A wonderful mess is made with chocolate

Monday, November 28, 2011

I am no longer a drinking woman, but I sure could have used a stiff Marguerita before I went shopping for a gym suit a couple of weeks ago.

The last time I had my carcass in one of those contraptions was in 1974 when I was 14 years old and in Phys Ed class in Grade 9.  It was a blue zip-up thing that left my hairy armpits and legs exposed. As a teenager I hated gym class for all sorts of reasons and the gym suit just added a whole level of disaster to the experience.

Some 37 years later you’d think I’d have my gym suit issues worked out, right? Obviously not.

Denial is not a river in Africa.

I joined the gym in recent weeks because my Body Mass Index of 31.7 (I’d round it off to 32 but that would be stupid) was crying “Uncle.”

My bra contents could no longer slide in like a warm hug and it was a juggling match every morning pushing the bottom of my butt fat back into my underwear. Oh Lordy.

I needed to get back to the world of exercise in the same big way that Steven King purports I come to the writing table—any way but lightly.

So off I went to the local department store for the darkest fat-camouflage gym gear I could find. I chose carefully a two-piece black number that would cover everything from ankle to elbow and slinked into the change room to try it on, wishing I could knock back a Marguerita before I looked in the mirror at myself.

However I was pleasantly surprised when I peaked through squinted eye to see that the camouflage gear was living up to its name. Praise be to Lycra!

But I still needed to get to the gym to make this equation work. I packed a gym bag and drove from my house in the direction of the gym, all the while thinking of one hundred excuses why I really didn’t have to go at all. In fact, I drove past the gym twice just to see how many cars were parked there before I drew up enough courage to pull in. I so wanted a second Marguerita before I stepped on to the gym floor in my gym suit.

For all the belief I have in myself—and I do believe in me—all it took was the threat of exposing myself in a head-to-toe gym suit to put me at the back of the line in self-esteem. How crazy is that?

I managed to make it across the co-ed gym floor without looking up and bolted upstairs to the women-only section like I was being chased by Michael Myers from the “Halloween” movie. No word of a lie.

But I made it and when I got on that treadmill almost immediately I was fired with adrenaline. As I quickened the pace and the sweat began to pour off my face taking with it all my mascara I couldn’t help but believe I was a force to be reckoned with—a workout heroine!!  My 35lb weight loss goal (okay, 40lbs) had begun.

Day One was in the bag. Then I went to my workplace, souped up on myself, and opened the little drawer at the coffee station to fetch a piece of gum and discovered an opened bag of “Lindor” truffles staring back at me from their perfectly round and beautiful foiled wrappings.

I poked five of them in my mouth. Oh Lordy. The err of my ways.

Balance? Sometimes I do it well sometimes I do it appallingly.

But nonetheless I’ll be the first to admit—I am a wonderful mess (with emphasis on the wonderful.)

Comments on a job well done

Monday, November 21, 2011

What I know for sure is, that for the most part, I could take a lesson or two from the primary school of thought known as the three-year-old.

Small children are grounding spirits of presence who are wise beyond measure. Or so I believe anyway.

Sue Patton Thoele hit the nail on the head when she penned, “One of the quickest ways to disturb peace of mind is to worry about the future.”

Three-year-olds aren’t consumed by worries of what might happen tomorrow, or next week, and they certainly don’t let the overloaded soul get in the way of what’s right in front of them.

Quick is the decent to being the victim when my ego nags at me to be troubled by what might be in the tornado of the “future hole,” as Thoele calls it.

Then along comes a three-year-old to teach me about the present moment that I often lose touch with when I start projecting myself into the days that aren’t even here yet.

One of my six little peppers came to stay with me last week while her family was out of town and I’ll admit that in the days leading up to her visit, I was apprehensive because I didn’t quite know how I would juggle work, home life, and a child.

It was 48 hours of my life, and yet I was convinced I was too busy to handle it. Too busy. I am embarrassed to see the latter sentence in print.

Thank Heaven I didn’t let myself off the hook.

For two days I was captured under the spell of a little person who holds wonder for almost everything under the sun.

That’s not to say she didn’t “wig out” in the local department store and momentarily take on the personality of a budding Medusa when her Granny told her she couldn’t climb out of the shopping cart and run through the store. Oh yes, I have seen the flipside in its purest form. The only difference is that now, at the age of 51, I am not swayed by the public tantrums.

When I was a young mom and that kind of Tasmanian devilry occurred, it was all I could do to get out of the store with my screaming child and my embarrassment cloak thrown over my head.

The coolest thing about a little kid who is angry and upset is that, for the most part, the moment is lived thoroughly and then left behind as they move on to the next “now.”

I need to learn how to do that more often—to have my moment and move on and not cook it up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for five days straight.

However, my little pepper’s 15 minutes of fame in the shopping cart is but an aside to the real lesson here.

I love my little peppers and I remind them of how awesome they are and how much I love them every chance I get.

I wish I could say I was the one who planted so well the seed of positive reinforcement in a three-year-old that she pays it forward every chance she gets.

I am not the one who did that.

Mother, father, and “Zaagi-idiwin Aboriginal Head Start” teachers, kudos to all of you.

My respect for your child rearing couldn’t shine any brighter than when my little pepper said to me, without provocation,  “Good job, Gran,” every time I did even the most simplest of tasks.

Oh, how the young can grow by example.

Good job, caregivers. Good job.

My pitching philosophy is simple

Monday, November 14, 2011

I don’t watch baseball, but I do know that a baseball bat is supposed to be used in the game of baseball to hit the ball thrown by the pitcher.

This is an open letter of sorts to the driver and his passenger who used a baseball bat to take out my mailbox at the end of my driveway in the wee hours of the morning on November 9^th.

At least five other residents along my country road also woke up to find their mailboxes smashed open or on the ground.

My ex-husband used to say, “It’s much easier to be bad than it is to be good.”

The last thing I want right now is to prove him right.

I challenge you to do better. Many will doubt that you will rise to that challenge. It’s much easier not to, right?

I picked up the pieces of my old, dear-to-my-heart mailbox that morning and carried its shattered little shell back down the driveway. Its day was done.

My mailbox was a bit of an icon in my neck of the woods. My grandfather, the late Joe Drennan, had built it some 25 years ago as a replica of the old red barn on the farm. It was one of the few handmade treasures I had left around here.

Finding it smashed on the ground that morning wasn’t the way I had wanted it to go out. My heart still hurts over that, and that’s the truth of the matter.

So my dilemma was this. Do I put up a new mailbox or forego the ritual of rural mail delivery and rent a post office box in town? Do I defy the vandals and re-group or give in to their spontaneous trickery and eliminate the temptation?

I was a lucky kid. I was raised to believe in the good in people and I have carried that sometimes challenging and often blinding notion throughout my life because not believing that means I lose. And I’m not a loser. I dwell in possibility and doing anything else is not an option.

So up goes a new mailbox. Do I run the risk of witnessing a repeat offence? Chances are pretty good, yes.

Peter DeVries said, “We all learn by experience but some of us have to go to summer school.”

Well then, I guess I’m still in summer school.

I refuse to lose faith in the one who rides in the back of a truck with a baseball bat in his hand and that someday he will choose the harder path and take it to the game instead. This is my hope.

Here's to the wisdom of Andy Rooney

Monday, November 7, 2011

“My lucky life.”

That was Andy Rooney’s story title six weeks ago when at the age of 92; he spoke in his final television essay on “60 Minutes.”

And when he died last week, well, this “Rooney wanna-be” was very sad indeed. I guess I expected Andy Rooney would be around forever. After all he was the grandfather of the personal “take it public” essay and the face of someone who told the unspoken truths about life.

He was awesome.

I am an Andy Rooney groupie. I wanted to be just like him and I have spent much time at the CBS website, watching his essay videos with a magnifying glass at my computer screen, trying to read the titles of the books he kept on the shelf behind his desk.

After much eye strain and time I have managed to pull the names for three including, “The Book of Ages,” by Eric Hanson, “Fowler’s Modern Day English,” and “Giants Among Men,” by Jack Cavanaugh.

I want them all.

I just realized I already have the Fowler’s edition and I am elated.

Andy Rooney once did a three-minute essay on “Clutter or Memories,” and talked about among other piles of papers, the cardboard boxes he kept by his desk where he stored ideas on paper he thought were worth keeping. When a box filled up he’d just start another one.

Man, would I love to go through those boxes of his today.

Yet, here I sit at a desk in my very own writing den surrounded by all sorts of wisdom fairies of my own making. I have books by Eckhart Tolle and Caroline Myss, and New York Times reporter and journalist Nicholas Kristof. I have a really big 2010 edition of “Writer’s Market” and a little tiny book called “Creative Block – 500 ideas to ignite your Imagination,” which I use A LOT.

I now realize I have my very own clutter and memories right here on the upper shelf that includes a book of poetry I wrote as I was growing up, a pile of legal papers, family stuff, financial stuff, and thick rows of old school exercise scribblers stuffed with my creative writing and muses of the sort. 

There’s a candle burning, a container packed with more pens and pencils than I will ever need. I have my magnifying glass and a copy of “On Writing”—the best book, in my humble opinion that Stephen King ever penned.

And oh yes, a perpetual cup of hot coffee to help speed my brain along the path of original thought.

I also have this little head-bobbing, smiling Holstein cow toy that sits by my computer. She is my writing mascot and every time I need positive reinforcement I just tip her snout a bit and she nods “Yes.”

Today she is reminding me to give a shout out to the local farmer.

On Saturday night I sat among farmers of one type or another, at the Rainy River Federation of Agriculture’s annual dinner and general meeting held in Stratton. I am not a farmer.

Farmers are awesome. I was in a room full of them that night and it didn’t take long to realize just how important the local farmer is in this district and how very hard they work. Very hard indeed.

In fact, I could take a lesson or two from a farmer’s commitment to his or her trade. “Come to the craft any way but lightly,” as Stephen King penned.

“If you can’t it’s time for you to close the book and do something else.”

Support your local farmer.

And I’m going to keep on writing. My lucky life. Amen, Mr. Rooney.

Thankfully, I am shaped by my thoughts

Monday, October 31, 2011

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 wants to lie down. Around and around in circles the dog works the spot to improve the little nest where it will spend considerable time.

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

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

And I shake my head because it’s not like the door to my imagination ever closes. There’s “applied” Beth whose wallet is stuffed with scribbled thoughts, and there’s “iCloud” Beth, who absorbs and stores ideas wirelessly.

But sometimes all those little writer’s memos don’t add up to much of anything I can use to make this column longer than the 317 word count in which I have just blathered.

So today when the write tank appeared empty, I cleaned house, washed dishes, vacuumed, folded laundry, baked, ate a lot and contemplated what the heck I was going to be for Halloween.

Ghoul, ghost, or goblin?

Maybe my creative block is a “turning 51” slump thing, because I certainly am dredged and brain dead from all the “death by chocolate” birthday cake I’ve eaten in the last 24 hours.

I should have had oatmeal for breakfast, but when I woke up at 6 a.m. today—on Halloween morning—it was all I could do not to peek in the fridge at the three-quarter remainder of chocolate lusciousness tucked gingerly atop the yogurt tubs and a head of lettuce.

I cut my piece in a larger-than-life wedge, one eye closed, the other gauging how thick of a piece I could get away with. By now, at 10 a.m., almost all the chocolate cake is gone and I am infused with enough caffeine and sugar to rival my three-year-old grandson in a somersault contest on the couch.

Got to have food for thought.

Maybe one more slice would jumpstart my creativity? I think about that for 10 seconds until I look down and see the laptop resting comfortably on my “Buddha.”

I scowl and fidget and lament the “Buddha” but then suddenly I have a very bright idea.

“What we think, we become.”

I know who I can be for Halloween.

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.

My world is made of small treasures

Monday, October 24, 2011

I walked into the living room and there he was—a perpetual giggling ball of somersaults recoiling back and forth across the length of the couch.

The remaining three little peppers stood about in “jaw drop and stun” mode, clearly amazed as the little whippersnapper rotated in an orbit oblivious to the laws of gravity and Granny.

I, too, stood there in awe of the energy force captured in my three-year-old grandson. My parents were sitting in the next room at the kitchen table expressing their amusement in loud and healthy guffaws that translated into words like “parental payback” and “nailing J-ello to a tree.”

I suddenly understood why all those years ago my baby brother was habitually encapsulated in a large playpen.

My mind wandered adrift in my own childhood and the nursery rhyme that read: “Frogs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails, that’s what little boys are made of.”

The heck they are!

I grabbed a pen and paper and scribbled a new version to the verse that included the inertia ingredients of the metal “Slinky,” monkeys, chipmunks, elastic bands, and slingshots.

I thought about the 17^th century British mastermind Robert Hooke, the father of “Hooke’s Law” of elasticity.

“Wikipedia” reads “Hooke’s law of elasticity is an approximation that states that the extension of a spring is in direct proportion with the load applied to it. Many materials obey this law as long as the load does not exceed the material’s elastic limit.”

Yep, the youngster levitating off my couch was a prime example of that law. Perhaps, I pondered, Mr. Hooke took his inspiration for that 400 year-old principle from his own sons, bounding about on the horsehair sofa.

Robert Hooke also was the first to suggest that matter expands when heated—clearly a deduction he made after seeing how angry his wife was when she found out he was using the children—his “Hookean” materials—as part of the experiment.

All I know for sure is that my grandson had been a compression spring in a former life and all that stored-up energy had sprung.

Saying “No” wasn’t going to work this time. Even the other grandkids knew that, as they looked at me with inquiring minds poised on what I was going to do to quell the one who was in clear defiance of the “no jumping on the couch” rule.

“SQUIRREL!” I shouted. Both dogs leapt to attention at the back door and starting a barking frenzy, which stopped the little whippersnapper in mid air as he cleared the coffee table and did a two-foot dismount and ran to the living room window to look outside for the rodent.

“Can we go outside Granny?” All four little peppers with saucer-sized eyes looked in my direction.

Okay. This is where I met myself—yet again—at the fork in the road of responses. How was I supposed to answer that?

I thought about the quote by Gene Perret. “My grandkids believe I'm the oldest thing in the world. And after two or three hours with them, I believe it, too.”

It was pitch black outside.

“Sure,” I said, picturing the unleashing of four sprites who’d just eaten a whole chocolate “Skor” cake for dessert. They would scatter like the break shot after the eight ball and burst out in all directions and I’d have to call in rescue helicopters with big spotlights to find them in the dark yard.

Then I remembered that earlier that day, Jon and I had hung more than 400 ft of Christmas lights in the evergreen trees along the driveway, making good use of a warm fall day to get the job done.

There are no words that do justice to the high-pitched glee that tumbled out of those little children when they were all standing underneath the long rows of trees that night when I turned on the lights.

Wonderment. Now that, folks, is what little children are made of.

I am a fool at heart

Monday, October 17, 2011

I was standing in line at the bank the other day clueless to the world around me. I was fidgeting with my wallet and the ever-growing stash of old receipts and slips of paper in the coin purse.

Some of those little notes contained chicken scratch ideas for my column and other spur-of-the-moment writing thoughts. If you ever come across a slip of paper on Scott Street scribbled with:

“Remnants of the Dead Sea in a bath salt package. It looked dead, was green as mint-flavored Listerine and it smelled like Vicks” and “Did you know that at minus 47C (-53 F) you could pound a nail into a two by four with a banana?”—just give me a call and I’ll come pick it up.

The woman in front of me at the bank turned around and said “Hi,” as I came out of my little bubble realizing we knew each other. I returned the greeting and in the microsecond that followed, my intuition was shadowed with a dark foreboding. She was one of my column readers and I hadn’t published anything for more than two weeks.

I saw it coming from 20 light years away. I held my breath.

“You’re all dried up are ya’?” she asked, sporting a crafty smile.

Okay. This is where I met myself at the fork in the road of responses. How was I supposed to answer that?

“Yes, as the matter fact I am” or “No, I’m just saving all the good stuff up for next time.”

All I could do was tilt my head back and cackle in nervous laughter and hope that every one behind me knew what she was talking about as the words, “No, no, no, no,” tumbled from my lips.

Then I wanted to jump into my protection suit and explain to her that my absenteeism in the newspaper was due to my “original thinking, needing plenty of time to let ideas percolate before taking action, highly-focused, perfectionist” personality.

And I would not have been lying.

However as my soul sister Norma Jean pointed out this morning—when I was lamenting to her that nothing was happening in my neck of the woods that warranted writing about—I could call on my wisdom fairies.

As it turns out mine were busy clearing cobwebs upstairs, so Steven Colbert stepped in to save the day.

“Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. ‘Yes’ is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.”

YES. YES. YES.

I am a fool at heart

Monday, October 17, 2011

I was standing in line at the bank the other day clueless to the world around me. I was fidgeting with my wallet and the ever-growing stash of old receipts and slips of paper in the coin purse.

Some of those little notes contained chicken scratch ideas for my column and other spur-of-the-moment writing thoughts. If you ever come across a slip of paper on Scott Street scribbled with:

“Remnants of the Dead Sea in a bath salt package. It looked dead, was green as mint-flavored Listerine and it smelled like Vicks” and “Did you know that at minus 47C (-53 F) you could pound a nail into a two by four with a banana?”—just give me a call and I’ll come pick it up.

The woman in front of me at the bank turned around and said “Hi,” as I came out of my little bubble realizing we knew each other. I returned the greeting and in the microsecond that followed, my intuition was shadowed with a dark foreboding. She was one of my column readers and I hadn’t published anything for more than two weeks.

I saw it coming from 20 light years away. I held my breath.

“You’re all dried up are ya’?” she asked, sporting a crafty smile.

Okay. This is where I met myself at the fork in the road of responses. How was I supposed to answer that?

“Yes, as the matter fact I am” or “No, I’m just saving all the good stuff up for next time.”

All I could do was tilt my head back and cackle in nervous laughter and hope that every one behind me knew what she was talking about as the words, “No, no, no, no,” tumbled from my lips.

Then I wanted to jump into my protection suit and explain to her that my absenteeism in the newspaper was due to my “original thinking, needing plenty of time to let ideas percolate before taking action, highly-focused, perfectionist” personality.

And I would not have been lying.

However as my soul sister Norma Jean pointed out this morning—when I was lamenting to her that nothing was happening in my neck of the woods that warranted writing about—I could call on my wisdom fairies.

As it turns out mine were busy clearing cobwebs upstairs, so Steven Colbert stepped in to save the day.

“Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. ‘Yes’ is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.”

YES. YES. YES.

"Let go and lighten up" my new motto

Monday, September 26, 2011

I will keep the details on this short and to the point.

He is handsome, romantic, kind, and the epitome of a gentleman. He pays attention to AND hears me. He loves my dogs and all creatures great and small, and he can cook.

But I stand firm on the age-old saying “Once upon a time, I had this place so neat and tidy. And then came Man.”

A brand new flood plain has arrived in my neck of the woods and it’s called “Jon’s Stuff.”

Yes folks, the dating phase is passé and we are now living together here on the banks of Frog Creek under one roof.

I will admit right now that opening my heart to this guy was “no problemo” but giving up control of what comes with him to this neck of the woods and where he can put it, is a whole other can of worms and beans.

And quite frankly as I see it, also will result in at least a dozen personal trips to my mental health counselor.

I’ve been the “President-Elect” in my neck of the woods for some time now and I like it that way. But on the same hand, I love having Jon around more than one or two days a month.

After all, he fixes what’s broken, takes out the garbage, buys groceries—and did I mention he could cook?

But he now has “stuff”—and that stuff is the stuff of an organized and somewhat bossy woman’s nightmares.

Have you ever seen the television series “Storage Wars?”

On that fateful day, when love and commitment meant welcoming his stuff into my life, Jon opened the first of two storage units to grab “a few things”.

My jaw dropped below my knees and wobbled there for a moment.

I was the modern poster child for the famous painting “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. Come to think of it, maybe the poor emotionally distraught soul in that 1893 capture also was standing in front of a partner’s storage locker.

As read in an article I could relate to on the Internet, I suddenly wanted to start changing all the rules. After all, the female always makes the rules, right? And if she suspects the male knows any of the rules she may immediately change one or all of the rules. She can change her mind at any given moment.

I was going to have to make an executive decision and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Do we really need that?” replicated from my lips.

We were the stars of next year’s new television reality show “What’s Mine is Fine,” and we would walk all over “Jersey Shore” in the ratings.

“I already have one of those,” followed “I don’t think I have room for that.”

(Except for the cool stuff in Box #6—which included his new Kitchen Aid mixer, a rice cooker, and 2 mixing bowls that would round out my collection.)

But Jon is the best thing that ever happened to me in a moment like that and will be the ones to come. He understands my wacky womanhood status and he makes it okay.

That’s the love that lies beneath all moods.

It’s been about two weeks since that first lesson in learning to share again and I am happy to report that my control freakiness is gradually graduating to something more suited to a life with someone else in it.

Jon’s stuff continues to make its way here in trailer loads and each time I take a deep breath and chant to myself, “Letting go is not loss, it’s lightening up.”

Then I open a box, take out what I want, and put the rest back on the trailer.

You are a good sport, Jon. I am lucky to have you (and your Kitchen Aid mixer) in my life.

Bear in mind I attract all kinds

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Maybe it was the recent solar flare that messed up the earth’s magnetic field and caused my neck of the woods to suddenly attract wildlife or maybe it’s just that, yes, I live in the country and this is what happens in the boonies.

Or perhaps the Universal Plan was bored and having some fun with me. Whichever way, it’s been animal astray around here.

It all began when five little grandchildren came over to play on the weekend and to say good-bye to their Auntie Heather aka “Daughter #3,” who will be hitting the college scene in southern Ontario next week.

Six little peppers were unleashed here on Saturday in the tradition I now liken to a game of billiards where they scatter like the break shot after the eight ball and burst out in all directions.

My little hurricane tribe wasted no time hauling their toys out into the sunshine, playing tag around the barn, and squealing with delight in the cold water that shot across the lawn from the misplaced sprinkler, which invariably soaked the mothers resting in lawn chairs as their children terrorized the outdoors.

Pieces of uneaten hot dog wieners, ketchup-soaked buns, and potato chips where strewn about in full view of crows, chipmunks, and dogs—a sight worth a thousand photos as the trio stalked from sky and land to be first on the scene.

The “Dirt Cake” (a mixture of cool whip, cream cheese, chocolate J-ello pudding, and crushed Oreo cookies) lovingly supplied by “Granny down the way” was vacuumed up by kids, parents, and grandparents alike and begged seconds and thirds from all of us.

To a stray kitten, I’m sure the “happy time audio” emanating from this place that day was as enticing as a bowl of warm milk.

And ‘Poof’ two of the little darlings showed up that afternoon in the back porch—just sitting there as if delivered by the stork.

The kittens’ timing was well received here, as we were still in a sad place after losing our “purrfect” pet “Oliver” to an owl or some such night creature two weeks earlier.

My little hurricane tribe were all a-glee over the bundles of newfound fur and did what most kids do and nearly squeezed two of the nine lives out of each welcome stray.

We all assumed some coward stranger had dropped the poor felines off at the driveway, thinking this neck of the woods was the answer for unwanted pets.

We adopted them in with much love and hugs. They slept in our beds and chased balls of rolled up foil across the kitchen floor and provided much entertainment for two days. Unbeknownst to us, they had wandered over here from next door for a weekend getaway. And then as quick as it had begun, the kitten cuddling was over. Adios! It was fun.

But I digress.

Some of those nubbins of hot dog and ketchup-soaked buns had made their way into the barn and had rolled off into the undiscovered recesses of the horse stalls and gutters just long enough for “Mr. Skunk” to catch wind of his dessert. Of course, as Murphy’s Law would have it, this occurred on the very day when the caretaker forgot to close the barn door before dusk.

And to top it off, Mr. Skunk had eight empty beer bottle boxes left in the barn from the Drennan Reunion to hide amongst during the scurry to shoo him from the premises—which of course was not successful before he lifted his tail.

Thankfully my dogs were nowhere to be seen. They were busy chasing the chipmunk down the driveway that had found the last potato chip under the picnic table.

But the wildlife, yet, gets bigger.

It was a quiet mid-week summer day. I was in Heaven—by myself at home, off work, in the sunshine, enjoying my little life as I painted window trim.

“Cash” was in the house out of the sun, as his black fur sometimes gets the better of him in the heat of the day. “Dot” in her perpetual chipmunk patrol, was parked in the shade about 30 feet behind me.

So when the slow-moving black thing came around the corner of the house and into my peripheral vision, I thought to myself, “How did Cash get outside?”

I turned my head ever so slightly. A bear was standing there not two feet from where I was taking up my latest summer project. I could see the snot oozing from his nostrils and without effort I easily could have painted big white circles under his eyes with my paintbrush.

But oddly that didn’t seem like a viable option at the time.

I just stood there staring at the hairy beast staring back at me in a dead stop dual, wherein I experienced that microsecond of racing thought that included silent yet very bad swear words inside my head and a wish for a portable black hole I could jump into.

The bear must have had better meals up his sleeve, as it promptly turned around and sauntered off in the direction it came, stopping once to glance back at the stupid person who’d started to follow it across the back yard.

And then it was gone.

I snapped back to real time and realizing Dot hadn’t made a peep, turned around to find her sleeping under the tree.

I won’t repeat what I shouted to her, but it sounded something like this.

“@#!%^$&$#! You’re supposed to have my back!”

While I do possess a certain animal magnetism that I know has caught the attention of Mr. Right, I’ve decided it’s off limits to skunks and bears.

And if I were a drinking woman, a shot of whiskey would have gone down nicely.

Here's to the people who aren't with us

Monday, August 15, 2011

I can’t remember a time when my grandparents, Joe and Florence Drennan weren’t a part of my life. We lived in the country, right next door to each other, and my brother and I were constantly around them if we could help it.

We slept over at their house most Friday nights, waking up early Saturday mornings to help Grandpa with farm chores. My Grandma, meanwhile, cooked the best crispy, brown-edged, fried eggs in the world for breakfast, and the ultimate elbow macaroni and tomatoes for lunch.

Not for lack of trying can I duplicate these meals in my kitchen.

I loved to watch my Grandpa pour corn syrup for his toast onto a little plate and then cut off the supply running from its container clean off with a butter knife.

He also would pour his hot tea from a teacup over into the saucer beneath it, pick it up, and drink it that way.

I’d watch the way he stood every morning at the kitchen sink, looking into a small mirror sitting on the window ledge where he’d comb what hair he had left with a oval-shaped, soft-bristled brush and then adjust the silver arm bands on his work shirt before he headed outside.

All of this marveled me.

Us kids were made part of everything—planting potatoes in the spring or walking on the cattle drive, harvesting hay bales in late summer, and shucking peas in the early fall.

We lived their lives.

Every winter, Grandpa would hitch up the hay wagon and take us on sleigh rides with our friends, and always found the time to build us a great sliding hill that would surge us out onto the frozen creek bed on our “flying saucers.”

I have the best of both worlds now. I live where I made the memories.

My Grandpa and Grandma Drennan died in 1996 and 2006 respectively and I think it still will be a long, long time before I don’t hear their voices around this old place.

Grandpa Drennan had a mighty soul stocked with discipline and work ethics that measured hands above any draft horse of his day.

And when I walk with intent across the yard from the house to the barn, I remember watching him do the same thing as if on a mission.

Yep, we are definitely related.

But if Grandpa were alive today, I wonder what he would have thought if he’d have walked into the barn in the days before the family reunion and seen what I had done to the place.

And there I’d be dusting and polishing the place so shiny and fine, as “Bat Out of Hell” by Meatloaf roared out of two big stereo speakers hanging from the ceiling.

I wonder what he would have said.

I believe he would, with deep pride, understand the passion that was bouncing around in there.

I’d been on a mission all summer to ready this old homestead and barn for the end of July and the “Drennan Reunion” wherein a spirited bunch of some 65 Irish descendants who hadn’t partied together in nine years would move in with their camper trailers and tents for the last weekend in July.

Post hoc I dare say the spirited bunch did not disappoint their Irish ancestors.

However there was a moment during the festivities when, as a red-headed young man walked by me wearing a name tag that read “Oppenheimer” and as word circulated that suddenly I had a family connection to Robert Oppenheimer “the father of the atomic bomb,” I had visions of a leprechaun-led mutiny which would strip me of my administrator rights to the Drennan family tree on the world wide web.

And again, when the same person walked by wearing a name tag that read, “Edmund Hillary,” I wasn’t sure if I should jump for joy at my newfound relationship with a mountain climber, change my contact lenses, or look for the someone who’d been spiking my Fresca with hard liquor.

Mr. Hatch you are a corker.

I thought about Grandpa Drennan a lot that weekend, of he and his brothers and sisters now gone from this good Earth—and how very much they would have enjoyed these fun times.

And at 3 a.m., when the jovial singing and laughter emanated from the four walls that once held cattle and horses and hay – well, I imagine Grandpa wasn’t the only one “up there” who also understood the great love of family that was bouncing around in that old red barn.

We salute you Joe, John, James, Jack, and Harry, Margaret, Pat, Janet, and Tilly.

“We put our glass to the sky and lift up

And live tonight 'cause you can't take it with ‘ya

So raise a pint for the people that aren't with us

And live tonight 'cause you can't take it with ‘ya”

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.