Doubt if you must, but trust me on the sunscreen

Monday, August 2, 2010

Eating a third, frozen chocolate chip cookie from a zip lock baggie in the freezer did not help me decide what to write about this week. But it did convince me that my diet vows are, at times, pointless drivel—particularly the one I made last night in front of my daughter when I proclaimed that I would not allow anything unhealthy to pass over my lips during the next seven days.

Obviously that diet declaration fell out of my mouth and onto the floor, where it scurried under the bed to hide among the dust bunnies—and with it my baker’s logic that if I put cookies in the freezer, I would be deterred from eating any.

Who was I kidding? They taste better frozen.

Come to think of it, I put the blame for my latest across-the-board junk food wagon ride squarely at the feet of the two potato chip and chocolate bar addicts whom I took camping with me this past weekend.

Both of them carried around a beach bag full of forbidden snack food at all times, with goodies often fanned out in front of them like a dealer’s hand in a game of Blackjack.

Before I knew it I’d gone from a lettuce and carrot salad menu on Friday afternoon to an hourly intake of Tootsie rolls, salsa-flavored potato chips, Hershey’s chocolate bars, and cinnamon buns by Saturday morning.

So as I sat here in front of the living room window on the holiday Monday in August, flexing my typing finger and watching my stomach inch its way outward and over the top of my jeans in protest of my latest foodie over-indulgence, an unknown dog of large and lanky measure appeared on the grassy knoll at the edge of my property line I share with my new neighbors. It sniffed about and promptly peed upon my blue spruce seedling.

My flat stare expression pressed up against the glass and my rapping knuckles went unnoticed except to the four little birds merrymaking in the grass, that I startled and sent in a flurry straight for me.

I ducked as the birds hit the window. Fortunately for my yet-to-be- allotted window budget and the birds, my fine-feathered friends flew off unscathed, save a few less downy feathers.

One would think I had just shouted ““SQUIRREL!!”

Most of the time the noun is my roll call to the dogs to help drive said rodent up a tree when it’s been spotted stealing sunflower seeds from the birdfeeder.

It also works as a “cat-a-lyst” when “Ozzie” the feline is lining up his stealth move against the lone finch I’m trying to save from his clawed grip.

The sudden commotion sent my own canine capers, which were sleeping soundly in the kitchen, into a barking frenzy that reached the ears of the four-legged scoundrel and sent it high-tailing back across the county line.

But I digress.

There I was standing at the living room window, lamenting no storyline for my column, overdone by too many cookies, my hair looking like the “Wrath of Kahn” and with enough static in it to wipe out a radio station, as I smeared sunscreen all over my face and neck before I headed outside to cut the grass with Big John.

Then the telephone rang. On the other end was a potential employer seeking me for a job interview in the next 30 minutes.

Was it some kind of weird loyalty speed test?

Regardless, I jumped at the opportunity to impress and made a mad dash for the bedroom and the one set of dress pants I owned.

I nearly took my own breath away when I looked in the mirror at my emerging “Don King” hairdo, and the creases around my eyes and that of my chicken neck streaked with white sunscreen residue.

And for the first time in nearly 14 weeks I got down on my knees and thanked the floor that I didn’t have a husband walking through the door right then farming for a kiss.

The budding single life does have its perks.

A re'butt'al on the study of women's hips

Monday, July 19, 2010

It was a day that began as regular as rain—coffee so strong and thick I could part it with a knife, my favorite morning show, and my surf of the internet for the news of the moment.

And then my muscles contracted as the first sentence of the online article jumped off the screen and nearly caused me to spit my Caldwell coffee all over my laptop keyboard.

“A woman’s body shape may influence how good her memory is. ‘Apple-shaped’ women fared better than ‘pears’ on cognitive tests.”

My bottom lip began to twitch and my eyeballs began to jitter back and forth as I scanned the remaining paragraphs for the punch line. Surely this was some kind of joke.

Nope.

“And pear-shaped women – those with smaller waists but bigger hips – scored particularly poorly.”

I was doomed.

Not only was the incessant growth of grey hair on my head far in advance of the schedule I had for myself at age 49, but now my ample hips were about to get in the way of more than the narrow doorway. They were about to impair my memory and render me unable to remember where I left my sunglasses and house keys.

It wasn’t fair. Just the other day I had finally come to the conclusion that these cougars in a gunnysack were here to stay, and I was okay with the ample part of my anatomy. I could displace my neck when I turned around and looked at my curvaceous baggage in the full-length mirror and then go on with my day and forget about what was back there.

Now it would seem, I really was going to forget about it!

It was happening already, I thought to myself as I sat in my computer chair flexing my gluteal nemesis “Maximus” and his cousins “Medius” and “Minimus.”

I’d forgotten what day it was and to make matters worse, when I looked out the living room window at how much the grass had grown overnight, I couldn’t remember “Did I just cut it yesterday?”

I began talking to myself. Was that also a sign that carrying excess weight on the hips was making matters worse?

“I don’t know,” I said to myself, “but I really doubt it. If I can’t remember that it’s you I’m talking to, then I’ll consider it a problem.”

Then my pathologically positive side kicked in—similar in speed to last week when I realized that not having a husband meant I could turn the barn into a girl cave.

“Think positive,” I shouted out loud at 6:30 a.m. “The junk in the trunk is one of your biggest assets. It’s the foundation of your being, the underside of your existence, the land under the water of your better half!”

And of course, true to their canine nature, the dogs translated my octaves into a call to breakfast and jumped around the kitchen like children on Christmas morning.

I could turn ‘re-butt’ this argument.

Thanks to my Irish and Scottish ancestors I would have a mind like a steel trap until the age of 110.

No pear-shaped behind of mine was going to be the iceberg to my titanic of a brain.

I thought about all the great construction scenarios my hips would be good for in the future, including when I held open the barn door and heaved out bar stools and old tools as the movers carried in the pink couch.

Squirrels, snakes and the superpowers of a canine nose

Monday, July 12, 2010

Each morning at 6 a.m. when I let Dot and Cash outside to pee, there is that moment before they head to their respective bush latrines when their noses filter the surrounding air chemistry and, I imagine, make a mental note on their tiny brains, of everything that has trotted, flown, crept, skulked, and swam by this neck of the woods within the past 12 hours.

If I’m lucky, nothing untoward is on the breeze and they will not take off like bats out of purgatory and bark their loud cries of warning that echo down the creek—noise that has been known to wake the neighbors, cheating them out of the last good moments of morning slumber on any given Sunday.

Experts say the secret to a dog’s exceptional olfactory process is a wet snout, which catches all the scent molecules in the air. Experts also believe that in order to keep their snouts moist, dogs produce about a pint of nose mucus every day.

That explains why I can be more than two meters away from a sneezing dog and still feel like I need to douse myself in antibacterial hand soap and take a shower.

I also was curious enough to query just how much a pint was, thus comparing my jar of breakfast jam to dog nose mucus and thereby ruining the enjoyment of spreading the fruit preserves on my toast each morning.

Dot’s incredible nose is the bane of the resident red squirrel’s existence, unless of course we count the sting of the Lone Ranger’s 22-calibre perfect shot.

But so far the rodent has remained in the lead-free zone of my birdfeeder, where on rare occasion it can enjoy a day out of the tree tops if Dot isn’t around.

And I should learn to leave my kitchen window closed at bedtime to keep the bouquets of the night air from reaching the nostrils of my dogs at the darkest hour.

On one such evening, when I was without fear of the night unknown, I gave way to the dogs’ insistence to track the scent, while I followed behind with my big flashlight.

I stood there shining the 15 million-candlelight on the rustling bushes as Dot and Cash jumped about barking and looking at me as if to shout, “Do you smell that?! Do you hear that?!”

I heard it alright. It was the sound of a skunk revving up its scent glands.

I think the remedy for that incident included baking soda, dish soap, water, vinegar, and hydrogen peroxide and two dogs that slept out in the porch for the rest of the week.

Groundhogs beware. If Dot is on your trail, your time on earth is limited to the split second she smells your “rodescence”, as was the case on Saturday morning when she cornered the four-footed menace behind a piece of discarded fencing.

For quite a time after it bit the dust, Dot stood tirelessly over the rodent trophy in ultimate victory. When I picked up the carcass and flung it into the creek, unbeknownst to me she skulked down to the water’s edge, swam out and waited for the thing to float by, fetched it and brought it back up on shore where she again stood over it until I caught sight of her one hour later.

Dot’s super sensitive snout can not be subdued, even for the quiet times I wish to spend these days sitting in my old wicker chair reading books about inner peace and harmony.

There she appears, gingerly drawing her snout along the lawn edge where it meets the long grass and begins to bark incessantly at “the nothing.”

For a fleeting moment as I listened to her ominous tone I envisioned a large black bear would suddenly leap out of the tall grass and swallow her up, attitude and all.

As I watched the dog have what I considered to be a rather brainless moment in which she would not advance upon the thing she smelled, I stepped forward to see what all the commotion was about.

I peered down into the unknown to see the tail of a thick, slithering garter snake slink deeper into the field grass.

After the dog had gone on to other olfactory adventures the snake must have emerged and molted its skin, which in turn provided much anxiety for Dot, who came back upon the lifeless shedding only to bark at it for the rest of the afternoon.

Cash on the other hand did nothing more than sit on his haunches in his “Ducks Unlimited” regal position and stare out at the field across the creek, quite content just to be, his long nose twitching as he drank up the deer pheromones on the breeze.

That’s the self-controlled Cash I would like to see when I leave a roast chicken sitting on the picnic table while I run back inside to get a carving knife.

But I don’t think he’ll get the benefit of the doubt on that one.

I hang my laundry out to dry with my own clothespins

Monday, July 5, 2010

“Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth,” urges Sheryl Louise Moller.

Okay then. Here it goes.

It’s been six weeks since I’ve had any gumption to plunk out this column on my laptop because six weeks ago I found myself smack dab at the end of something that meant the world to me. My marriage.

Elizabeth Gilbert had the right idea in her book “Eat, Pray, Love,” and it is within the context of her writing that I give you my truth, because I can’t seem to find the right way to put my reading public on notice on my own.

“The many reasons a man called Peter did not want to be this woman’s husband anymore are too personal and too private to share here. I would not ask anyone to believe that I am capable of reporting an unbiased version of our story, and therefore the chronicle of our marriage’s failure will remain untold here. I also will not discuss here the reasons why I do still so very much want to be his wife, and why I am still unable to imagine life without him. Let it be sufficient to say that, he is still my love, my lighthouse, and my albatross in equal measure.”

But I’m an adult and I know when to let go and I’m practicing doing that every day with as much respect, and gratitude, and good wishes as I can rally for the man who means the world to me and who wishes to journey forward on his own.

However I don’t profess to do anything of the sort without bouts of dismal interior dialogue and visits from my old friend ‘Misery,’ though I must admit she is not coming around as much anymore since I was discovered by ‘Shift,’ who has helped me immensely by giving me tours in the department of ‘Thinking Positive.’

I also lean on my women’s circle, chocolate bars, and ice cream for support.

I’m always writing about the Universal Plan and how much I believe in it. My current circumstance is testing me on whether I practice what I preach even when things get really %$#@! difficult.

It can’t always be that life is going to give us cherries and I think this qualifies as the pits.

But I am determined to use the leftovers to build myself a lovely, new orchard.

May I start by saying "Thank you."

Who are you if you're not the one who wrote this?

Monday, May 24, 2010

And I repeat,

“Four little words just to get me along . . .”

That’s the first line of a song called ‘That’s Not My Name’ sung by British craze duo ‘The Ting Tings.’

‘That’s Not My Name’ is a fun, upbeat tune that drives me to grab my pseudo-microphone hairbrush and karaoke my way back and forth across my kitchen floor, pretending to be a pop star.

“They call me Stacey, Mary, Jo, Lisa. They call me Her, they call me Jane, always the same. That’s not my name. That’s not my name. That’s not my name,” I croon.

This time it should be “That’s not my column. That’s not my column. That’s not my column.”

Hence, I again feel compelled to poke some fun at myself and the misfire of editing after another contributing writer’s column appeared under my byline in last week’s newspaper.

“Moo.”

In a small town like this, it’s how rumors get started. In a moment of panic I thought I might have to vanish into obscurity as the next volunteer to protect the island on the television series “LOST.”

First off, I didn’t submit a column for last week’s newspaper, which made for the bewildered tilt of my head when a regular reader stopped me in the local grocery store on Thursday afternoon and queried, “I thought you were married.”

And while I have been known on occasion to “have a cow” when my temper gets the best of me—I do not own cows.

And while I do own a barn, my barnyard is not a mess unless you count the small patch of dog poop I forgot to clean up.

And while I have often thought of Daughter #3 as my summer student, she still hasn’t been able to see much of what I do around here because I have all cleaning and bagging done before she gets up at noon.

However, I do have something in common with the Rainy River District Environmental Stewardship Committee. I bought 80 tree seedlings from the group this year. And last summer I purchased and planted 200 seedlings here in my neck of the woods.

I may be cash poor, but I am land rich and in my book there are few earth-friendly accomplishments more satisfying than planting trees.

Last but not least, I do not have a Maddie or a Marlee in my brood, although I do enjoy reading about their little lives when they visit Auntie Kimmie.

But I do change poopie diapers and wipe runny noses and occasionally rescue pussy willows buds from a two-year old’s nostrils.

Most importantly, the news from my herd is that I have a brand new grandson named Charlie, born 15 days ago.

The first tree seedling I planted in my yard was for you, my newest sprout.

The little wonders in my world continue to entertain me

Sunday, May 9, 2010

At mid-week, my brood of grandchildren will have grown by one, as Daughter #1 will give birth to a baby May 11th.

The new addition brings my grandmotherly doting issues to five little peppers.

In the days to come, eight pounds of the newest little someone with the mess of dark, fine hair and star-lit eyes staring back at me from the baby blankets in my arms won’t seem as heavy as the 4kg of sugar I carried in from the truck—and conversations will be all about possibilities.

By mid-week, I’m quite sure I also will be on my second case of the energy drink ‘Red Bull’, as the only vim I expect to have left will be that of the cleaning brand of the same name in the cupboard under my kitchen sink.

Reasons? Two charges—a.k.a. sister and brother of the new baby—both under the age of four-and-a-half years, who will have been visiting Granny Daycare while Mommy is in hospital.

I am beginning to realize with some disbelief that the energy it takes to look after small fries exceeds any other vigorous activity I engage in.

Sometimes I can’t believe I too once was a mother with three small children and that I survived that maternal power supply drainage project.

Please excuse me while I duct tape the kids to the living room wall and go take my morning Granny nap.

The funny thing is, I had a dry run at this chipmunk festival last week, when Daughter #1 unexpectedly went into hospital for complete bed rest. My daycare centre only lasted for one night and two days and yet I was completely worn out.

This is not to say that Adam and Julie were unmanageable. In fact it was just the opposite. They ate their carrots and slept until the sun came up at 5:24 a.m.

However they did try to convince me there was no such thing as manners at their house and compared everything I did for them to the routine they were used to with their mom, including how small and in which shape I cut up their meat.

Say it with me. “Ohm.”

And on the visit to the toy aisle at the local department store with me during his mother’s absence, Adam picked up a “Leapster” computer game and said most casually, “Granny, my mom told me that the next time we come here to shop, she’s going to buy this for me.”

“That’s very nice,” I said, looking for an empty shelf that I might curl up on for a five-minute siesta.

“That’s today,” he said in a serious matter-of-fact tone.

He then proceeded to repeatedly trip over his bottom lip when the tactic didn’t work—as we moved on to the hardware section to look for more duct tape.

Julie on the other hand hasn’t gone the wily route just yet. She’s just happy if there’s a snack to be had.

Clearly I was not prepared. I had flax seeds, lentils, and red kidney beans in large quantities—none of which seemed to thrill the child.

She ran over to the "Lazy Susan" kitchen cabinet—the same one where the old square cookie tin sits in the same spot as it did in my youth when my grandmother ruled this kitchen—and spun the shelving.

“Cookies in there?” she queried as the shelf slowed down and stopped like a roulette wheel, bang-on the cookie tin.

She looked up at me with those brown eyes, as I poured another can of Boost into my coffee cup.

“No. There are no cookies in there. I don’t have any,” I said.

Julie spun the shelf again and when the cookie tin came round again she shouted enthusiastically, “There it is! Cookies in there?”

It was as if it was a new discovery every time over the span of six to eight more spins.

Oh yes, and never underestimate a two-year-old’s ability to find the one thing you don’t want them to touch when you turn your back for 10 seconds. It was a record-breaking spree as she picked off all multiple new leaves of the flower sprouts I had just replanted in peat pots after six weeks of difficult germination.

Later that afternoon when the little mice coaxed me outside to run about the yard, we decided to play hide and seek in the half-light of the barn.

Once inside, I encouraged my energizer bunny duo to go and hide and that I would close my eyes and count to 10.

No sooner had I put my head into the crux of my arm and counted to five, did Julie come running up to me and said shout, “There you are! I see you!”

It was too funny.

As I write this, I am sharing my blood supply with my leather couch and another bottle of Boost and reading quotes from Erma Bombeck about motherhood.

“All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.”

She might be right, but I don’t have any carpets in my house.

However, what I do have is three less buds on a dried pussy willow arrangement and which I didn’t know were missing until Julie sneezed and all three came flying across the room out of her nose.

Say it with me, “Ohm.”

The day when the usual attire didn't make the cut

Sunday, May 2, 2010

I am quite comfortable, thank you very much; in thinking that Christmas is the only date I have with social formality. The rest of the year I live quite comfortably at my “mom-jeans and sweatshirt” retreat.

My little fantasy bubble was popped April 22^nd when I realized that the annual Ducks Unlimited banquet, to which I had been invited, was to be held the next evening and I still had not looked in my closet to see if there was something appropriate to wear.

“Clearly I do not get out enough,” I said to myself that fateful day, when the only formal clothing hanging in there was the pantsuit with poinsettias on it from December 25^th.

And in addition, clearly I don’t get out enough on a social event level to know that such things require slightly more planning and decision-making time than what I give to my breakfast food.

With just 20 hours to spare, it was time to go shopping for myself, which is another strange activity I continue to have little experience with. Unless it involves buying dog food or dish soap, don’t expect to see me again for days. It takes me a lifetime to decide on any fabric that is going to connect with this “apple-bottom” and “headed south” figure of mine.

I also shuddered at the thought that I might be faced with the reality of a thigh-master pantyhose and Spanx battle, before it snowed again.

Daughter #3, sensing an urgency of epic proportions, volunteered to come along on what was becoming an impending panic attack on local dress shops.

And when the five dresses I chose to try on that afternoon made me look like a Dalmatian with a gunny sack stuffed under my knickers, I threw in the towel and tried on the one little black number that I was sure was a lost cause, that Daughter #3 had chosen for me off the rack.

I rolled my eyes. Never in a million years would I have picked that one.

But as soon as I put it on, Poof! I stood corrected and pleasantly surprised with the transformation from frump to fabulous.

I tripped on home with a skip in my step and once there and prancing around in my new look, took one glance in the mirror—and oh, good heavens.

My hair had more evil grey matter than the leftover tomato paste that had been in my fridge since February. At 18 hours and counting, I jumped on the Internet to get advice on hair color and matched myself up to a “Medium Brown #20” and blew back to town for the goods.

If there’s one thing I know for sure, the instructions on the box of hair dye should read “not to be used by a social oddball the day before attending a public function.”

It wasn’t until I had applied the brown concoction to my head did I read in the pamphlet that recommended not washing my hair for at least three days after coloring.

“What if smell like ammonia at the banquet?” was the only frantic thought in my head, until 10 minutes later just before I was to wash the sauce out, did I see the brown streak of dye across my forehead, eyebrow, and on both ear tips.

Short of scrubbing off three layers of skin with a SOS pad, I can now attest that a small dab of the well-known stain removal product “Goo Be Gone” saved the day in facial recovery for this gal.

I also own one pair of “dress-up” high heel shoes that I’m sure have been around since I graduated from college in 1980. I take them out once a year to wear at Christmas and then seal them back up in a large freezer bag and stuff them away for the next 365 days.

Clearly I don’t get out enough.

But when I do I shine up pretty well, if I do say so myself.

And I might try fancying up a little more often in the future, even if only for the benefit of my canine capers, who barked and nearly cornered me as a stranger the evening of the banquet when they didn’t recognize me dressed in something other than old jeans and a plaid bush jacket.

Believe that you have the power to choose a new path

Sunday, April 18, 2010

It was to be a dud column week.

I walked over to the flower garden on Sunday in the sunshine of the afternoon and talked to the little perennial plants sprouting up under the decay of last year’s growth. I encouraged them to make great gains in the next few weeks and how I’d be there for them.

I thought about the coming spring, of green and growing—and the tulip bulbs I forgot to plant last fall.

I thought about finally digging out my spring jacket and remembered I gave it to good will in October. I should never listen to the organizer gurus of this world who suggest an annual culling of seasonal clothing. Thanks to their bright idea that I put into motion last fall, I gave away virtually all of my summer clothes, save for an old tank top covered in paint splotches and a pair of cut-offs to match.

I figured it was time to put away my turtleneck sweaters and then realized there’s only about 35 days until the fall and winter catalogue is available for perusal “on a stand near you.”

And then the phone rang.

When the conversation was over with the dear-to-my-heart soul on the other end, it was quite clear that the Universe had other plans for what would drive me in the next few paragraphs.

Her situation was different and yet the same as those of a hundred other women who are victims of verbal and/or physical abuse in a relationship.

Studies suggest that the brain can handle only two tasks at one time. Add a third and things don’t go well. Obviously I was not a part of that study, because at any given time, I have at least four tasks on the go.

However, right now I have only one charge at hand.

Once upon a time many years ago in the big city, there lived a young wife and mother who did not believe she had choices.

It was a curious thing—not to believe there could ever be something better for her life—because she had been raised to think otherwise.

What she did believe was that even after eight years of marriage there was still room to explain away the times when he made her feel so small and useless.

She still believed she could fix it all by herself with a book on relationships or better yet, just by being quiet.

And so she never told anyone about the times when he got really mad.

And the one time when he exploded in a thundercloud storm of rage, and hurled derogatory words, with the digits of his left hand curled inward as he sucker punched her upside the head and knocked her to her knees—well—she never told a soul about that time either—even though she had dropped like a stone, with a child in her arms.

And when he said he was going to get his shotgun and the words drowned her lungs in terror and she could not breathe, she leapt from the floor with her child, flung open the doorway to a flight of stairs that lead outside, and ran.

Another of her children sat playing on the kitchen floor, yet there was no time to stop.

She leapt in bounds up the stairs, a child to her chest, and burst into the yard in a suburb of the city, and ran.

Instantly, he was behind her. She expected to be shot.

And she ran. There was no one around to help and no one there to save her.

She made it to the neighbor’s front yard across the street before he grabbed her. When she turned to face him, he did not have his shotgun after all.

She pushed herself to the ground, determined to cement herself there, arms wrapped around the child, as the one who scared her so spewed abusive violations and continued to pull at her shirt.

And when everything calmed down—yes, she still believed she had no choice but to remain seated in that marriage anyway.

After all she really couldn’t believe he’d done it. Had he really meant to do that?

What had she said to make him that angry?

And when he didn’t apologize, she never broached the subject with him. Not ever. Not ever. She didn’t want to make him mad.

She stayed small and kept her mouth shut.

It would take her another five years before she believed in herself enough and gathered the courage and made the choice to stand and walk away.

Today, she is a phenomenally strong woman who knows for sure that choice is possible and that “stepping onto a brand, new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation which is not nurturing to the whole woman.”

This is a true story.

The operators of the possibility theory live here

Sunday, April 11, 2010

I interrupt this regularly scheduled column to make a correction on a reference I made two weeks ago to something my dad often says—and I stand corrected.

“It’s always a possibility.” – Bruce Caldwell.

When I first learned of my faux pas from my relative neighbors, I thought to myself, “Anything is possible” and “It’s always a possibility” mean the same thing, so what’s the big deal?

But then I got to thinking about it, and as is, and has been the case on countless occasions since I was born—my parents were right.

There is a difference.

Firstly, a competent writer should never misquote.

Secondly, and though anything is possible, there is more excitement, hope, and anticipation in believing “it’s always a possibility.”

This whole stewpot of word jostling had me revisiting my childhood, a marvelous, carefree world that I frequently long for these days especially when this grown up life tells us we are on the paying end at tax time.

For us kids (myself and my annoying younger brother) hearing a parent say “It’s always a possibility,” as the answer to your question, always left us hinged on the two scenarios juggling our imagination.

And I don’t think we ever disputed the response.

How cool for the parent was that? No rebuttal from the peanut gallery.

There was always a chance.

Of course in the materialistic scheme of things, my brother and I weren’t asking for much. But we thought we were.

The "DQ" soft ice cream cone, or Sunday drive in the country, dessert after supper, a boat trip down the creek, swimming at Boffin Lake, or a snowshoe trip across the creek in the winter to have a hot dog roast, were sought-after experiences.

And when I look back on the countless times we did those things, I’d say their odds were a craps game dream. But we didn’t know that at the time.

I am convinced that the DNA of my dog “Dot” is overloaded with the possibility gene.

Everything she does appears to be with the understanding that she will win. Why else would a dog of her size believe that if she digs a hole in the ground she just might come up with something?

Because she does.

Five young groundhogs to be exact followed by the matriarch.

Maybe I should send her to Saskatchewan with the “Gopher Getters” at the end of the month. She could be renamed “Scout,” the preliminary reconnaissance ratter.

At any rate, she certainly won the battle with her doghouse. The nemesis she’s been involuntarily attached to when I leave the yard has been reduced to a pile of chewed wood and sawdust in her bid to sever ties with it.

Looks like the basement hairy “dog” chair will not be going the dump after all, as it has become the refuge of a winning dog’s bid to not be at the end of a chain.

The words “It’s always a possibility” spilled off my lips and into unknown territory the other day, when Daughter #1 asked me if I would pick up a piece of exercise equipment from the local department store.

Little did I know that it weighed more than my truck.

After sliding it down the stairs to the basement with pulleys and ropes in a two-woman powerhouse sideshow, I was then asked if I would put it together.

Because I was raised to be an optimist, I replied in the common manner.

Anybody who lives with me knows that in many ways I am very good at putting things together and though I digress, that includes; getting myself into Spanx underwear and recovering from a hissy fit as quickly as my Mac laptop does from an internal error.

However, I must have had a momentary lapse of intelligence when I agreed to tackle the evil exercise equipment thingy.

Like the painful memory of childbirth that magically disappears until the next time you have to do it, so had I forgotten my solemn oath to never ever come within 10 feet of an unassembled piece of anything that requires an Allen key.

Quite frankly, the Allen key is on my list of the stupidest inventions ever created and belongs in a fiery pit along with the cellophane wrap on CDs and DVDs.

And whatever machine is designed to seal the package of star washers and bolts in impenetrable plastic that comes with the stupid exercise equipment thingy, can go into the fiery pit too.

It is a well-documented fact that I can not do math well, and now it would appear that I don’t know left from right, as was noted by the peanut gallery after I put the hand railings of the exercise equipment on opposite sides.

“Just use it backwards,” I quipped of the possibility.

All I got was the flat stare.

I reversed them, but not before Murphy’s Law raised its ugly head. I already had used the Allen key to torque the nuts and bolts on the railings tighter than I was held into my thigh shaper pantyhose at Christmas.

I went down the creek bank and layed in the sun to recoup myself after the battle with the machine and no sooner had I closed my eyes did “Cash” come bounding to where I was and in a screeching halt inadvertently hurled long trails of doggy mouth mucous on my face and in my hair.

I just lay there and said out loud, “In my next life can I just be a tree or something?”

I’m sure I heard something greater than myself reply, “It’s always a possibility.”

There is chocolate for every moment and it's all mine

Sunday, April 4, 2010

It was really early on Sunday morning, at about 6:45 a.m. and I was wondering if the Easter bunny had paid me a visit.

As it happens every morning when the pad of my right foot barely touches the floor as I crawl out from under the blankets, the dogs raised their morning racket of yips and yawns.

Predictably in the middle of the kitchen floor I found Cash stretching and snorting and baring his teeth in that ridiculous grin he can make as he and his sidekick drum up their impatience for the morning piddle.

I am struck by the sheer routine character of the canine capers, whose every move and gesture I can count on each morning—including their beaming positive attitudes.

There’s something wise and wonderful about dogs that wag at the dawn and birds that sing their hearts out as the sun rises, despite not knowing what the day may bring them.

Yesterday morning I dragged my sorry carcass to the coffee pot in hopes that a cup of java would eliminate the sore muscles with which I awoke after fighting off fanged ghouls in my dreams—thanks to a late night episode of “The Vampire Diaries”.

Today I awoke with the sense that I’d been run over by a genealogy convoy in the night due to the countless hours I’ve spent researching my family tree.

On each morning occasion, I wasn’t in the greatest mood and still the furred companions who rent floor space here endorsed my presence.

Perhaps they were trying to tell me how pleased they were with themselves for not licking at the chip bowl that sat open on the kitchen table all night.

Or that they were proud of themselves for having allowed Peter Rabbit to hop to it at 2 a.m. without stripping him of his fur and leaving it strewn about the house for my next angora sweater project.

And I didn’t find any half-eaten dog-slobbered Easter goodies lying around—which on any other morning would lead me to believe that at least some of my dog training skills about unsupervised food, had met with success.

But at this juncture all it meant was that the bunny master had forgotten to hide the Easter egg treats at all. They were still stacked in their packaging next to the mixing bowls in the cupboard.

“Out of sight, out of mind” was my rationale—unlike last week when the “Cadbury” 34gram-weight eggs I’d thought would look nice sitting in my wire chicken egg basket on the counter, had no sooner been laid there than eaten by me—all 10 of them. “Buk-buk” barf.

The Easter Bunny had left two meaty dog bones for the canines to enjoy. I threw the tasty treats out into the yard and stood there grinning as Dot ran around the house with hers, then went and lied down for about 10 seconds before beginning the circuit again.

Cash just stayed put on the grass, chewing on his bone and rolling over on his back and flailing his legs in the air as he chewed, clearly delighted with himself.

After breakfast, I took to the outdoors to burn off four more Cadbury eggs I’d eaten, and to make room for the fine Easter dinner that was calling me to my parents’ house at 4 p.m.

I decided to make firewood out of the limbs of a 43-year-old rotted out evergreen tree that my husband felled while he was home at Christmas.

He’d left the wood carcass in long scraggly twig-infested chunks and piled it all in an area of the yard that clearly did not meet the approval of the yard committee.

I spent the afternoon stripping dead branches off with my hands, and every once in while used my foot for leverage when I came across a tough part of the tree.

There were foot traps everywhere and as I torqued and tugged in a Herculean fashion, I stepped backwards without looking.

In that microsecond that it took for my carcass to meet with gravity, all I could think about was the pile of gooey spring-soaked dog poop I was likely to land in.

I went down flat on my back, legs and feet flailing in the air. Thankfully the only thing injured was my self-esteem as I imagined the whole world just saw me topple like a sack of flour.

I stayed there for a minute on my back and watched as two big ravens flew overhead cackling at the sideshow. They were the only ones that noticed.

Not even the dogs had looked up from where they were parked within 20 ft. of me each coveting their dog bone.

At the very least I had expected them to interpret my fall as a playtime gesture and bound over to pounce on me.

I sat up, looked at the canine stupors and said out loud, “Thanks for making sure I was alright.”

They both looked at me from their prone positions with long, blank dog stares that smacked of “Huh?” before re-focusing on their sinewy synopsis.

I felt a little snubbed just then and my Alpha ego was slightly bruised.

But it was nothing that a few more Cadbury eggs wouldn’t fix.

Wise words; take it leave it but don't forget it

Sunday, March 28, 2010

“If at first you don’t succeed, if at second you still aren’t getting it, if at third you want to throw your arms up and run away, just give it a week or so and try again.” – Me, myself, and I

“Women hold up half the sky.” – Chinese proverb

“Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.” – Sheryl Louise Moller

“Your job is you. Unless you fill yourself up first, you have nothing to give anybody.” - Anonymous

“Remember, when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” - Neil Gaiman

“Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.” – Robert A. Heinlein

“The person without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.” – Thomas Carlyle

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.” - Zig Ziglar

“A person is not hurt so much by what happens, as by his opinion of what happens.” - Michel de Montaigne

“Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings.” - C.D. Jackson

“We all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school.” – Peter De Vries

“There’s nothing wrong with today’s teenager that twenty years won’t cure.” - Edith Stirwell

“The mathematical probability of a cat doing exactly what it wants is the one scientific absolute in the world. – Lynn M. Osband

“To think too long about doing a thing, often becomes its undoing.” - Eva Young

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” - Thomas A. Edison

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” –Leslie Poles Hartley.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William A. Ward

“You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated of it.” –Henry Ward Beecher

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

“If you don’t find opportunity knocking, find another door.” - Anonymous

“In doing anything, the first step is the most difficult.” – Chinese proverb

“Fear is the little dark room where negatives are developed.” – Michael Pritchard

“You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L. Doctorow

“Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.” - Sophia Loren

“There is only one day left, always starting over: It is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.” - Jean Paul Sartre

“For fast acting relief, try slowing down.” - Lily Tomlin

“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she has laid an asteroid.” - Mark Twain

“Good fathers are the ones who make the women in their lives feel like good mothers.” – Unknown

“Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.” - E. Joseph Cossman

“The parents exist to teach the child, but also they must learn what the child has to teach them; and the child has a very great deal to teach them.” – Arnold Bennett

“Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you.” –Alan Alda

“You shouldn’t be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.” – Unknown

"Do not kiss your children so they will kiss you back but so they will kiss their children, and their children's children." -- Noah benShea

“Find spaces of stillness if you want to get to the spaces where the answers are.” – Eckhart Tolle

“Anything is possible.” - Bruce Caldwell

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” – Unknown

Laughing at life through the looking glass

Sunday, March 21, 2010

If there’s one thing I know for sure it’s that laughing at the stupid things I do and think about, is good medicine for me.

For starters, it would seem that I quite simply have forgotten that two plus two equals four.

Early one morning I went to the local car wash and put a twenty-dollar bill in the change machine in order to get loonies for the automatic car wash bay.

I wanted an eight-dollar wash package and with four loonies in my hand, shoved them into the coin slot.

“Two, four, six, eight,” I said out loud and then spent at least five minutes trying to figure out why the door to the wash bay wouldn’t open.

“What do you #@$%! mean ‘enter more coins!’” I shouted at the coin machine, as dark clouds began to form over my head.

I got back in my truck and called the carwash hotline on my cell phone to inform somebody that the coin operation system wasn’t working. I was cold and I was crabby.

“We’ll have to come over,” said a polite voice on the other end. While I waited for the manager to arrive, I opened my wallet in a huff to count my loonies, muttering that I’d probably put more than eight bucks into that stupid machine already.

16 of the original 20 loonies still remained in my possession.

Uh huh, maybe I shouldn’t have dropped out of math class in Grade 10 after all.

And while I may not have mastered my math tables, I do know that it only takes one stinky diaper in the kitchen garbage to make the house smell like the barn used to, especially when another toddler is found playing with the swinging lid and fanning the aroma of his little sister’s poop into the surrounding atmosphere.

“Granny Daycare” mirrors a game of sports. There is no ending you can write beforehand.

It’s a new adventure every time—including the one that gets you down on the floor playing “Pop-Up Pirate” and gingerly sticking plastic swords into the sides of a toy barrel in anticipation of the pirate jumping straight out the top.

When the game is all over I almost always want someone to take me to the hospital for anti-anxiety medicine and to the chiropractor to get me out of the seized-up cross-legged position I am stuck in.

I’ve also learned that if I’m going to play “Pop-Up Pirate” I must not do so before baking peanut butter cookies. I was so frazzled I forgot to add the peanut butter in the mix and didn’t figure it out until all the kids were stumped by what was missing in the taste test when the cookies came out of the oven.

Hide and Seek—the ultimate outdoor game for all ages.

And where does Granny decide to hide when it’s her turn? Usually it’s my husband who’s in the dog house but . . .

Getting inside the doggie doorway by the count of 20 is not easy when the width of the thing is much less than that of my bum.

In a desperate effort to disappear I’m sure I dislocated my pelvis as a shot of adrenaline pushed me inside the doghouse, where I don’t think a canine has slept in months.

I know this because as I scuffled around in the cramped space to sit down I came face to face with a pile of sunflower seeds and a red squirrel.

Startled by our sudden face off we both screamed—me in my girly voice, and “Red” in a bucktoothed, high-pitched “chee” identical to the squirrel in the “Bridgestone” TV commercial from the 2008 Super Bowl.

And there wasn’t room for both of us.

In the moment of terror that I saw in the beady eyes of my nemesis, I envisioned that if I tried to escape, “Red” would launch himself into my long hair and have to be cut out with scissors.

I didn’t have a chance.

In a swift plan of reaction—and torn right out of a movie clip from “The Matrix,”—as the squirrel leapt toward me I veered to the side, and he shot straight out the doggy door.

“Fiction is a bunch of little lies making up a big truth.” – W.O. Mitchell.

I felt like Alice in the rabbit’s house. I shuffled around and sat on my bum and processed what had just happened in the last 30 seconds.

I could hear “Dot” who undoubtedly now had the little monster treed and under quarantine. Or did the barking and “chee-cheeing” sound like animal laughter? I couldn’t quite tell.

Just then a spider the size of my thumb crawled out of the straw in front of me, rolled over on its back and appeared to hold its stomach with four of its eight legs and giggle before it disappeared down a crack in the floor.

I just sat there half expecting “Ozzie” the cat to appear in the doghouse doorway with a Cheshire grin.

“How’re you enjoying the game?” he would ask.

“They don’t play fair,” I’d retort, of the jokes the dog and the squirrel had conjured up for the Alpha.

“No one does if they think they can get away with it. That’s a lesson you’ll have to learn,” Ozzie would advise.

But instead, a grandchild peeked into the small space where a 49-year-old would-be contortionist sat composing herself.

“Granny! I found you Granny! How did you fit in there?”

There are some things money can’t buy.

The very moment—when I started to laugh—was one of them.

The first rule is to write about what matters most

Sunday, March 14, 2010

This is one of those weeks when I’ve had to apply “Rule 21.”

It’s a directive I invented and one that I have to fall back on now and then when it appears I have nothing to write about.

It is a flexible rule that varies in regulation and content depending on what I’m looking for as a catalyst to my creative block.

“Rule 21” is meant to put me on a slope, where I am at the top looking down upon the thing I must write about.

If I have to deploy “Rule 21” it means the incline to the thing is going to involve a twisty and slow cross-country ski to the finish line and will not be a speedy downhill slalom.

However, it has not been a week in which the Universe has conspired against me in terms of writing. That never happens. There always is something to write about. Sometimes I just have trouble seeing the story between the everyday ordinary pages of my life.

For me, “Rule 21” is sort of like what a dog does when it comes upon an area where it wants to lie down. Around and around in circles the dog kneads the spot in customary fashion to improve the place where it will spend considerable time.

Or what author Sarah Ban Breathnach believes about exercise and spirit. “I walk regularly for my soul and my body tags along.”

I am a better thinker and creator when my body is busy doing something else.

So when the write tank appears empty, I clean house, wash dishes, vacuum, fold laundry, bake, eat and take the long way home.

And today, my house is very tidy, there’s not a dirty spoon in sight, all my clothes are clean, the cookie tin is brimming, I’ve seen the countryside from here to the west end of the district twice in the last 12 hours, and I’ve consumed enough chocolate almonds to sustain me until June.

And I shake my head because it’s not like the door to my imagination ever closes. There’s “applied” Beth who carries around a little brown book of scribbled thoughts, and there’s “radio frequency” Beth, with a storage cloud of ideas in the recesses of her brain.

But sometimes all those notes don’t add up to much of anything I can use to make this column longer than the 407 word count in which I have just blathered.

Maybe it’s a slump thing. Maybe it’s a “missing my husband very much” thing.

On the cusp of the coming spring, I am a bit self-absorbed in the fact that in that last 365 days I have seen Peter for none but 30 of them. Oh, the hard facts of my soul mate having to work away from home.

I am one of the strongest, most independent woman creatures I know. Hands down. But I sure could use a hug and a kiss and some long lost company from the man I love.

I read somewhere—and I believe—that souls attract to those who are on the same frequency, have similar lessons and needs, and who often reflect their own issues to help them understand and cope. They say souls need to be with those of like mind or like frequency and that when you move out of frequency or out of sync, life becomes static and does not flow.

Today this is the headspace I’m in. Tomorrow it will be another story.

Best selling author Neil Gaiman penned good advice. “Write. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.”

This is my first rule.

The road to Hollywood starts right here

Sunday, March 7, 2010

I think I was 11 years old when my parents bought their first television. When it came to my childhood neck of the woods, it smacked of possibilities and I was drawn to it like Carol Anne was in ‘Poltergeist.’

Thankfully I didn’t end up inside the tube waiting for my mother to rescue me, but I definitely dreamed big dreams of being in the movies.

From then on I wanted to be actress and live in Hollywood.

So it goes without saying that the annual Oscar Awards always has been a television favorite with me. That Sunday night extravaganza each year is as important to me as the Olympic Games. I pull out all the stops, eat chips and dip, and ignore the telephone if it rings.

This very minute, as I write in this space, I have exactly 1 hour and 22 minutes left before the curtain goes up for ‘The Oscars 2010.’ The chip dip is marinating and the ink is dried on my official ballot where I have marked out my favorite nominees.

And while I have long since come to grips with the reality that I will not make it in Hollywood, I remain a big dreamer in my own starring role with a cast right here in my lovely little life, with many moments worth a golden boy statue in hand.

Actress in a Leading Role: My two-year-old granddaughter who by her contortioned gestures, writhing, and sorrowful tears, would like me to believe the world will end if she is not allowed to have that second cookie.

Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role: The canine capers of ‘Dot’ and ‘Cash’ poised wagging as they too make a play for a second cookie, having just eaten the first one dropped on the floor by the one-year old granddaughter in the highchair.

Documentary Short: The one written by Mr. Fantastic that argues men do not see dust. Ever.

Documentary Feature: The long-winded comeback by Mrs. Fantastic who thought that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.

Visual Effects: From the 1990 archives—the drop jaw expression on my face in the bathroom mirror as I was busy applying lipstick when my five-year-old, fresh home from the school grounds, proudly said to me, “Mommy I learned a new “F” word at school today,” to which I hurriedly asked, “Oh good, and what was that?”

Best Director: “Mommy, did Beth say you could clean the oven?” (serious yet-oh-so-comical question recently posed by a three-year-old to her mother, at their house where I am the housekeeper.)

Original Score: The real reason Peter married me—because I won the bet that I could beat him at a game of pool. Border Bar. Summer 1997.

Short Film Live Action: When my grandson turned the corner in aisle three at the local grocery store last summer and saw a white-bearded man pondering over his list and shouted, “SANTA!” to which the jolly man turned to face the small believer and replied, “Ho, Ho, Ho!” Priceless.

Animated Feature: Me at the crack of dawn on a recent and very cold Friday morning when I took the ‘Expedition’ to the big city to rescue Daughter #3. I’d pulled over to check that all the truck doors would open easily for the inspecting officers at the U.S. Customs border crossing after intuition told me that the green beast was likely iced up after going through the car wash the previous night.

The passenger’s side back door was frozen shut and refused me entry from the outside. I came back around to the driver’s side passenger door and got in and heaved on the frozen door from the inside. That didn’t work either, and as luck would have it I then found myself trapped in the back seat because the child security devices had locked me in.

There was no option but to climb back into the driver’s seat over the middle console, at which point I lost my footing between the two front seats and fell head over heels into the floor of the front passenger side smashing the bag of peanut butter and banana sandwiches I’d made for the long day ahead.

Foreign Language Film: What I muttered under my breath in 1991, composed while biting my tongue, five months postpartum when a woman looked at me and asked when the baby was due.

Costume Design: Hands down my idea. My brother, age 7, in 1971, in a red velvet dress walking down the road to my grandparents’ house.

Makeup: The ante that Mr. Fantastic can draw from for the next 12 months after saying to me: “I hate to just call you ‘my wife.’ It is such a generic word for someone so splendid.”

Original Screenplay: Wilbur—the wonderful story of the little pot- bellied piglet I envisioned buying and bringing home next week, so cute and cuddly all wrapped up in a little pig blanket.

Adapted Screenplay: $%#@!—the flash forward nightmare when the 150-pound pig pet helps itself to the contents of the refrigerator and then roots into the leather cushions of my new couch.

Best Picture: Status quo—two dogs, one cat, a 19-year old live-in, and no pig.