A long while back I heard about a site called Songs to Wear Pants To. In cleaning out a bunch of old business cards, I came across the site name and thought I’d see if the site was still there, and it is!
Andrew is a songwriter who creates custom songs based on whatever criteria you provide, no matter how odd. All you need is a little pancreas? No problem. Crazy candy theme? His pleasure. Polka loca? Of coursa. Celtic techno burrito? Why sure-o. The site even has its own theme song. I have to hand it to Andrew for the longevity of the site, the way he’s found to make money doing something he loves, and for finding a way to stay good-humoured about the weird and whacky requests he gets for songs.
Considering that my family is entering “birthday season” - a few of us have birthdays between late November and end of January, then just about everyone else’s birthday is clumped together between end of March and beginning of June; something like 18 birthdays - this may be the gift that everyone gets this year!
Back in November, I made up my mind to get fit. I was tired of being hostage to my food allergies, which were getting worse, my joint pain, which was getting worse, and the excess weight, which has so much negative effect on my quality of life. A friend and client from Minneapolis had made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse - his payment terms for work done for his company would be that the cheque would be made out not to my company, but to a personal trainer of my choosing. Well, the strategy is paying off. I’m stronger, thinner, and have a better sense of balance (which I’d lost during the years surrounding my ship replacement).
It took me until January to find a trainer that I liked - I chose Matt Cole of Peak Exercise Sciences because he’s a MSc, BHK, CSCS, and RK. He’s not only knowledgeable about training and fitness and injuries and rehabilitation, but he’s experienced (he’s not as young as he looks, he assures me). And he has a disarming way about him - none of this bootcamp obnoxiousness which would have turned me off right away. As well, something that I needed was flexibility; as a consultant, I’m all over the place during the week, so I looked for someone who could train with me downtown or close to where I live, or at my townhouse complex’s fitness room when needed. He comes up with cockamamie exercises that are meant to improve my core strength, and just when I manage to master them, he finds something else that I completely suck at, and I start over again.
Yesterday, I went to The Running Room to invest in a good pair of sneakers which would accommodate my orthotics and my lift and let me get in a good workout without hurting my ankles or knees. And I put on a t-shirt I got at a conference, a t-shirt that was two sizes smaller than I usually wear, and it fit! And I put on some jeans, and realized I needed to wear a belt to keep them up, and my belt fit on my hips (a belt that would have barely fit my waist before), and I checked and I’m down 15 pounds. Whoo hoo!
I wonder why my joints still hurt. Must ask Matt about that. But hey, I’m more motivated than ever to keep going. Working out, riding my Trikke, watching my nutrition, trying to keep my stress levels under control. Stay tuned ...
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve actually done anything for International Women’s Day other than take a moment for myself to think about the implications for my own life and the women around me. There’s not much discussion of it any more, just like there’s not much discussion of feminism any more. It drives me crazy when women say they’re not feminists, and that the feminist movement did nothing for them. (Oh yeah? Do they want to go back to the days when a bank manager wouldn’t give a woman a bank loan? Or give a woman a mortgage? Or give a woman a hassle about opening her own bank account, without the signature of her husband or father?) The completely irrational cop-out of “well, I don’t want to call myself a feminist because some thirty years ago, there was an urban myth about women burning bras that I don’t want to be associated with” drives me crazy. The “I don’t want to call myself a [name any group] because there are some [name the fringe element to that group] that give that group a bad name” argument is so lame. I always want to respond with “well, I don’t want to call myself a lesbian because there were some incidents about man-hating separatists that I don’t want to be associated with. Apply that to religion, culture, status in life (motherhood, for example), profession ... anyhow, back to International Women’s Day.
I’m quite thankful for many of the women in my life. There are a couple that I want to throttle right now - I wish they’d renounce their womanhood so I could simply distance myself completely from them. I would like to be able to say that they have NOTHING in common with me, not even sex or gender. Well, one in particular I don’t consider to be of the same gender though she’s of the same sex. But life isn’t simple that way. We have to live with ambiguity and complexity, and interconnectedness of circumstance. I remind myself of this because even if I were able to say “we have nothing common,” it would still not give me license to hate. The difference in gender doesn’t stop me from deeply loving my grandsons. The difference in the values with which my granddaughters are being raised doesn’t stop me from deeply loving them. International Women’s Day reminds me of all these things, and more. - it’s a day for us, and for all those affected by us.
Went to work out today for the first time since falling down the stairs. Hurt like hell, but didn’t want to leave it too long. When I came home, stiff and sore, I came up from the underground parking and saw a half-dozen robins hopping about the yard, pulling worms out. They paused when they saw me, cocked their heads to see if I was a threat or a passing phenomenon, and resumed their foraging for wriggling protein. It made me happy - spring is imminent.
Speaking of happy - I just read that British and Australian researchers have shown that half the differences in happiness are genetic, based on studies done on twins. Common genes result in personality traits that predispose people to happiness. Does that mean that certain miserable people I know will always remain so?
I wonder if they’ll ever find the tacky gene. If they do, I could certainly get behind certain pragmatic uses for genetic testing.
Mostly, living in a strata situation is okay - less yard work, tree trimming, trash collection, and so on. But every so often, there are things that drive me crazy. Like having slippery outside stairs and not being able to just fix them - no, you have to wait for the powers that be to Do Something - which is not likely to happen unless you make a fuss.
So the bloody awful coating on the steps is slippery when the temperature drops to around the freezing point. Anyhow, despite wearing flat, rubber-soled shoes, I fall down the stairs and am in great pain. I’m pretty paranoid about my artificial hip and my remaining good hip, so I go get x-rays at Burnaby General. All day at emergency.
All bloody day it takes them to do an x-ray and tell me that nothing is broken, no hairline fracture. At some point, through my morphine haze, I hear a medical professional complain that all the beds are full, and I think to myself that if someone would come in and pronounce me releasable, they could have an extra bed. And probably another few of us, as well. They need some work process re-engineering in the emergency department there.
So I start my own little discharge campaign. First, I just get dressed. A nurse asks me if I’ve been OKed to get dressed. I say that I’m getting dressed before the morphine wears off and I can still move. Then, I go in search of water. A nurse wants my assurance I’m coming back. I say sure, of course. Then, I put on my jacket. She wants to make sure I’m not leaving. I say I’m freezing (which is true). Then I put on my gloves, mainly because by now, my blood sugar has dropped and I’m really, really freezing.
Now, the doctor comes in and says oh, you’ve had a hip replacement and I can understand why you’re really concerned about falls. And I think to myself, hmmm, isn’t that what I tried to tell you when I came in? I’m sure I mentioned that ... but it’s one of those things. I can talk,a but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the other person listens. Haven’t figured out how to exactly make the loop close, at least not all the time.
Losing a day at the hospital, then another day of being nauseous and on painkillers, a week before our big conference, is the worst possible time to be unproductive. Guess this weekend will be another working weekend - have to make up for lost time somehow. I’m really excited about the conference and want to put in as much time as I can to make sure it’s a success.
Yesterday I wore the one pink shirt in my wardrobe for Say No to Bullying day. Though I’ve never been a big fan of Christy Clark (remember the statistically impossible “all our children should be above average” remark?), this is one of her initiatives I can get behind. I have no reason to divulge this, at least not often, but I was bullied terribly from grade 5 to grade 11. For me, that was age 8 to 14, more or less. Being younger, shorter, and different in a lot of other ways from the rest of the kids made me a walking target. My parents were no help. My mother, a fundamentalist Christian, counseled me with the “turn the other cheek” line - today that would probably get me killed; back then, it just got me tormented. My emotionally absent father was ... well, he had his share of bully in him, as well, so it took me into my adult years to stare him down, let alone ask for his help.
What I think did me in, though, was being smart, in a geeky kind of way. I lived a pretty isolated life - on a farm, away from other kids, not encouraged to socialize with the non-believers. It was a rural school - we were all bussed in from our farms and villages - but the social situation was the same as in the city. No one explained to me that girls aren’t supposed to flaunt their brains after grade 4. But being younger and weaker, I couldn’t run as fast as the rest of my classmates, or reach as tall as them, or get permission to do the things they did (I couldn’t even get a driver’s license until my graduating year of high school!), but I did seem to absorb information without trying, and being ostracized meant that I could speed read a book a day, and went through the school library pretty fast. Which probably made things worse, in retrospect. Smart, geeky, and my mom drove the school bus. As much as I loved school, I hated the school yard, and would do anything to get out of field trips, group work, team sports, and anything involving hanging out in the school yard. Hallelujah for library club.
OK, it’s forty years later, and the schools are just getting around to recognizing bullying as a phenomenon that needs some attention. Better late than never. Count me in - I’m there for my grandchildren.
This year, I wanted to do more for me. Yeah, yeah, it probably falls under the category of New year’s resolutions, but it’s been a long time coming and it’s here now. The changes may not seem profound but I feel they’re the start of a new phase:
Do things I want to do - don’t guilt myself into staying home when I’m rather be out seeing a play or having fun doing something else outside the house
Take care of my emotional health - don’t engage with people whose own inability to cope ends up projecting their drama onto me, be that anger, guilt, or other drama
Take care of my physical health - Find physical activities I like to do, work with a trainer, and eat better
So far, so good. It did mean staying away from certain people completely and scaling back time with others. But I’ve compensated by going out of my way to make new friends or strengthen existing relationships with people whose company is easy and comfortable. It also meant getting a personal trainer, which I haven’t done since before my hip surgery, and it’s been great. Getting strong, building core, and losing weight already.
2008 should be a fabulous year; it’s looking up already.
Over the holidays I didn’t post much, and realize I haven’t shared some of the things I’m most proud of. One of my big pride moments is when my braniac grandson sent me a copy of his acceptance letter to a prestigious boarding school, Brentwood College. He has wanted to be in an environment that challenges him and where he’s among other students who are similarly motivated. And now he has that opportunity, after having done fabulously on his entrance exam. That’s motivated him more to bring him his first truly wonderful report card, which made me ask if he was working harder now, to which he replied, “Not really, I just have a reason to get good grades now.” Thank you, Harry Potter, for reviving the idea of boarding school!
Of course, we’ll are going to miss him terribly. It’s a long road from when he first came to live with me when he was 1, to when he was adopted by his fabulous dads, and ended up with, as he would always say, 11 grandmas, 3 dads, 2 sisters, and 1 mom. Of course, his dads find his acceptance a bittersweet moment - they didn’t adopt him to send him off to a boarding school - but he really wants to go, and I’m sure he’s going to thrive there. He’ll soak up the academic environment like a sponge, and we’ll all compete for his time when he gets time off from his rigorous six day-a-week, practically year-round program.
So I spent a few days in St. Louis, Missouri with a long-time friend and her family. During the week, I spent most of my time working, just as if I’d been at home, but on Saturday we ventured out. The weather was quite nice. I expected it to be cold and snowy, but when we went to the Botannical Gardens, it was warm enough that I elected to leave my coat in the car. The gardens were in their winter state, of course, but I could appreciate what they look like during the spring and summer. I would love to be there when the Scent garden - lilac, lavender, rosemary, lemon thyme, chocolate plant, sage, and other fragrant plants must be spectacular. We did go into the biosphere and see the tropical and temperate foliage. The afternoon at the basilica was nice, also. It was quite beautiful, very ornate. I loved the black marble and appreciated huge efforts that went into the over-height small-tiled mosaics.
The oddest things I saw were two signs. One was on the door of an upscale ice cream shop that said “Concealed Weapons Forbidden on These Premises”. The other was a billboard advertising a Bike Show that had across the top “Register Now to Win a Free Breast Augmentation”.
There was a great bookstore called The Left Bank where I would have bought a trunkload of books, had I not been traveling by plane and had to clear customs. But I have to admit that I was turned off by trying to get coffee mid-afternoon and finding that in The Loop, the places near the bookstore that served coffee were only serving in their bar areas, where people smoked indoors. How last century is that? But we did find a Starbucks, which is always reliable - in its product, in the cleanliness of its premises, and its no-smoking atmosphere.
A couple of weekends ago, my grandson and I went to rent trikkes (pronounced trikes) up in Courtenay - remarkably, the only place in BC that handles them. (The good folks at Mansfield Wheels claim that this is because Vancouver bike shops are bicycle snobs; somehow, I don’t doubt it.) Because it was pouring rain with gale-force winds coming off the water, the fellow would only take us out for a brief lesson on a path shielded by a bank of trees, but I could have stayed out longer. (Good thing I didn’t because the next day, my extra-sensitive skin was windburned beyond belief.)
Anyhow, I haven’t had this much fun in ages, and with my declining sense of balance, I felt quite safe riding the trikke. That’s what motivated me: a stable alternative to a bicycle. The next day, my entire body was sore, but I’m sure that after wrestling with the trikke for a few weeks, I’ll have made it do my bidding and won’t feel it as much. There are lots of “cool” trikke videos but my style is more like this:
I looked up, so to speak, from jam-making, incredulous to hear chuck-wagon racing on television in the living room. Enough said.
An impromptu berry-picking bonanza yielded enough raspberries to make nine jars of raspberry sauce (jam that refused to set), with a half-jar left over for immediate consumption and enough gooseberries for a batch of preserves, if I follow the recipe correctly. And enough bought cherries to put up a batch of brandied cherries, thanks to an idea from my Jewish mother, Sharon.
Part of the family ritual has become berry picking. It started when my grandson was very young, and I wanted him to know where food came from - not growing on the shelves of a supermarket. Somehow going to pick cucumbers (like my sister and I were forced to do all summer as kids) wasn’t going to motivate him to connect with nature, but I thought berry picking might. As each of the grandkids got old enough to walk, they got added to the trip. I’ve taken other people’s children, too, and for some of them, it was the first time they were allowed to their feet muddy in their whole lives. Imagine.
This year, I went with two of the older grandkids, and a first time for a two-year-old and her mom and dad. We went to the strawberry patch at W&A Farms in Richmond - it may have pouring rain in Vancouver and Burnaby, but had dried up (kind of) in Richmond - and we had the entire u-pick patch to ourselves. The older kids got to some turning point at around the age of 8, and they go into complete production mode when they hit the berry patch. I had to remind them that I had only brought $15 with me, so they should stop picking when they filled their plastic buckets. (They would have gladly picked double that!) The little one probably ate as many as she picked, but that was thankfully about 10 strawberries in all. She was more fascinated by the mud puddles surrounding the fields, and splashed around in her muddy buddy while mom and dad picked enough to make a good batch of jam.
That afternoon, I froze strawberries, made some sherbet, and made a batch of rather syrupy jam using Splenda. And soon, it will be time for raspberries, and I can take one of the other grandkids out berry-picking. Maybe I can get her moms go come out and make an event of it.
Tis the time of year when all the semesters of hard work pay off, and this weekend was the culmination. Yesterday was Asia’s dance recital - I think she danced in something like five shows this weekend, though we only got to one of the shows - and today was Ben’s high school graduation. I’ve probably talked about Asia’s dance recitals before, and while I delight in her passion for dance (though worry about her lack of passion for the practice portion of the program), it doesn’t take any mindbending to go from me to granddaughter to dance lessons.
What was a huge mindbender for me was inheriting a grandson who just turned 18, by way of becoming Ashley’s foster brother a couple of years back. Ben is a lovely guy, polite and well-mannered, full of wonder about the world, and so on. But if you know anything about my pacifist, left-leaning background, you can understand that it’s taken me a bit of mindbending to adjust my thinking to be able to appreciate Ben’s cadet training. For example, like this summer, when he goes off on his pilot scholarship to learn to fly a plane. I mean, Emma was just giving him driving lessons a couple of months ago! Or when we pick them up to go for ice cream, and he’s dressed in fatigues because he has just enough time to have ice cream before he has to get back for his sharpshooter lesson. Or when he goes away to boot camp for the summer.
I’m sure this is part of what I need to do in this life as part of my personal growth. Every time I get too comfortable in my social comfort zone, a new person or situation comes into my life that makes me have to stretch my boundaries and rethink my prejudices and tolerances. And aside from enjoying Ben’s quick wit and pleasant company, I appreciate him making me open my mind a little more. And aside from being nervous about someone so young learning to fly, I’m hoping he’ll turn to civil aviation at some point - hey, those family points should come in handy, right, Ben?
Peter Grogono gets President’s Award for Teaching Excellence
Peter Grogono, Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science (and cherished friend of mine) at Montreal’s Concordia University (and my alma mater), has just received the first President’s Award for Teaching Excellence. A well-deserved honour, to be sure! To indicate what a fine specimen of teacher he is, I believe that even a word-nerd like me could have been taught to love numbers had Peter been responsible for teaching me math during the impressionable years.
I’m going to be a grandma! I’m going to be a grandma! Don’t know if I’m actually allowed to say who is pregnant, but anyone who knows the family configuration will soon be able to figure it out. Congratulations to the lovely couple and to the little-big sister! This grandmother gig is really quite wonderful.
It doesn’t diminish the sadness of missing the little guy from our lives - I had a good cry over him last night - but I won’t cut a tragic figure, pining over something I can’t change and ignore the lovely little lives around me.
Life is too short not to be the best you can be. Me? In no particular order: Woman. Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Aunt. Friend. Business owner. Writer. Musician. Jew. Scrabbler. Traveller. Lesbian. Taxpayer. Volunteer. Blogger. Social critic. Voice of reason. PITA. Inspiration. Visionary. Advocate. Convert. Pet owner.