so they'd look better than brand new.

My father went to work every day in clean, pressed work pants and work shirt; and returned each evening covered in sawdust, with fingers blackened by carpenters' nails. He would strip to the waist, suds up his hands to a thick lather, and wash himself at the bathroom sink before changing into fresh clothes for dinner. It was my job to scrub the heavy rivulets of dirty soap that had dribbled down the face of the basin. On weekends he wore dress pants and a crisp white shirt with a tie, a fedora with a little feather in the hatband, and often a dress jacket, even to go grocery shopping. His holiday garb was less formal: He still wore dress pants (NEVER jeans), but a short-sleeved plaid shirt, no tie, and a newsboy cap. In his later years, when he and Mom went to Hawaii, he'd sport a cheerful flowered shirt, unbuttoned to show off his deeply tanned chest.

For years I had viewed my dad as a humourless man, and was surprised to learn that, among the Dutch friends with whom my parents socialized and played cards, he was known as a teller of raunchy jokes. I never heard him tell one, not even as an adult, as he had a keen sense of propriety when it came to us kids.

My dad never had any personal friends - no guys he'd hang out or have a beer with, go fishing with, or do anything else with. His whole life was his family, and Mom was his constant companion. The only people with whom he socialized, were couples. If he was fishing and an amiable man initiated a conversation with him, Dad was reticent to the point of being unfriendly.

When I was attending university and Mom was working part-time in a wallpaper and paint store Saturday mornings, I began to spend more time with my dad. I made it my practice to get up early and have breakfast and a chat with him when he returned from drivin Mom to work and before he left to pick her up, four hours later. It occurred to me that, since my brothers had moved out, he'd been excluded and alone. It was always mother and daughter who laughed and chatted together, went shopping and had lunch. So I resolved to spend more quality time with Dad.

I started takin Dad out on "dates." We had much more in common than Mom and I did, anyway: We both loved animals and had an interest in things like archaeology. We went to the zoo, the planetarium, the art gallery. On a visit to the museum, I lost Dad in the dinosaur section. Imagine my surprise when I spotted him, comfortably yakkin and polishing stones with a woman behind the lapidary display! I watched him for a long time, being positively relaxed and charming. There was that other side of him again.

Dad worked hard, but he played hard, too. No one could holiday better than my dad, and did he ever love to travel. After I left home, he and Mom travelled to many places around the world. And he was always a great dancer, which made him one hot number at the seniors' clubs, where the women far outnumber the men. With my dad leading, I was able to glide across the floor as if I'd been raised in a ballroom.

For many years, I was baffled and frustrated by my dad’s contradictions. Then I learned to appreciate and embrace them. And when the fragility of old age tempered them, I missed them. But more of that later.

Laurens Arent Cornelis de Koning 1908-1998

I love this photo, and it captures my dad as you'd often see him - pausing in quiet contemplation and appreciation of the beauty of nature.

A big name for a pretty compact man, my dad was named for his mother's three brothers, fishermen who were lost at sea. He didn't like it, telling me once that he felt "like a ghost," like he didn't have his own identity. He said that, for that reason, as well as not wanting to anger a jealous relative, he would never name his kids for a deceased family member. He also didn't like nicknames, so he insisted that his children be given names that couldn't be shortened into cutesie derivatives. He couldn't have forseen everyone callin my sister Anneke "Anne," my eldest brother Laurens "Rens," my brother Frank "Dutch," my other brother Frits "Fred;" or on my mom callin me "Poopy." Yeah, you read that right: Poopy. And the worst thing is, I'd answer to it.

I wasn't born yet during the time that my parents' country of Holland was occupied by the Nazis, but I grew up hearing vivid stories of the terrors and challenges of those seven years. Among the many tales my mother told me were examples of my father's courage, ingenuity and self-sacrifice. Resources were few, and sometimes under cover of darkness, Dad would ride his bicycle to fields where the Germans had planted tall wooden posts in the ground to prevent allied forces from parachuting or landing planes, a handsaw hidden under his jacket. He took a tremendous risk in sawing down posts and cutting them up into firewood that would fit in his bicycle carrier; had a German soldier caught him, he would most certainly have shot my dad on the spot. One night, when he was in the middle of pilfering, some German troops came down the road. Dad quickly hid his bicycle in tall grass and immersed himself in the water of a nearby ditch, breathing through a hollow reed. He survived, undetected, and made it home with a supply of wood.

The Nazis confiscated many things, bicycles included. For the citizens of Holland during wartime, bicycles were the principal form of transportation, and precious commodities. Dad used his not only for that purpose, but for another, as well: electricity. Often the power was out, and Dad used his bicycle to fashion a generator. He also became a skilled shoemaker, reusing the leather tops of outgrown or worn out shoes and attaching them to soles that he hand-fashioned out of wood. (Years later, when Dr. Scholl made a fortune selling "clog" sandals, my dad laughed at me for wearing an overpriced version of his wartime footwear. "Geez," he snorted in his gruff voice, "I coulda been a millionaire!")

Sacrificing his own share of the meagre food rations to ensure that his family was fed, Dad became malnourished and turned yellow with jaundice. The best he ate during the war, was when he was transported with other tradesmen by the Germans, to the beaches of France and forced to work on construction projects. He felt very conflicted in "contributing" to the Nazi war effort, and once told me with a sly grin how he'd bang a nail in, and then pull it back out when the guards weren't watching, just to carry out his own silent rebellion.

Early in my career, I was teaching a unit on The Diary of Anne Frank, and my father became very interested in the research materials I had gathered, which included detailed maps of Holland. He began to tell me many stories about the occupation that I'd never heard before - riveting stories of cruelty and hardship and desperation. Somehow I convinced him to visit my class as a guest speaker. This in itself amazed me, because Dad was a very shy man.

I will never forget that day. I barely recognized him as he held my students spellbound with the gentle cadence of his voice. He skirted carefully around their interest in the prurient details of Nazi war crimes, focusing instead on how the survival instinct brings out the best qualities of the human spirit. I stood in the corner, invisible to everyone, including myself. I wasn't the teacher that day; he was. He was humble, gracious and soft-spoken; and when the bell rang the kids remained where they were, their eyes glued raptly to his face. As the students for my next class pressed at the door, the kids reluctantly grabbed their book bags and encircled my dad like a flock around its shepherd. They didn't want his visit to end, and when it had to, the kids in the hall joined the class in roaring applause. They didn't know why; they just knew there was something special about the little man with the China blue eyes.

Laurens Arent Cornelis de Koning. My dad, the rock star.

A Work in Progress

Well, I dunno if "progress" is the right word, but I'm formulating something in my mind, and I've made a few notes. Your comments to my last post, "Fishin" (especially Brian's remark about his dad's Hawaiian print shirts), flooded my head with memories of my dad. I want to tell you about him, but it will take a few installments. So, like Phyllis and Becky and Esther, I'll be doin a little bit of serial posting in the near future. It might take a little while, because I'm busy these days (end of year at school, yard work and all), and I want to get it just right.

Gimme a few days.

Fishin


My parents were big on family outings. We went to church every Sunday during the winter months, but when summertime came the weekends were devoted to picnics and fishing. My dad had never owned an automobile in the Old Country, and once he acquired one after emigrating to Canada, he never tired of packin the trunk with lawn chairs and fishing tackle and drivin to the many lakes and rivers within a few hours of our city. Our vehicles during those years didn't have air conditioning, and the combination of heat, motion and reading comic books never failed to make me carsick. I've blogged before about me routinely barfin out the car window.

But once we reached our destination, the fun began. Mom would park herself in a chair and never move all day, fishing from the same spot on shore and catchin more than the rest of us put together, which kind of irritated Dad; especially since he had to repeatedly bait her hook for her. She always wore a dress and sunglasses then, and would end up with a fiery red sunburn on the tops of her knees and owl eyes on her face. Dad was always on the move, clambering over rocks in search of the perfect fishing hole, becoming an ant-sized figure in constant motion.

If there was a dock, I would sit on the edge of it and plunk my line straight down into the water, pulling out one after another of the tiny fish feeding nearby - some barely larger than my minnow. To amuse me and make me feel my catches were significant, Dad would later painstakingly fillet the largest of the baby fishies so Mom could batter them and fry them in a pan.

My brother Fred would most often stick his rod into a holder so that he could skip rocks, explore, or engage in other boyish pursuits. Mom still talks about the time when a large fish took Fred's bait and yanked his fishing pole right out of its holder and into the water. With lightning reflexes, Fred dove into the water after it, and actually caught hold of the very end of his rod, the fish still on it.

Meanwhile, Husky, our family dog, uncomfortable near the water, would wander off in search of a nice steaming pile of cow dung in which to roll. That made for a fragrant ride home, and it's a wonder all of us weren't honkin all over the sides of the car then.

Those were innocent times, and we were content with simple pleasures. We basked in the sunshine, marvelled at Manitoba's big lakes and lush muskeg, enjoyed the wildlife, and TALKED. How many families nowadays spend hours and hours together, doing and talking? The fresh air bleached our hair and eyebrows, and browned our skin, and sandwiches and Kool-aid tasted better somehow.

I miss those days; can ya tell?

I'm not usually one to rant and rave, but if you thought I was steamed about the squeegee kids yesterday, wait'll you get a load of this one...

On the news today, there was a story about the rampant HIV problems in Canadian prisons, caused by inmates giving themselves crude tattoos under unsanitary conditions. One MLA's solution? Equip each penile institution with a state of the art tattoo parlour, at the taxpayers' expense.

This makes me so angry I could snatch myself bald. When are we Canadians gonna stop enabling and finally say NO to someone? No, you can't get a credit in this course, because you haven't attended regularly or done enough work all year. No, you can't have any more handouts because our government simply cannot afford it. No, you can't get your tongue pierced and your bum tattooed because you're only 14. No, you will not be given free tattooing while serving your sentence, so that you won't infect yourself with something fatal.

I could spit nails.

Get a Job



Call me intolerant, but I don't like these guys: squeegee kids who swarm your car at stoplights and, univited, clean your windows, expecting payment for it. This morning, I saw one of them ruin a really nice car wash job on a gleaming new vehicle. The lone female occupant handed him some money, probably fearful of retribution if she didn't.

These guys are like gnats, and I would like to swat them away. Maybe I can have my car equipped with giant windshield wipers.

There are all sorts of parasites who have infested my city, and the Spring brings them out in biblical numbers. There have always been some panhandlers in the downtown area, but now it is spreading to the suburbs as well. It used to be safe for me to go to my local mall for an evening hair appointment, but not any more. And some of these guys get very aggressive if you don't fork over. Which I don't. I am quite generous in donating to organized charities, but I refuse to contribute to anyone's addiction.

The squeegee boys defend themselves by claiming that they, at least, provide a service in exchange for their handout. I'm not buyin it. They are beggars. And the business of begging is very lucrative, indeed; it has been reported that during good weather, they make $200 a day, tax-free.

I'm not heartless. I donate to food banks, solicit donations to build food hampers for the needy. But I resent pullin into a parking spot at my church and seein a professional beggar scurry over to exploit the nice Christian people. I will invite them to come inside and have something to eat, but I will not give them my money. I worked hard to earn it. And so should they.

Usque ad Astra



Sometimes, when you dare to dream, good things happen. I've been timid most of my life, having foregone a lot of experiences that I feared would jeopardize or delay my schooling, or result in failure, danger, and/or embarrassment. It's why I never joined adventurous friends on hitchhiking and hostel-staying trips through India, or travels through continental Europe on a Eurorail pass. I didn't go on Spring Break bacchanals, or join busloads of university mates on ski trips.

Nope, not me. I waited eagerly for their return, and their photographs, slides, and stories. I was one of the rare few who genuinely enjoyed other people's travel journals and picture albums, living vicariously through them. Playing it safe had its advantages: I completed my formal education with high marks, was able to purchase a brand new car, cash, upon graduation, and never accumulated student loans.

I had an English teacher in grade 11 who was always after me to enter writing competitions; and, although I was flattered, I didn't have enough confidence to believe my work was worthy. To get him off my back, I submitted a couple of things that didn't win but garnered "honourable mentions." Big deal. To me that was like the Miss Congeniality award they used to give to the ugliest broad in the beauty pageant. Mr. Patterson didn't give up easily, chasing me down in the cafeteria the following year to keep urging me to write, write, write.

Recently, as the few readers of this blog know, I took a big leap and emailed the editor of a Canadian magazine, who was seeking freelance humour writers. To my utter astonishment, she not only said she'd be interested to read some of my stories, but she actually expressed interest in paying me to publish several of them. I received my first cheque and a copy of the publication on Friday.

Today, she emailed me and told me she'd be printing "Aquatorture" in June's edition.

I think Mr. Patterson would be pleased.

I had a grade 11 student who had to leave class Thursday afternoon, halfway through a Macbeth test due to what was suspected to be an attack of appendicitis. Turns out he was just severely constipated. I could've told them he was full of it.

All anyone had to to was ask.

Smartie Pants



I'm an M & M's gal. Not the peanuts, the chocolate candies. Ever since I first discovered them on a trip across the 49th parallel (M & M's didn't used to be available in Canada), I've preferred them to Smarties. But when I was a little girl, Smarties were the bomb, for a variety of reasons.

Not only did the empty box make a fine wind instrument that drove parents to the brink of insanity, but if you licked on the red candies, you could rub the colour off onto your lips and give yourself a bright Marilyn Monroe pout. On car trips, when my mom gave me a box of Smarties, I would, indeed, eat the red ones first, but only after usin them to colour my lips. Then I would perch on top of my dad's construction helmet to look taller, put on my best sophisticated facial expression, and look for admiring stares.

Oh, I got stares, all right. Especially if I happened to have a Popeye candy cigarette held elegantly between my fingers, to add to my worldly appearance. There must have been a lot of motorists back in the early sixties who noticed an abnormally tall, slutty-lookin little tootsie with a bad home perm.

Today at Sobey's, I saw a brand new kind of Smarties: ice cream flavours. There were vanilla, banana, raspberry, wildberry, orange, caramel, chocolate, and strawberry. I had to try them, and they were surprisingly good. And, yup, the red ones still outcolour Cover Girl.

Some things never change.

Dad's Sock Drawer



It was the worst-kept secret in my household that Dad's sock drawer was the hiding place for our Christmas presents. Well, worst-kept from me, anyway: I regularly snooped and looted to see what delights my parents had in store for me, being careful to observe exactly how and where every content was placed, so I could return the drawer to pristine condition without garnering any suspicion. It could be that Mom never knew that I was wise to where she hid gifts. Or maybe she did....

In grade 5, I started having difficulty with a school subject for the first time: There was something about math that had me stupefied, and much to my horror, my mark plummetted to a "D" grade. As incentive to bring it up to a "B" by the next term report, my mom promised me the reward of a Skipper doll, which I wanted more than my next breath.

Mere days after the bargain was struck, I was diggin through Dad's sock drawer and came upon the coveted Skipper doll. Oh, the pressure! I just couldn't let my mom down, when she clearly had so much confidence in me, that she had already purchased my prize. For two months I slaved to improve my math mark, requesting extra work and practice assignments, studying daily, sucking up to the teacher. I don't remember enjoying the knowledge and the improved test and assignment scores I earned; all I recall is the terrible anxiety I felt until the day report cards were issued.

I got my B; in fact, I got a B+. I ran all the way home with my report card and placed in my mother's hands. She smiled and kissed me, and with great ceremony, went to my parents' bedroom to get a slender gift-wrapped and beribboned box that I knew held my Skipper doll. I wept hysterically when I opened it - not out of joy or pleasure, as my mom probably believed - but out of relief and shame at my dishonesty.

I'd like to say that I never snooped through Dad's sock drawer again, but that simply isn't true. I did; and what a treasure-trove it was; for it contained not only gifts sometimes, but rolled up India-ink drawings that my father had made when he studied architecture at evening school for seven years in Holland. The drawings, many of them incomplete, had been transported in a cardboard cylinder from the Old Country after the war had dashed my dad's career dreams and prompted him to move his family across the ocean to Canada in 1953.

I loved my dad's drawings, and I often uncurled the brittle yellowed paper gingerly to admire their beauty. Studies of wood carvings (intended as inlays for furniture or fireplace mantles, I suppose), staircases, landscapes, and my favourite of all: a prickly cactus in a flat dish on a window sill.

As a child, I often urged Daddy to draw for me, but he was always reluctant. During my teenage years, I bought him sketchpads, India ink pens, books with studies of sailing vessels (which he loved) - all in an effort to persuade him to revive the talent that he had abandoned for so many years - and all to no avail. He had given up on his dream, and that saddened me.

I have the cactus picture, which I begged him to frame for me before the paper disintegrated. I also have an oak leaf carving study that I love. They hang in honoured places on my walls.

Given that my mom was well aware of how often I went into Dad's sock drawer to admire his sketches, I have to wonder if she hadn't known exactly what she was doin when she placed Skipper there. But just in case, don't tell her, okay?

A Dream Come True



It's official. I'm a writer. Came home today to a cheque and a copy of the magazine with my story in it. Page 21.

I can't think of many things that have thrilled me this much.

Took my mom to her oncologist today, and she is cancer-free.

Today was a good day.

If I Were In Charge of the World...

there'd be no more cancer.

my friend Lanie would still be alive, and we'd be able to meet for a lovely holiday together with our husbands, like we used to dream about.

there wouldn't be any war, or physical violence or abuse against humans or animals.

no one would be allergic to animals.

no one would be hungry, or thirsty, or deprived of an education.

chocolate would be slimming.

it would be my body that is thin, and my hair that is thick.

there wouldn't be any freaking snow on the ground right now.

our planet would be healthy.

That's all. Not too much to ask, is it? What would things be like if you were in charge of the world?

Spring?



This is one view of our street right now, and the snow continues to fall. It's expected to continue until tomorrow night, along with freezing rain. Highways are shut down and trees and power lines are succumbing to their heavy burden.

I've been eatin my heart out at some blogfriends' photos of their gardens, and rhapsodic descriptions of colourful songbirds. The robins look mostly confused up here, and almost as ticked off as most of us humans.

It's a good thing Curtis loves me, or he might be seriously second-guessing his move up here from the lovely climate of West Virginia.

Whaddaya think my chances are of shootin 18 holes on Saturday morning?

Ta Daaaaaaaa!

I'd like to thank all of you who offered to help me set up my new template, especially Mary Lou and Zoe, who've kept up a steady stream of encouraging emails and helpful hints. Thanks to Mary Lou, I've managed to get my blogroll of favourites up onto my page (thanks, Zoe, but I'm gonna go by the K.I.S.S. principle and forget about the drop-down box).

You guys are lifesavers. I knew I'd found myself a pretty nice group of blogfriends, and you've proven that beyond a doubt. I fear I'll ever be able to return any kind of HTML favour, but if I can ever undangle a participle or anything for any of you, just let me know.

I've gotten a wee bit smarter from all of this, including keeping a copy of my current template code on file, in case something happens to make my blog disappear (like it did earlier today - GAH!).

Now that I have a page with which I'm comfy (the soft colours suit me), I'll be able to focus on writing and reading my favourite blogs again.

Did I ever tell you my mom went to the Vincent Van Gogh school of hairdressing?

To say that my mom has always been able to pinch a penny is putting it mildly; she can make the beaver on the flip side of that copper coin squeal in protest. So my delicate duck fluff never saw the services of a professional hairdresser until I began payin for them myself. Instead, it was periodically doused in the pungent chemical toxins of the home Toni perm, and either trimmed by a fledgling student at a hairdressing school, or by Mom herself – either result looking rather like I’d leaned my head into a hedge trimmer.

One day, I foolishly entrusted my mom with the task of trimming my bob, although I supervised closely in the bathroom mirror. Who could seriously screw up a blunt cut, I asked myself. I should have known the answer to that: my mom. She couldn’t get the sides even, so my hair kept being clipped alarmingly shorter. Mom grew irritable at my protestations, and, in a lapse of concentration, neatly sheared through my left earlobe until it hung by a mere thread of flesh. She cried out in alarm, dropped the scissors, and fled from the bathroom in tears, leaving me to gaze in horrified fascination at my dangling lobe. It didn’t hurt until the blood surfaced; then it hurt. A lot.

When Mom recovered from her initial shock, she treated my injury with an affected air of cavalier stoicism: She merely stuck my lobe back to my ear with a bandaid. But I did get a professional haircut out of the deal.

My ear healed up fine. I don’t even have a scar. But that was the last time I ever let my mom near me with anything pointy.

Dear Blogger,

I want to thank you on bended knee for your nice new upgrades. Thanks to you, I can finally stop hacking at my wrists after hours of sinking into HTML quicksand. You rescued me just in time, for I was truly on the brink of blogicide.

Yours gratefully,
ellen crush

p.s. Thanks everyone (especially Curtis) for your patience in tolerating my tantrums and ill temper this weekend. Zoe, if your offer still stands to help me set up a blogroll in my template, I'd be forever indebted.

Th-th-that's All (for tonight), Folks


I've been working on my blog template for hours, tryin to tweak and restore as much as possible, but it isn't easy when you're an HTML amateur. Still can't get my 100 things link to work, but I think I'm gettin close.

Thanks for your help, Zoe.

No golfing for this chica in the morning: It's way too cold, and I'm afraid of further aggravating my cough (which is on its 52nd day and goin strong). Curtis may go by himself; if so, I might continue the Battle of the Blog, unless I decide to do somethin about the dust bunnies around here. I probably should; they're gettin to be the size of cocker spaniels.

Later.

Doozy Homemaker

Given how hopeless I am at learning anything new, it's a wonder I've survived this long. I swear, you'd think I had some serious mental deficiencies if you ever saw me, tongue tip clamped and protruding from the corner of my mouth, bumbling my way through something for the first time. HTML, for me, might as well stand for "Hellishly Torturous Mental Labyrinth."

Typing, negative and positive numbers, even a new card game, were stupifying to me the first times I attempted them. High school home ec class (or whatever trendy monker they've given it this week) was no exception. I couldn't seem to grasp, much less master, what came easily to my more capable classmates.

It didn't help that our sewing teacher was inept. When we had class, we had it for the entire afternoon, and she would invariably take a powder for most of it, to sit in her car, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and read True Romance magazines. When she bustled in, we'd all be clambouring for help, and instead of explaining what we were to do, she would snatch our projects from our hands, hastily run them under a needle, and hack off the excess fabric. She ruined the Peter Pan collar on my print blouse that way, wasting so much material that my mom had to buy more. My more than frugal mom, who was not pleased at all.

And when she did teach us anything at all, we would jockey for the positions farthest away from her reeking breath. She would crankily snap at us to get in closer where we could see, for Pete's sake, and the stench spewing from her mouth was enough to make us gag. Little surprise that I wasn't eager to develop my sewing skills. BIG surprise, when a couple of decades later, I became an accomplished seamstress and crafter, selling handmade clothed dolls at large craft sales. It's a wonder my mom never keeled over with shock.

Our cooking teacher was a much more capable woman, although just as impatient. It seemed grouchiness was a prerequisite for home ec teachers in those days. Groups of four girls (boys didn't take cooking or sewing in those days - they were occupied with the more manly pursuits of woodworking and auto repair) were assigned to mini-kitchens, and I soon emerged as a lousy cook but a good baker. My kitchen group LOVED it when I baked, mostly because I invariably forgot to half the dry ingredients in the recipe, so we got a full-sized dessert. This meant my home ec teacher had to regularly provide us with a double quantity of the more expensive perishable ingredients (like eggs, milk and butter), and she didn't appreciate the strain that put on her budget. Ironically, today, I am not only known for my delectable baking, but my skill as a cook. Go figure.

I can't wait until I catch onto this technology thing.

Under Reconstruction

Well, it appears that Blogskins.com has pitched a fit, and about 70% of their templates are lost, including mine. Being that I am an HTML amateur, that's a major loss for me, because it's not that easy for me to accessorize my page with all the bells and whistles that I'd like.

So this page will have to serve as a temporary replacement. There are no links for favourites in this template, and I don't know how to change the borders, or add tables, or whatever the heck you call them. I doubt if I'll stick with this template, though; I'll probably spend more hours searching until I find a nice user-friendly one whose appearance I like better. My 100 things are still in existence, but not in evidence here.

Stay tuned.

Now, where'd I put my valium.....

Finding the Keys

When I was in high school, I took a typing class. I was a disaster, the worst student in the class. The teacher kept a chart on the wall with our names, beside which she would affix round stickers, as students achieved a certain rate of error-free typing speed. I had no stickers.

It wasn't entirely my fault. I mean, the woman made us type our keyboard drills in time with a vinyl recording of "Turkey in the Straw." I'm not kidding. "asdfg(space)...Did you ever ever ever in your whole darn life...hjkl;(space)...See a bow-legged turkey and his bow-legged wife?" And she would periodically increase the speed at which she would play the song. Now who can take that seriously? Not this cookie.

I cheated constantly, peeking at the keyboard to try and locate those infernal keys. Why weren't they in alphabetical order? Made no kind of sense to me.

To help me master touch-typing, my parents bought an ancient Remington Rand typewriter at a used office equipment store. It weighed about as much as a Steinway grand piano, and had round keys spaced several feet apart, keys that would jam together in a big clump if you didn't hit them at exactly the right tempo. My older brother Fred was studying commerce in university, and he immediately seized upon the idea that I "could type." The professors demanded that all papers submitted for marking be typed, so Fred commissioned me to be his typist, at the princely sum of 50 cents a page.

Well, who was I to refuse such bounty? Never mind that, even given the opportunity to look at the keys all I wanted without reproach, my typing speed was approximately 2 words per minute. Overlook the fact that I had no idea how to set tabs, and most of my brother's papers consisted of column after column of dollar and cent amounts, that were difficult to align, given the antiquity of the Remington. Money was money, after all.

The typewriter ribbon really was ribbon, not erasable synthetic. Whenever I made a typo, which was about every third stroke, I had to use Erasertape, a yellow paper chalked white on one surface, that stationery stores sold on rolls. You had to backspace to the error, place the Erasertape, white side against the page, and replicate the booboo so that when the key struck the tape, the white stuff would cover the incorrect character; then remove the Erasertape, backspace again, and type the correction. It was time-consuming, and sometimes painful, if you didn't keep your fingers out of the way of the striking key.

My brother Fred, who would have made a fine slave owner on a cotton plantation, would hold each finished page up to the light to detect corrections that I had made - then tear up the page and demand that I retype it, flawlessly. Not only did I put in many many hours for my 50 cents, but I spent more on paper and Erasertape than I ever made.

Of course, the accuracy of my typing improved - it had to, or I'd be forced to pawn my bicycle and bedroom furniture to pay for supplies - and Fred took credit for that. I must grudgingly admit that he was right. It got so much better, that he started offering my services to some of his schoolmates. I took them up on it, relieved that they would not be such harsh taskmasters.

The trouble was, some of them had indecipherable handwriting (fittingly enough, the worst offender was studying to be a doctor), and his papers were filled with Latin terms that I could not recognize or look up in a dictionary. It was like trying to decode the Rosetta Stone. I was forced to make numerous phone calls to Pete, and read the parts of the sentences I could discern, so he'd know the context of the mystery words and could spell them out to me.

One memorable paper of Pete-the-future-doctor's was for biology, and its main focus was the anatomy and reproduction of a certain salamander. It had detailed descriptions of the male's sex organ, including its length, girth and diameter when both flaccid and erect, the duration of its "act" and on and on. I was a bashful girl, and having to read to Pete explicit passages describing amphibian erotica was more than I could bear. Let's face it, 50 cents an hour is not an adequate wage for salamander phone sex. I was finally reduced to tears, and demanded that Pete either improve his penmanship or find a new secretary.

By the end of my school year, I had the most stickers of anyone in my typing class. The teacher even recruited me to type for the yearbook.

To add to this irony, typing is what paid my university tuition: I worked for several years as a computer input typist for Eaton's catalogue, translating batches of mail order forms into computer lingo on an IBM Selectric typewriter. The typing pool operated 24 hours a day - ideal for me, because I could fashion my hours to fit around my studies. During my summer holidays I made good coin working full-time to cover off employees who were on vacation.

My average typing speed now is 95 wpm. And that's without any musical accompaniment.

Copy-Cat

Seems everyone else is doin this, and I think it can be interesting. So here goes:

I want everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want and I will answer it. Then, I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything.

Lessons Learned

When I was a student teacher, I wasn't much older than the grade 12's before whom I found myself every day. And I had a youthful appearance, which did nothing to command the respect more commonly given someone a fair bit longer in the tooth. Some of the lusty young lads tried to charm me with flirtation, and the girls resented me for it. I had my work cut out for me...

I was pretty adept at hiding my nervousness, although my red face sometimes betrayed me. My best tool turned out to be preparedness - It didn't take long for the students to determine that the cute little blondie at the front of the room knew her stuff. So, luckily for me, they decided to cooperate and play nice.

When it came time for me to teach poetry-writing, I took some risks that could have landed me in hot water. For one, in an effort to teach metre and rhyme patterns, I decided to have the students write limericks.

Limerick-writing isn't easy: Not only must a limerick conform to structural conventions, but it has to tell a story, with a clever punchline, in only five lines. This can take a lot of editing, a practice with which writers are painfully familiar - a practice many students loathe. Could I get students to commit to the diligence it would take to produce passable limericks?

And could I get them to keep it clean? I was all too familiar, I told them, with the wealth of limericks out there about a "young man from Regina," or a "girl named Dolores." I forbade them to submit x-rated poems.

One clever boy submitted this, and was I embarrassed when the joke was on me:

There was a young girl from Alsace,
Who had a MAGNIFICENT ass;
It weren't round and pink,
As you may well think;
It was grey, had long ears, and ate grass.

Ah, grasshopper! The pupil surpasses the teacher!

My First Troll

After a nasty incident caused me to close my original blog, then start this one after a little "wound-licking" time-out, it took me a long while to include a favourites link on my page, or to include my URL in comments I made to other bloggers' posts. Well, the inevitable happened: Some ugly phantom out there left a brief, misspelled but cutting comment to my last post - no email address or blog URL, of course. I went to the help section of Haloscan and learned how to delete his post. If he shows up again, I'll ban him.

That was fun. I like being in control of my little corner of the universe.

Tinker, Tailor...

What makes us choose the career paths we take? When I went to high school, there were basically two professions that girls with high marks were encouraged to pursue: nursing and teaching. I knew that nursing was not for me - I was too queasy and obsessively clean to deal with bodily fluids; and I was resistant to being a teacher because I was a rebel, allbeit a quiet, respectful one.

So I took an Arts degree in university, with no occupational goal in mind. And I loved every minute of it, steeping myself in knowledge, choosing courses solely on the basis of curiosity and interest. I emerged, after three years, with Honours and a double major in English and Philosophy/Religious Studies. And still no idea of where to go from there.

After much soul-searching, and dabbling in part-time jobs that included forays into advertising and library work, I finally asked myself who I thought I was kidding: I had been happily working with kids since I'd been a kid myself - first as a volunteer, then a paid employee - working with sick and mentally challenged children, teaching arts and crafts, being a camp counsellor and playground leader, supervising and planning recreation programs at community centres and drop-ins. I was good at it and I enjoyed it.

Finally, I took the university schooling necessary to be a high school teacher. And here I am, soon to receive a bell for 25 years of service, and still in love with what I do, despite frequent frustrations and impediments.

At one time I had seriously considered library science, believing that I would help make the library be the dynamic, exciting and inviting place that all libraries should be. But I couldn't afford to live out of province for the two years it would take to complete the degree.

I also toyed with the idea of studying law. I felt I had the logic and tenacity to build and argue a case. But I decided against it, fearing that I was too much of a softie for what could be a cutthroat profession.

Lawyers come under a great deal of attack, as do teachers. I used to feel compelled to defend myself, citing the countless hours I spend outside of school hours, coaching, supervising, studying, preparing and marking. With age comes wisdom and, in my case, mellowness; and now I merely gloat about my many holidays and enjoy my critics' agony.

I have no beefs with lawyers. I have paid for their services and they have served me well. One cut me a deal, because I'm Fred's Little Sister, and won me a respectable settlement for a car crash. Not a fortune, because this is Canada after all, not the US, but a helpful sum, nonetheless. Another, recommended by the first, played nice when I asked her to during a painful divorce, and took the gloves off when my ex tried to get dirty. And a third skillfully cut through the bureaucratic quagmire to expedite my husband's immigration.

Making assumptions about people based on their livelihood is as irrational to me as racism. I don't believe that people are drawn to particular careers because they're "good" or "bad", but for any of a myriad of reasons. And those reasons are the true measure of each person, I think.

But I could be wrong.

Toys

Max got a new squeaky ball today - he chewed the squeaker dead in his old one. He's delighted, and making lots of noise.

The cats got two new toys today: a springy thing that hangs from an elastic that is suspended from a lever that clamps to the top of a door, and a crinkly catnip-filled toss toy. All three of them are completely indifferent to both of them.

Curtis got a new set of irons, a golf glove, a club cleaning kit, and a talking Daffy Duck club head cover.

I got a dozen golf balls, in the florescent hit pink colour that I can actually SEE from 150 yards away, some fancy new tees, and a golf glove.

Wheeeee. Now all we need is some nice weather and a tee time.

I'd like a new pair of lungs too, please, so I don't expire before we finish the round.