I have no idea where to start

Monday, July 25, 2011

Ok, so what subject should I start with? The hot, humid weather and my overcooked hormone casserole, or another skunk story?

How about a descriptor of when I pulled raisins out of the baby’s nostril, or how stupid I felt when I drove “Big John” into the creek, or maybe some excerpts from my long-winded conversation with an ancient air compressor I recently attempted to haul across my yard against its will.

I have no idea where to start. There’s no idea famine here in my neck of the woods—and I presently concur—as the famous slogan for Morton Salt so smartly suggests, “when it rains it pours.”

For starters I’m still recovering from two adventures involving multiples of grandchildren under the age of six.

Clearly I have forgotten how much work it is to be the only supervising adult amongst the scamper and scurry of little people. All I can say is that unleashing my wee kin in the toy department is like a game of billiards—they scatter like the break shot after the eight ball, and burst out in all directions. I am loathed to admit that only the bribe to get French fries was what reeled all of them back in.

And because I couldn’t manage to keep them all sitting down at the restaurant, I decided to place the little sprites in twos and threes in shopping carts and cruise the store aisles with them relatively sequestered as they munched on their tasty treat.

All was well until a little voice belonging to a two year old, who also was holding the paper bag that contained my French fries said,” I think I’m gonna throw up,” opened said bag and barfed inside.

That was the first adventure.

The second one was the race, while pushing one cart and pulling the other, to find a garbage can before the bottom fell out of the wet paper bag.

Running through that store with five kids in carts and a bag of barf was a cartoon strip right out of “For Better or Worse.” I was Elly Patterson, my eyes as big as saucers, and the look on my face was pure dread. But I made it.

In contrast, a recent road trip to Winnipeg with my grandson Adam, his one year old brother Charlie, and, thankfully, their mother, has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have no idea where to start when trying to explain to a five year old just how long it’s going take it get to the big city.

As we left Fort Frances, Adam was buckled in the back seat of the car with a Nintendo DS, an IPod, earphones, and a yummy little package of donut holes from the local bakery which he was not to show to his baby brother, who was not allowed to have any.

“I’m bored,” he said, as we cruised through Devlin.

“Is this Winnipeg?” he asked.

We were at Emo.

And then Charlie spotted the donuts.

Four hours later we’d reached the big city and Charlie had quit crying and fallen asleep about five minutes before we parked at the mall. Thank goodness for umbrella strollers and sippy cups both of which soothed the unhappy toddler as we traveled the mall.

Adam, on the other hand, was keen to explore the wonderful wide world of retail. He had both arms outstretched as we went down the store aisles and his fingers like magnets, drew everything off the shelves for a solid mile.

I glanced away once from the little Tasmanian Devil and when I turned back around he was holding the lid from a china teapot—the sales tag dangling and twirling from a little string on the knob top. It read $549.00.

I wanted to throw down a black portable hole and jump in. I managed to rescue the teapot and save my life savings while suppressing my urge to drag the poor child like a rag doll out of the store.

We steered clear of anything fragile and headed for the escalator in the middle of the mall. Adam had never seen nor been on such a machine before.

I thought it was my chance to show him something really neat, until three quarters of the way up the magic staircase my imagination got the best of me as I pictured his flip flop sandal sliding under the revolving step at the top and sucking the poor child in with it like a scene from a Bugs Bunny Cartoon.

But I held myself back and let him step off on his own. He glanced up at me with that wide-eyed wonderful all encompassing smile and said, “Wow! That was so cool, Granny! Can we do it again?”

Those rides up and down the escalator that afternoon were so much fun—and to explain in words how much I felt like a kid again—well, I have no idea where to start.

Yesterday is now where it belongs

Monday, July 4, 2011

I’ve been pacing my writing cage for days and days. The heart says I must write. The head says, “You ain’t got no funny story to tell.” The heart takes head’s advice and keeps to itself a little longer until it can’t take it anymore and wakes the head at night with an incessant pounding on the door of stories.

Life’s not always funny. Write anyway.

I’d like to say that the last 365 days has been “The Year of Magical Thinking,” but that was Joan Didion’s story and it was very different than mine.

And yes, I understand—in the big scheme of things, anything I relate to may pale in comparison to the really difficult lives being lived out by others. You matter.

What—and all I know for sure is my own truth, and because I’ve been given the privilege of sharing “my neck of the woods” with you the reader, the sack of stories I pace the cage with isn’t always about the size of my God-given rear end or the canine capers.

Sometimes it’s about stuff that might make you cry or make you angry. It might make you sad. It might make you think about what’s really important to you, what you have, what you don’t, want you want, what you don’t, or who you want in your life and who you don’t.

But the next few paragraphs aren’t written in pursuit of the latter. It’s just quite simply reality—and a slice of my life story that’s doesn’t end in chocolate.

I was officially divorced from Peter on May 17th and yet I hadn’t reached full acceptance of our failed marriage until last week and, strangely enough, while cutting my grass with my riding mower.

Cutting my grass had been hell until last week because while “Big John” did all the work over the two or three hours it took to mow this big yard, my mind would get sucked into the dark vortex of wandering thoughts of stewing and suffering about all the reasons why he had chosen a life that didn’t include me.

By the time I was done mowing, I’d be reduced to nothing but a drained soul with no possibility or hope—and for someone with a great passion for landscaping and for this old homestead, this mind ritual I put myself through was grave business.

Then just last week some three hours into cutting my grass I suddenly realized my mind was quiet and content and I knew right then that I had reached a milestone in my new beginnings.

It has taken me 14 months to get here and it’s a biggy for me. And I know it sounds ridiculous, but FINALLY cutting the grass is fun again.

I’ve written so many times about the power of positive thinking, choosing my thoughts the same way I choose my clothes every day—choose wisely. I’m still learning.

And “if nothing ever changed there’d be no butterflies.” Yes, hindsight is 20/20 and all that blah.

So this is where I release Mr. Yesterday from this column space. Eyes ahead companions. Life is now.

As I said earlier this story doesn’t end in chocolate, but it does end in something I’ve learned through you, Jon.

“Some day someone will walk into your life and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else.”

Once upon a time it was quiet here

Monday, June 20, 2011

I’m pretty sure half dozen critters from the 1980s television series “Fables of the Green Forest” just moved into my neck of the woods.

Yes folks I’ve got “Chatterer Squirrel,” “Paddy Beaver,” “Grandpa Frog,” “Uncle Billy Mouse,” “Jimmy Skunk”, and “Bobby Raccoon” living here along with a handful of new recruits—“Chip Chipmunk,” “Morris Crow,” “Mervin Magpie,” and “Suzie Starling.”

Bestselling author and humorist, David Sedaris should come over and take notes. Undoubtedly he could find enough chaos in this caper-filled neighborhood to write his next book. Herein lie the goodies for a sequel to “Chipmunk Seeks Squirrel.”

When I was growing up, I wanted to be an animal vet and I practiced my budding career on the unfortunate birds that flew into our living room window.

There I was pumping those little wings and blowing puffs of air into the bird’s little lungs. What was I thinking?

At the very least, if I couldn’t be a vet I wanted to have a big farm where I could take in disadvantaged critters and give them a place to live out their days.

I should be careful what I wish for.

“Sammy Blue Jay,” the yappy one around here, is the biggest tattletale in the bunch. Never mind that I just saw him put the run on the chipmunk and steal all the dried bread crumbs out of the bird feeder.

The canine capers have but to put one paw out on the front step in the morning and the Blue Jay is announcing to anything within earshot, the dogs’ arrival on the outdoor scene.

And it was Mr. Blue Jay who caught me poking in a piece of chocolate as I crossed the yard from my car.

“Cheater, cheater!” was all I heard as the bird’s beak flapped and the chocolate touched my lips. The Blue Jay’s fondness for acorns may indeed be credited with spreading oak trees after the last glacial period, but he’s a snitch just the same.

Now, if I could just train the raucous fowl to publicize the arrival of “Jimmy Skunk” to the neighborhood I wouldn’t have to find out “Stinky” was here by alternative—i.e. catching a whiff of my dog after he’s already made it past me and into the house.

Alas, the chipmunk duo lives on borrowed time in my neck of the woods, given that two cats patrol the farmyard. I’m not sure why the cute little rodents have defected from the safety of the chipmunk herd that resides at the peanut farm next door, but I’m most pleased to have their company.

I am endlessly fascinated with the chipmunk comedy circus. Aptly named “Chip” and “Dale,” they get along fine as long as they aren't within 10 feet of each other during the nut haul. Otherwise it's an end over end fight for status—sort of like the scraps my brother and I had when we were young.

And the only way to tell one chipmunk gender from the other is by their investment management skills.

“Dale” cracks the peanut shells right on the spot and pouches the contents, sometimes stuffing in ten or more morsels of peanut. “Chip” just pokes three whole shells in his jowls and runs off.

Only a female chipmunk would take the time to break things down into an organized and manageable system.

And when I cry a river over the cost of peanuts, I must remember to weigh the price against when I lived in B.C., where chipmunks preferred canned oysters and M&M candies.

My nemesis is “Paddy Beaver.” I long for his life span to get shorter every time I see another tree missing along the bank across the creek.

His nocturnal nature is going to get him in trouble if my new night vision goggles arrive on time. There I’ll be, hiding behind the scrub maples at 2 a.m. with a golf club and a gunnysack full of rocks.

And then there’s the “SQUIRREL!!”—the only word my dog “Cash” understands. Utter the eight-letter declaration and like a bat straight out of the “Meatloaf” song, both canine capers are all over the situation.

But “Chatterer” Squirrel is no dummy and because of the wit involved, I believe we are dealing with a female. She is the best dog babysitter I’ve ever had.

“SQUIRREL!” and the dogs take their stations at the bottom of the tree for hours waiting for her to come down. Meanwhile she’s skipping around the evergreen canopy shopping for pinecones.

At least that’s how relatively simple life was around here until the other day when I opened the porch door and was met by Murphy’s Law, as five squirrels—seemingly flung from slingshots—seized the opportunity and made a mad dash for the safety of the basement, followed by two blaring dogs.

I could just see the news headline “Five squirrels fend off dogs only to get their tails tangled together and require surgical intervention to get them apart.”

Like I said before, I need a holiday.

Alert! Administer chocolate immediately

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

It was the stupidest bet I’ve ever made—just plain stupid.

May 31^st a crew of us from work had nothing better to do during the noon hour than invent a contest that would have each of us give up something for 30 days.

I plumped up my feathers and said, “I’ll give up eating chocolate.”

I’m not even sure what the winner gets. All I know is that besides the five bucks I forked out to be in the stupid contest, I’ve already had to cough up two penalty payments.

And the farm rooster hadn’t even crowed yet when I mindlessly shoved two homemade chocolate brownies in my face and washed them down with “Caldwell Coffee” before I realized I’d cheated.

And it was 7 a.m. on June 1^st—Day One.

I’m about to close the door on Day Eight and my willpower has already had to be duct-taped to the wall three times to keep it together.

It would appear that I have an infatuation with chocolate or perhaps I’m in denial and I’m addicted.

I’ve come to the sobering conclusion that the next 22 days are going to be the bane of my existence.

And I may be going crazy but I think “Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory” has stepped off the big screen and into my shadow as part of an elaborate Universal plot to sabotage the single greatest challenge of my entire life.

By comparison, I quit drinking alcohol three and half years ago. I drank a lot before that—more than anyone who knows me might have realized—but choosing to quit was by far easier for me than laying a wager that I could give up chocolate for a month.

“That was the stupidest bet I’ve ever made—just plain stupid,” is my new mantra as I jump up and down in tantrum fits, kicking and screaming against the insanity of it all.

So as one can imagine, chocolate is on my mind a lot these days. And how many sleeps is there until I can sink my teeth into the solid chocolate bunny from Easter that I found still untouched in the kitchen cupboard when I was spring cleaning this weekend?

Again, I reiterate the Universal conspiracy theory.

The last time I found “surprise chocolate” was when I was smart enough not to be in the middle of a 30-day famine. I was cleaning my closet out and found a box of “Pot of Gold” chocolates I’d forgotten to give as a gift. It was all over in under 15 minutes. The little morsels never knew what hit them.

Hence everywhere I turn during this month-long fiasco, there it is. Choco-awareness is unrelenting.

If it’s not in the candy bars dancing at me on the shelf at the grocery till, it’s the wafter covering on the bottom of nutrition bars, in cookies and muffins, flavored in coffee, and in the ice cream.

Can’t have that, can’t have that.

I swear at this moment, I can hear the bag of milk chocolate chips calling my name from the pantry.

I can feel my age spots returning and my crow’s feet elongating with each passing day I am separated from my sublime chocolate experience.

I’ve always believed that those of us who eat chocolate will live longer than those who don’t. I knew it long before the scientific studies claimed it so.

My plan always has been to become a super centenarian using chocolate as my life preserver.

I want to follow in the footsteps of Jeanne Calment who was born in 1875. She lived to be 122 years old and ate two pounds of chocolate of week until the age of 119.

Regular consumption of chocolate has been thought to have circulatory benefits, aid in muscle recovery, be a cough preventer, anti-cancer agent, brain stimulator, and a migraine prophylactic.

I’ve abstained for eight days and my cognitive abilities have waivered, I have a cough, my feet are cold, I have a headache, and a backache.

I’m a wreck!

However, I am not among the 50 percent of women who supposedly prefer chocolate to sex—or at least not lately—though I do agree with the following wise words of a fellow connoisseur.

“I am a serious chocoholic. For the serious chocoholic, chocolate is better than sex. If you believe that, you REALLY need to meet that special someone who can change your mind. If you HAVE met that special someone and still believe that, I REALLY NEED to know where you get your chocolate!!!”

I also would now agree with the sage who figured out that if you eat a chocolate bar before each meal it takes the edge off your appetite and you’ll eat less.

In the past eight days I’m sure I’ve gained five pounds.

All I know for sure is that I’d rather pull stewed raisins out of a baby’s nostril and deal with poopy diapers than go without chocolate for the next 22 days.

And no, my children, this is not a shout out to you about my babysitting services.

Unless of course you arrive bearing lots of chocolate—for Day 31.

The ABC's of the unexpected moment

Monday, May 23, 2011

“Life is a like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”

Yes indeed, my neck of the woods is a testament to that statement in more ways than one.

And in addition, if I were to follow the rules set out in “The ABC’s of Ageing Gracefully,” I would be encouraged in times of unexpected change or surprise endings to “quit whining, yield gracefully, upset convention, and eat more chocolate.”

Since losing my bank and credit cards and $50 down the toilet a few weeks ago, I admit that I did upset convention by eating way too many chocolates in a bid to settle my whining so that I might yield gracefully to the unplanned elements of the day.

It tasted good but it came back to bite me with a two-week set back in my weight management plan to lose the “two cougars in a gunny sack” that have replaced my apple bottom since I turned 50 seven months ago.

And the “ABC” rule that encourages me to “Go Grey” was met at the roots a few days ago, when my credit card company called to inquire about a suspicious charge noted on my account.

I very rarely use my credit card so the call was not unwarranted, and although in most fragments of life I am logical and rational, that particular moment on the phone was not one of them.

I was standing there poking in one last chocolate and listening to the droning voice at the other end inform me about the potential for fraud, when a bouquet of grey hairs sprouted from my moustache, crown, and eyebrow.

I pictured the sewer rat whose fishing net had snagged the charge card that had been sucked into the bowels under the city. He was now wearing Gucci sunglasses, sipping 1943 Dom Perignon, and salivating at the large wheel of Parmesan cheese he’d just imported from Italy on the underground market.

Lucky for me my imagination doesn’t always ring true.

The charge was a once-a-year North American travel insurance payment charge.

“Yield gracefully.” Is that the same thing as “expect the unexpected?”

Either way, it would seem I’m being tested.

The day before Mother’s Day, as I was heading out the door for a brisk walk, Daughters #1 and #3 were headed to the barn with strict instructions for me not to come in.

“No problem,” I replied, believing full well their secret plan was to assemble the Adirondack chair they had bought their loving mother for her leisure space by the creek.

90 minutes later the girls and dogs emerged in a gunshot of energy as I was gingerly piling charcoal in the barbecue.

“Dot needs a drink of water,” shouted one of the cohorts. Thinking it was a ploy to get me inside so that I wouldn’t see my new chair until it was sitting by the creek, I waved an affirmative and headed for the house, as a thrill of anticipation quickened my stride.

“No, Mom, Dot needs a drink of water,” re-shouted the cohort again. I raised an eyebrow and again motioned in the direction of the house to reiterate my intention on fulfilling that request.

“No Mom, Dot needs a drink of water.”

Okay, surprise or not, by this time I was about to reveal the snakes in my hair and change both my children into stone, at which time I would thank them for the chair and retire creek side.

And when I turned around, there it was.

“Surprise!”

Yield gracefully. Dot was a shadow of her former self.

For the last hour and a half my kids had been dog groomers—not chair builders—and had shaved the dog.

And as if the forces of the Universe hadn’t poked enough fun at me in that moment, I hadn’t but parked in the driveway two days later when Daughter #3 shot out of the house and across the yard, summoning me in a flurry of excitement to the barn.

Had the guilt finally hit home? Had she finally assembled the Adirondack chair?

She opened the barn door and a big Cheshire cat grin lit up her face. I could envision the chair in all its beauty.

I stepped inside the barn in full anticipation. And there it was—a very large, deceased groundhog lying prone on a garbage bag in the middle of the barn floor.

“Where did you get that!?” I stammered.

“Dot killed it. It was hiding in the barn,” she replied.

The word “Lovely” sputtered out of my mouth along with a string of mumbo jumbo jargon to accompany my eyes rolling back in my head.

“I laid out the garbage bag and told Dot to bring it here and drop it. I didn’t know what to do with it after that,” Daughter #3 said, blatantly proud of herself and her canine cohort.

“Uh huh,” I muttered, as my mind wandered off to my happy place.

I need a holiday.

Misadventures in a mall end in chocolate

Monday, May 9, 2011

I now retract all the times I have wished for a tech-savvy toilet in my own bathroom.

A recent trip to the big city reinforced this inevitable fact when I found myself talking feverishly to a self-flushing toilet in the mall bathroom.

It did not occur to me prior to standing up that my assistance would not be required in the toilet flushing and I had but lifted my derriere from the seating position when a loud sucking noise engulfed the stall I was in, causing me to jump and turn around with my pants still at my ankles.

In a microsecond, a Category 5 foreboding choked off my oxygen supply—with far more impact than my recent “KD” moment or the one from 1990 before the car door locked and I realized I’d left the keys in the ignition and a child still buckled into a car seat—as I watched my bank card, credit card, and a $50-dollar bill that had slipped out of my back pocket and into the toilet bowl spin out of sight and into the bowels under the city.

My instinct to dive in after my possessions was thwarted by my Blackberry flying out of my shirt pocket, which I caught it in a two-handed catch above the toilet bowl, worthy of any save by any goalie ever in the history of sports.

Victorious in that moment, I also was thankful that my driver’s license, tucked into the other back pocket of my jeans was still there when I finally pulled up my pants.

And yet, my “mall crawl” had swiftly come to an end before it started. Funny enough 15 minutes earlier, I had taken off like a slingshot from the mall’s food court, where I’d left “Mr. Right Now” standing in my wake.

It was our first adventure shopping together in a mall and I couldn’t help but broach the subject of wanting to head off shopping on my own for an hour.

“When you say you need some time to shop, does that mean you don’t want me to go with you?” he had queried.

Suddenly, as I stood at the mall bathroom sink washing my hands I wished he were waiting outside the door just so that I could bum $50 from him for the remaining 45 minutes of my solo.

But of course he wasn’t, and I didn’t want to waste my quarter-hour searching for him in the mall, only to lose my nerve in asking for a small purchasing loan.

Instead, I took to grumbling and window shopping and tried on reading glasses and sunglasses—the ones with that little price tag that flops around between your eyes as you smile and admire yourself in the mirror, just as a really cute guy walks by and you feel like a buffoon.

And the magnified reading glasses were no better. All they did was allow me to see in the department store mirror, the black hair poking out of my upper lip, causing me to consider ripping open a tweezers package and plucking out the evil thing right then and there.

Needless to say I had baked myself into a hormonal casserole under a rolling thundercloud by the time my hour was up.

“That was THE most unsuccessful, disappointing hour I have ever had while shopping,” I muttered in his direction as I approached the meeting point.

“It didn’t go too well,” I growled.

Mr. Right Now raised his eyebrows and the first thought that popped into my head was that I’d just shown up as Medusa and revealed my true self to the poor man, who was about to dart like a gazelle out of the mall.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, in his soft, doctoring tone. “Come with me,” he added, and held my hand as we walked into the Laura Secord store.

Uh huh, he’s a keeper.

The proof is in the pasta not the pudding

Sunday, April 17, 2011

He put the seat down! He put the seat down!

I wanted to shout it from the rooftop. “Mr. Right Now” had put the toilet seat down at my house when he was finished in the bathroom—and best of all—I didn’t have to ask him to do it!

And when we’re out together he opens the door for me everywhere we go!

On the first date I chocked the gesture up to the usual considerations put in place to “impress the girl,” but we’re a country mile or two past “Go” and my gentleman friend continues to open doors for me all the time. That brownie point alone has the potential to earn him just about anything he wants, including my half of the cheesecake the next time we go out on a date.

And as if having my own personal doorman isn’t enough to send me over the top, just the other day while Mr. Right Now was visiting in my neck of the woods, he uttered the four most important words in any relationship . . . “I’ll do the dishes.”

Be still my heart.

Suddenly I was dying to ask him the forbidden “5.”

Do you vacuum? Dust? Do laundry? How about litter boxes and taking out the garbage?

But I held it all in like the big sneeze idled during a church sermon. There was an appropriate time and a place for such momentous things.

Besides, I didn’t want to disturb the good karma that was swimming around in my kitchen just then.

He’d be headed home soon and true volunteers for dish duty would cease to exist, as Daughter #3 required a hammer and chisel to pry her loose from her computer.

Instead I said, ‘Thank You’ and stood there smiling as he squeezed way too much dish soap in the sink and nested my entire cutlery collection upside down in the rack holder.

So far, this guy is a keeper and he’s helping me to let go of some of the control issues that have grown roots in my world since being alone and pushing all the buttons these last couple of years.

And my appetite is back and I’m hungry all the time.

Yet, there are so many things he doesn’t know about me—and most of it revolves around food.

Is it really necessary to tell him just how much I can eat in one sitting and that I’ve been known to consume a whole pizza by myself, or all four servings of chocolate pudding, or vacuum up a large bag of potato chips and a vat of sour cream in between television commercials?

No need to tempt fate. Some things just don’t need to be confessed.

Or so I thought.

When Mr. Right Now isn’t here and is at home in his neck of the woods, we stay in touch through video Skype every day and have been doing that as necessary for over four months.

We can talk the time away with spontaneity and ease.

We were doing just that one recent evening and between bites of his late-night meal while on camera, he said, “and what did you have for supper?”

“Kraft Dinner,” I replied back without thinking.

And as soon as I said it, a foreboding choked off my oxygen supply. I liken my regret in that “KD” moment to what occurred in 1990 in the microsecond before the car door locked and I realized I’d left the keys in the ignition and a child still buckled into a car seat.

I held my breath.

“Did you eat the whole box?” asked Mr. Right Now.

I envisioned the look of shock on his face and the loud gasp that would cause him to drop his plate when I told him the truth.

“Yes. Yes, I did,” I replied, swallowing hard as I formed a cheesy grin and sucked in the “Buddha.”

“Good for you,” he said without hesitation. And that was that.

I wanted to jump right through my laptop screen and into his living room.

Oh, this guy is a keeper all right.

The etiquette of forks and first dates

Monday, March 28, 2011

What if my date cake comes over for a “nightcap?” Men don’t see dust, right? Dusting was on the “to do” list on the afternoon of the evening of my date cake adventure but I just didn’t get to that chore—mostly because I was too busy re-applying my makeup after my mishap with the eyelash curler.

Besides, I was too much of a basket case to be worried about rebellious household lint.

Looking back on that night, I have trouble believing that all the butterflies in my neck of the woods migrated to Florida for the winter.

I’ve come to this conclusion because I think most of them were flying around in my stomach as I waited at the restaurant for a certain someone to arrive for our dinner date.

Because I have control issues, I had arrived there extra early. That left me with more than enough time to check my eyelashes and lipstick on three different trips to the mirror in the bathroom, where I’d also fussed with my hair so much that the static on my comb could have wiped out the radio station frequency.

On my last exit from the bathroom, I considered taking a seat on a barstool at the bar—my back to the room like a scene from “Pretty Woman”—where I would perch with my legs crossed and then turn around and catch a certain someone’s glance as he walked across the floor.

That scenario would have made for a surefire impression except that all 5ft. 2 in. of me was no match for the tall seat. It was all I could do to climb up the thing, struggling like a small child.

Once atop the pedestal, my feet were so far from the floor, I felt like Lily Tomlin’s character “Edith Ann,” and that’s the truth!

Thankfully, the place was still empty and nobody saw me slither off the barstool, my high heels grappling for the floor like a newborn calf on its first touchdown.

I remain my own worst enemy. All that bother set me to sweating and as I gathered myself at the cozy booth for two in the diningroom, I switched roles from “Edith Ann” to Molly Shannon’s “Superstar,” and with lightening speed cross-checked both armpits and smelled my fingers for any lingering scent of perspiration.

It was all good until I looked at the elegant tableware that included at least two sets of cutlery at each of our place settings, and enough small plates and glassware to suit an army.

At my house when I eat, I stand over the kitchen sink with a paper plate and fork. Period.

I swallowed the goose egg in my throat. I was doomed.

However I am pleased to report that at the moment my date walked through the door of the restaurant, all my trepidations vanished and were replaced with a shot of adrenaline that sent me right out of my high heels as I stood up to greet him.

As I queried in an earlier column, this date cake was an interview process, right? The kind of interview where I hand him a card at the beginning of the evening that states, “Please apply for this job only in the manner specified by the employer. Failure to do so may result in your application not being properly considered for the position.”

Another card would be presented that listed all the Essential Skills necessary to do the job, including critical thinking, problem solving, significant use of memory, and continuous learning.

My fleeting delusions of interviews and essentials skills screening went out the window in about five seconds.

He was handsome, polite, well-dressed, smelled good, employed, loved animals, talked about interesting things, asked questions, and had a great relationship with his children.

Best of all he didn’t know which fork to use!

“Outside fork—salad, inside fork-entre,” I said matter-of-factly with a smile. (Little did he know that I had “googled” the “fork facts” on my cell phone while he was in the restaurant bathroom at the start of the evening.)

I don’t remember what we talked about that evening, but I know for sure it wasn’t about the weather.

I don’t remember who else was in the restaurant or what time it was when we ordered coffee and cheesecake.

And I don’t remember the last time I had such a great evening in the company of a man as I did that night.

My appetite was so big. It was all I could do not to eat his half of the cheesecake we shared for dessert.

Date cake with a shot of reality, please

Monday, March 7, 2010

I was a mess. My mind was a mush ball of rampant thought patterns that wigged out loud at the face staring back at me in the dresser mirror in my bedroom at the very concept of entering the dating game again at 50 years old.

And yet there I was posing, scrunching, pruning, and pouting and having the countless open-ended conversations with myself about meeting him for dinner.

Do I shave my legs, wear extra underarm deodorant, cologne or “au natural,” and what top should I wear?

Should I duct tape the “Buddha?” and what if I forget to pluck the radical chin hair and stragglers on my upper lip?

Do I paint my toenails, get a manicure, and color my hair or just pull out the grey ones?

One thing I knew for sure. It was going to be a date worthy of an eyelash curler and waterproof mascara. I don’t get out much and thus have little practice in the art and polish involved in using such enhancements.

As the matter of fact, I think the last time I used an eyelash curler was an evening in 1972 when my parents were out of the house.

I snuck the little silver tongs out of my mom’s drawer in the bathroom and clamped them to my eyelashes. She would never be the wiser.

Of course, I didn’t factor in that there is a right way and a wrong way to use an eyelash curler.

In an instant my left eyelashes were curled downwards to the floor and I couldn’t see out of that eye, and the right eyelashes were bent like a crooked staircase because I didn’t position the clamp close enough to the roots.

I looked like Quasimodo’s sister.

And as I discovered the other night, some 38 years later I haven’t really improved my outcome much.

I should have read past the #2 tip of the online article “How to Use an Eyelash Curler” by Julyne Derrick.

I turned on my blow dryer and heated up the eyelash curler before applying it to my eyelashes—having no idea that I wasn’t supposed to put the waterproof mascara on until after I’d curled them.

There was a sudden moment of panic that I liken to getting your fingers accidentally stuck together with Krazy Glue.

I realized in wide-eyed terror that I had fused the mascara-laden lashes of my right eye to the curler.

I rushed back to the online article, bent over my laptop with the silver metal tongs handing from my face, and re-read the instructions—hoping all the while that my Skype friends didn’t hail me just then and activate the video camera lens on the computer screen.

“Never curl lashes after you apply mascara -- as the mascara dries, lashes can stick to the curler & be torn from the roots.

I didn’t know what to do other than jump in the shower and hope for the best. I had a full face of makeup and the best hairdo of the week and it was all washed down the drain to save my lashes from the evil eyelash curler.

I came away unscathed and started the process all over again, muttering under my breath all the while that for all the trouble I was going to, the guy had best be worth it.

I had “been there, done that” and for Heaven’s sake you’d think that by this time in my life I would know what I did and didn’t want in a man partner.

After all, times also had changed.

This date cake was an interview process, right? The kind of interview where I hand him a card at the beginning of the evening that states, “Please apply for this job only in the manner specified by the employer. Failure to do so may result in your application not being properly considered for the position.”

Another card would be presented that listed all the Essential Skills necessary to do the job, including critical thinking, problem solving, significant use of memory, and continuous learning.

I walked out of the bedroom head held high, suave and smooth in my “Bodywear by Ganz” and waterproof mascara.

My two-year-old granddaughter was standing in the kitchen with her mother. I said matter-of-factly to the little fry, “Don’t you think I’m cute as a button?”

Julie just looked at me and chirped, “You are silly. You’re not a button, you’re just my Granny.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

Thoughts on rewriting my own story

Monday, February 28, 2011

If one year ago a clairvoyant would have told me that my life was about to change—and change in ways that would not sit well with me, but that I would muck through—I would have believed it because I know how resilient I am.

But if one year ago the clairvoyant also had added that by today I would be carrying the tune of a lark, I’d have asked the medium for my money back.

I am an “Oscars” fan, and as morbid as it might appear to be, I especially enjoy the visual memorial tribute given during the award extravaganza, to the great Hollywood legends, filmmakers, and writers of the movies who have passed away within the last year.

That segment reminds me about the importance of living a full life and how fast time flies when you are too busy looking back at your mistakes or gazing too far ahead to the “what-ifs” in the distance to see that where you are standing right now, just passed you by.

The late great songstress Lena Horne, who died on Mother’s Day last year, was among the Hollywood legends honored during Oscar night on Sunday.

I remember her voice from when I was growing up as she was one of my dad’s favorite singers, but it was something she once said, and that was captured on the television screen Sunday night, that reminded me of what I believe in.

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”

Anyone who knows me well knows I believe in the Universal plan—that mysterious pre-fabricated path that waits ever so patiently for its walkers.

And yet, as convoluted as I can be in deciphering the reasoning behind the change and curve balls on that course, I know that when the sun goes down, it’s my outlook towards it all that rules how I negotiate that road.

It might be corny or geek-like or an alien concept to others, but it’s at the core of who I am and makes up the marrow of my soul.

It’s all about attitude, sister. Every moment of every day. I’m not wasting my precious time in lonely dark corners of negativity.

I work harder at keeping my thoughts adjusted, than I do walking the chunks of fat off my thighs on the treadmill. Come to think of it, the calories I burn up using my cognitive energy should already have shaved the 30lbs off my Romanesque figure that the treadmill is supposed to do. Oh well.

The load that Lena Horne alluded to doesn’t have to be a pack mule carrying all the burdens in your life baggage.

The load doesn’t have to be anything more than the full cup of melted butter you just poured over the sumptuous rectangle of cinnamon bun dough rolled out on the bake board top—an hour before your company arrives—that you suddenly realize is the harbinger of next year’s house leveling renovation project, as it runs straight off the dough and onto the freshly washed floor.

I continue to learn my way to harnessing the power of positive thinking. I am among those women who despite their mothers’ influential and independent female role model teachings, often find themselves stuck in the archetypal muck of self-doubt. And believe me, I’ve had more than my share in the last 12 months.

Chocolate and potato chips tend to make those moments taste better, but the load I carry afterwards unfortunately means more treadmill time.

Yet here I am, my life moving in directions I never even conceived were possible. The Universe has bigger dreams for me than I could ever have had on my own. (But I’ll keep adding my two cents worth.)

One thing I know for sure is that I’m getting my groove back and among the treasures in this little Universe that I have to thank for that—in more ways than even I can imagine—is you.

The short and sweet of it

Monday, February 14, 2011

It was another relentless deep freeze winter day in northwestern Ontario—the kind that takes a brutal swipe at the tips of my fingers, smashing out all the warmth and feeling with the kind of excruciating pain I liken to crushing my digits with a hammer.

There are but a few external forces that can, at the drop of a hat, transform me into an angry and spiteful Medusa-like creature. The deepest coldest day that reaches my fingertips before I make it from the house to the garage to start my car is one of those dark influences.

But on this particular deep freeze day I had only been awake for about 10 minutes and was standing in my housecoat and “Don King” hair at the porch door letting off the steam that was collecting under my collar at 6:30 a.m. after reading an unjustified email from another external force that shall remain nameless.

The hormone casserole I baked up for myself over that email was worthy of the award given at the far opposite of the culinary scale to a mouth-watering delicacy created by the late great Julia Child.

By the time I was done vacillating the whole issue—three days had passed me by and my dish was an overcooked, crusty, black, dried up, salty carcinogenic mess.

My old friend “Misery” had arrived unannounced, overstayed his welcome and while he was skulking around in my neck of the woods stealing the scene, had buried my good karma in the manure pile behind the barn.

Then on the way down the other side of the roller coaster as I sped back to positivity and empowerment, I caught another side car and spent the next three days very angry with myself for allowing dismal internal dialogue to cook up such baloney.

Where did my inner guru go—the one who keeps waving a finger at me and chanting about accepting life change?

Song lyrics, titles, and book passages race through my mind all the time summing up months of denying and accepting life change, back and forth like a metronome.

“The battle of the heart isn’t easily won. Yes, I can. Half of my heart has a grip on the situation, and half of my heart takes time. They say there’s linings of silver folded inside each raining cloud. Well, I need someone to deliver my silver lining now. Are we there yet? Someday maybe all this will make sense. You’re like a dog at the dump . . . lickin’ at an empty tin can, trying to get nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout and make your life miserable. So drop it.”

“Start again.”

Saying yes begins things.

I think I need yoga, mediation, and chocolate. Yep, that trio would suit me fine right about now.

Mind you, a visit from Mr. Jones would do nicely too. But that’s another story.

Miss Know-It-All learns a lesson

Monday, January 31, 2011

I fell in love with snowshoeing in the early 1970s, when I was about 12 years old. I loved the sport most because it was something we always did together as a family.

The wooden “Beavertail” snowshoes with leather belted bindings were too big and my winter boots often got stuck in the toe hole because I didn’t push my foot far enough to the bar. My snowshoes were too long for my height and I couldn’t do the 180-degree turn around like my dad could. And when I tried, I invariably ended up in a contorted heap in the snow, like a long-legged newborn giraffe, unable to untangle myself and get up.

I still loved the whole experience.

Those long winter walks over the frozen creek bed, across the field and into the thick forest behind my childhood home remain crystal clear recalls for me, as if they happened yesterday. We had the same destination every time in that forest. We negotiated up and over the snow-covered rocks and the barbed wire fence that kept my grandfather’s cattle in check, before arriving in the big pines where we’d build a little fire from sticks and pieces of wood lying around.

The canvas pack sack my dad carried on his back would come off and be opened to the eagerness of both of us kids, as the hot dogs went on roasting sticks and the buns, ketchup, and a thermos of hot chocolate made the picnic around the warm fire.

The family dog always came along, and I imagine the hot dog or two it would be passed from the outstretched hand of a child were more than enough reward for the work it took the dog to get there with us through the deep snow.

In all the years since those good old days my love for snowshoeing has never waivered.

But here’s the thing—I haven’t had that pair of snowshoes on nor any other pair of snowshoes on since 1977.

Thus hatched the circus in my neck of the woods on Saturday when, for the first time in 38 years, I decided to try my luck at snowshoeing.

The snowshoes I wore in the 1970s still hang in my parents’ garage. That pair would probably fit me perfectly today, but of course I opted to buy a modern pair with aluminum frames as a graduation present to myself.

I brought them home three weeks ago and hung them on a hook in my kitchen and never once did I think to practice getting to know how they worked.

They were snowshoes. How different could they be?

By the time I’d dressed in multiple layers on Saturday morning, I couldn’t bend over to jimmy my feet into the plastic bindings, let alone figure out how the system worked, and had to take most of my clothes off while standing in the outside doorway in order to figure it out.

I couldn’t put the snowshoes on inside the house because of the crampons, or steel teeth underneath that helped with traction and I didn’t need a set of giant teeth tracks across my kitchen floor.

All I know for sure is that I had an attack of the “cramp-ons” from all the work it took to get the stupid things on.

Then, all at once I was off on my solo quest, chest puffed out, my Olympic-sized ego in tow, headed for the bush line far across the creek with no pack sack, no food or matches, and no note left behind to tell loved ones where to come looking for me should I go missing.

I hadn’t walked more than 30 ft into the deep snow when my butt muscles started to spasm and my legs turned to cement.

I had two canine capers that followed close behind me, refusing to blaze their own trail for fear that I would eat the dog treats they could smell in my coat pocket. In fact, so close did they follow, that they stepped on my snowshoes, hurling me face first into a snowdrift.

The dogs just sat there behind me like ice statues, waiting for me to get up and blaze on.

And I hadn’t even made it out of my own yard at that point.

By the time I made it down to the creek, I’d fallen three times, lost one mitt, and dropped my camera in the snow.

The dogs then bolted off down the creek bed with their noses to the ground fast on the scent of creatures unseen. They disappeared around the bend leaving me standing there listening to the sound of my heart pounding “can I go home now,” as my thigh muscles burned holes in my long underwear from acute overuse.

I was standing there motionless and cold when the dogs came roaring back in my direction, followed closely by what I thought was a wolf—and they were leading it straight to me in the wake of their own terror.

My first thought was to release myself from my snowshoes and use them as shields but I didn’t even know how to get them off.

My heart was in need of a defibrillator by the time I realized it was not a wolf, but a much larger neighborhood dog.

All three canines arrived at my feet with tails wagging for those treats I still had in my pocket.

I threw in the towel.

I looked back at the house 150 ft. away and thought how nice it would be if Isaiah Mustafa suddenly arrived on a white snowmobile and offered me a ride home.

Unfortunately that’s not what happened.

The script for the next half-century

Monday, January 17, 2011

I’ve just come from the doctor’s office and the first “Well Woman” checkup of my 50’s, having reached that inaugural aging mountain last October.

And while I don’t believe “it’s all downhill from here,” it would appear that if I want the grass to stay green on this side of the fence, the days of casual indifference to health issues must take leave on the night train bound for the past.

Medical statistics dictate that once you hit the half-century mark, your reasons for “kicking the bucket “depend more on the diseases in the bucket than you tripping over the bucket and meeting with an untimely end due to the accidental fall.

This tidbit of information was a huge eye opener for someone like me, who has no intention on cutting short her earth visit over the next 50 years.

Well Woman changes are then a must—including to my usual after supper menu of three cups of bold “Caldwell” coffee, four chocolates, and three slices of the blackened carcinogens of over-cooked pork roast that I’d forgotten to take out of the oven because I was slouched over the Internet.

In other words, now I really should be drinking green tea and plenty of water, eating more blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds, and walnuts.

And exercising more than the effort it takes to lift my tired carcass onto the couch after a long day at my office desk.

Yes, body mass index reducing exercise.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the Well Woman doctor visit was learning that for the last 35 years I’ve been living the lie of being taller than I actually am.

The jig is up. Somebody turn off the sirens and warning lights.

The reality check of being even shorter than I thought I was, means my height/weight ratio has catapulted me into the red zone on the BMI scale.

Suddenly “Buddha” is no longer the unsung hero of my childbearing days, but the target for every shape-shifting exercise and weight loss plan I can find.

The question remains, will I put myself to the task? I am the one student who in high school waited until the night before to study for exams—and it wasn’t because I was gifted with scorching intelligence.

I’ll readily admit that I could be a poster child for procrastination. In a former life I’m sure I was the Greek goddess “Akrasia,” who knew what she ought to do and didn’t do it.

I continue to be challenged by self-regulation failure and when it comes to balancing my love of food and the “Despicable Me” who rears her ugly head at the thought of exercising on purpose, my inability to avoid or stop undesirable behavior needs to go to rehab.

Yet, while I may drag my feet too much in some areas of my life, I do not do that with my desire to lead an honest living, and yet as I have come to realize, even honesty doesn’t always pay.

Or at least it doesn’t pay me.

Like a good citizen I wrote the taxman to advise of my marital status change to “separated” and they acknowledged my truthfulness with a bill for $465. Go figure.

My honesty also dictates that I ask the burning question that faces me as I pull a homemade pizza out of the oven.

If I live alone does that mean I can eat the whole pizza by myself without feeling guilty?

Bon appétit!

The cat rules get tested

Monday, January 10, 2011

There are a few things I’ve had just about enough of; snow banks that block the view of oncoming traffic, my frozen fingers in cheap winter mitts, the dog’s back leg, and persnickety old oil furnaces.

And oh yes, the cat hairs on my bed pillow aren’t winning an award just now either. I love cats. I loathe cat hair—that same loathe of cat hair that I had during the weak and brainwashed moment last fall when I was convinced another house pet would complete me.

As I sit here writing this column, “Oliver’s” beady little cat eyes are staring back at me from the flop of my bed blankets that he has stirred up in the pandemonium to locate the small bell toy he is constantly fetching and carrying around in his mouth.

The number two cat rule around here goes something like this; “Cats are not allowed on my bed.”

Oliver knows this. He is a smart cat. Any cat that can drink water out of the toilet must be smart, right?

Yet there he rolls in the no-cat zone of my unmade bed flicking cat hair all over my pillow—and as I thoroughly enjoy the morning entertainment.

I hate to admit it, but cats could teach us a thing or two about being in the moment and enjoying it—even if it means facing a total body shaving or wrap in duct tape when we are through.

I contemplate these radical fixes for the “shed” dilemma several times each day, including when I find cat hair protruding from my right nostril when I wake up in the morning, or when a cat hair gets stuck to my contact lens as I am putting it in at 6 a.m., causing me to flail about as if a fire poker has just been inserted in my cornea.

Cats are not allowed on my bed.

And it never fails that at 11 p.m. as I lay supine under the weight of a snuggly bedspread, drained of energy from a busy day and drifting off into my fantasies—I will be attacked by a flying cat.

Just five minutes prior to this mayhem he will have been passed out on the chair he is not supposed to sleep on in the kitchen.

The ruckus begins with what sounds like the distant rumble of horse hooves and as my drowsy mind pictures Isaiah Mustafa from the “Old Spice” commercial riding in to rescue me from my troubles, a small feline terror leaps diagonally across my bed, meets with the opposing corner and falls straight down the crack between the bed and the wall to floor.

With my dashed dreams of a beautiful black man on a white stallion, I drag my skeleton from bed and coax kitty to the kitchen with a treat and lock the door behind him as he bolts off to entertain the barn cat, on winter sojourn in the basement.

This “nuttier than squirrel turds” scenario happens at least three times a week and, it would appear, only on the nights when I dream of Mustafa. The remaining nights when I’m lying in bed thinking about the reasoning in buying a 16-oz bottle of “Le Chien et le Chat” laundry detergent for $16 and a $600 vacuum cleaner meant just for animal hair, all is quiet on the feline front.

And then there is the dog’s back leg; with a mind and performance all its own during Cash’s ear scratching episodes as it flails and jigs about in referred delight.

Inadvertently, the back leg of the canine becomes a door knocker at 3 a.m. when this human is in the deepest dungeon of sleep and wherein I am suddenly impaled on the bedroom ceiling out of instant panic at the rapping that also sends “Dot” into a bark and warn frenzy.

Morning arrives and I sit up groggy, rubbing my face, chanting, and “I feel wonderful I feel wonderful,” mimicking a scene from the movie “What about Bob.”

And then I wonder why I drop face first into my chicken soup at lunchtime in a wave of narcolepsy.

Sherri Ziff Lester, a Hollywood life coach, says we should find a quiet space and ask: What do I want for my life? How do I want it to be different? And rather than seeing the new year as the time to radically shift gears overnight, to make a six-month plan with small, doable action steps. Then, on the first day of each month, we’re supposed to treat ourselves and reflect on our progress.

As I look over at my bed Oliver is rubbing his face all over the “J’Adore” perfume sample page in my “Elle” magazine and scratching at the image of Natalie Portman on the magazine cover after which he dove into the space between my blankets and bedspread and fell asleep.

I think one small, doable action step for 2011 would be to give up on the number two cat rule.

Here's to new chapters

Sunday, January 2, 2011

I haven’t written in this space for three months but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about it. 90 days of “noggin notes” disguised as monkeys swinging from limb to limb. The ideas for this space dangle and sway in my brain and accumulate as loads of unfolded head laundry.

And when opportunity presents itself I’ve released the writing wash onto whatever scraps of paper are at hand including gum wrappers and old grocery receipts and stacked them in a pile on my computer desk for “later.”

Well “later” has arrived—either that or I will have to get a bigger desk.

So here’s to new chapters that begin with my agreement in the common narrative that comes ‘round in more ways than one this time of year.

“I ate too much over the holidays.”

This I admit while picking potato chip crumbs out of my computer keyboard and grazing on another five of those delicious “Ferrero Rocher” chocolates, three “Cadbury” fingers, and the left over crab wontons from the New Year’s Eve menu as I suck in the evidence otherwise known as “Buddha.”

But as I have admitted in the past, I’ve given up trying to fix that area of my Roman goddess figure I blame squarely on the childbearing years of my youth. I expect that even after a year’s confinement to a tummy and butt spa in California, I’d have buns of steel but I’d still be able to grab a handful of baby fat below my belly button.
And pushing back that number on the weigh scale has been dragged through the mud, stepped on, run over by a truck, and raked through the coals a million times over. I’ve tried every trick in the book including hanging on to the wall naked with one foot off the scale while holding my breath.

So here’s to new chapters that include self-acceptance first, healthy choices—and chocolate on any day ending in “y” as long as it’s more than two hours before bedtime.

Meanwhile, a new kitten roams the halls in this neck of the woods, sacked with the name and persistently hungry personality plucked straight from the Charles Dickens novel, ‘Oliver Twist.’

Every morning since Daughter #3 convinced me—in a moment of weakness—that one more cat would complete me, “Oliver” has met me at the fridge at 6 a.m., where he performs jumping jacks and pirouettes in a bid for kitty treats.

“Please Mum, I want more,” he begs in relentless feline speech. I give in to his cuteness daily.

However, his favor faded briefly at one sunrise during the holidays when I found Christmas tree ornaments from the living room scattered across my bedroom floor—and no cat in sight.

Upon investigation of Oliver’s whereabouts, while returning the ornaments to their rightful place, I found him staring at me wide-eyed through the branches in the middle of the Christmas tree with that classic wild look that precedes the pounce.

I had a flash of anticipatory terror. It was a scene from the movie “Alien,” when that seed pod thing jumped onto the face of the innocent astronaut.

The cat-a-pult from the tree onto the front of my housecoat happened so fast that I was sure I would never recover from the shock. In fact it took me most of the morning not only to calm my nerves, but also my frightful “Don King” hairdo!

Hence, asterisks have been added in the holiday notebook reminder for next year. Leading up to next Christmas, a certain feline will spend his nights in the basement—under the autonomy of the canine capers.

And last but not least, as I kick off a fresh curve in column writing in 2011 I must reiterate a ‘Thank You’ to the Universal Plan that waits patiently for those of us who choose to see the absolute grace and empowerment in stepping outside the box and accepting life change.

Here’s to new chapters.