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. [deleted] and today was Ben’s high school graduation. [deleted]
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.
Next week, I’m going to hear one of my grandsons participate in a public speaking competition. In a world where “fear of death” comes in second to “fear of public speaking”, this young man shows no fear in this arena. I had to chuckle, because when I told him that I, too, had done public speaking, but in high school, he said, “Oh, so that’s where I get it from” as if it were hereditary. (Hmmm, maybe I could impress upon him that at age 12, I became a neat freak?) So hats off to a bright, courageous, and articulate 11-year-old!
I was fortunate enough to be invited by the Shree Mahalakshmi Temple - they are part of the MultiFaith Action Society, as is our synagogue - to represent Ahavat Olam at a Holi celebration at the Michael J. Fox Library in Burnaby. Some twenty years ago, when I did community radio, I was introduced to this holiday, and ever since, wanted to be part of an occasion that celebrated colours. At this event, there was no throwing of colours, so I was slightly disappointed about that, but there were wonderful dance performances that demonstrated various aspects of the holiday and culture. And as a representative of the synagogue, I was honoured with a gift of flowers and a beautiful shawl, and a book about Holi and Hinduism which, it turns out, has many similariaties with Judiasm.
Though my social comfort level is generally awkward when I’m left on my own in a room full of strangers, I enjoyed myself immensely, and in that “small world” kind of way, ended up talking with two women, only to discover that we had friends in common, kind of - one of the women’s sons works with a friend of ours. These small things make us come away a little less feeling like a stranger in a crowd. I may just return next year, with a friend or two in tow.
I fully expect to get villified all over again for calling it as I see it and not taking sides unconditionally (even when that act would call for me to abandon my principles in the interest of blind-faith solidarity), but I’ve always called a spade a spade and I’m too old to be a hypocrite now. So [deleted] we’re scrambling to catch up with a house that looks like a tornado hit, and way overdue business tasks. At least it keeps our minds occupied.
Was at a meeting last night, and my rabbi handed me a baggie with some Purim goodies - a belated treat bag - this year, I barely noticed that the holiday had come and gone. I burst into tears at the unexpected kind gesture.
We have a cat named Sam. It’s a long story, but basically Sam is a Persian rescue cat with a snaggle tooth. He is very smart, quite talkative, and more than a little neurotic. When he started having less than pristine litter-box habits, I started to worry. But his “accidents” were irregular and erratic. We tried cleaning the litter more often and watching for all sorts of other signs, but no luck. Eventually, I reached my limit, and said, “We’ve got to call in Lydia Hiby.” I’d heard about Lydia on a radio show a number of years ago, and we’d used her to communicate with a previous cat who had some issues. She was so successful in her diagnostics that we thought we’d try her again.
To make a long story short, in the new place, we’d put Sam’s litter box in the laundry room, and Sam was so freaked out by the vibrations of the washer and dryer that whenever we did laundry, he couldn’t bring himself to go into the room. And when we were away and my son would come over, he would do marathon stints of laundry, so the cat would sneak into the den and pee there. When I finally went into that room to unpack, and found little puddles, I started keeping the door closed. Then, he’d go on the bath mat, but one day I caught him doing it outside the closed door of the den and when I yelled at him, he disappeared under the bed and didn’t come out for the better part of the day. After the consultation, we moved the litter box, and Sam hasn’t had an accident since. Unfortunately, the only other place we could fit a litter box was just inside the front door - not a very nice welcome - but I suspect we’ll have some custom cabinet built that can hide a litter box beneath it it, and everyone will be happy.
The odd thing is that at the end of the 15-minute consultation, during which time we discussed all sorts of things (Lydia used to be a vet tech, so she can discuss health issues as well as psycho-social issues), I asked if there was anything else that Sam would like us to know. She said that Sam asked to have a bandana. I have no idea how he knows about such things, but we did get him a little cat bandana, and from the time we put it on him he has liked it. Now, I was prepared for her to relay answers to the questions about whether Sam was lonely (no, he loves being the only cat), why he doesn’t like to sit on our laps (he has some arthritis in his feet, and doesn’t like to have to jump up quickly, so prefers to sit beside us), why he is so fussy with his cat food (as a kitten, he was given baby food because he was so little and sickly), and did he mind when we went out of town and left him alone (no, but could we leave a t-shirt on the bed for him). But a bandana? Go figure. But I did notice that since the session, Sam and I seem to be getting along a little better. Or maybe it’s just my imagination.
This year, I chose not to write about my birthday because it was really combined with our other celebrations, and there seemed to be little to actually write about. We did have a cake and, when we couldn’t find a birthday candle, someone rustled up a full-sized dinner taper. I got a bracelet, which I discovered scratched up my computer case, so I took it off and put it with the other bracelets I don’t wear. Today I bought myself a late birthday present: the smallest photo printer I could find so it would fit on the little desk in the den. I did this after packing up the inkjet printer to take back to the office, after realizing that though it seems smaller enough in an office setting, at home it would take up te entire desk.
Yesterday, we had an un-Christmas day at home. Everyone does something a little different on the 25th of December - a day with the family, dinner with the folks, a frenetic day spent ferrying children in a sugar-induced high between variuos relatives. We said that any of our friends feeling the need to escape from relatives, take a break between sets of inlaws and mincemeat pies, or just wanting to come by for a visit, could feel free to stop in for some decidedly un-Christmas hang-out time. What they’d find at our place was us, in sweatshirts and slippers, playing ABC (anything but Cristmas) music and movies, and serving up comfort food (chicken soup, split pea soup grilled cheese sandwiches, or home made mac ‘n cheese), and a hot cuppa.
We had a small but steady stream of friends who came by to say hi, have a cup of soup, hang out for a bit, see new pictures of the grandkids, and ten go of to their next engagement. It was wonderful - perhaps we’ll make it an annual tradition.
What is a West Coast Christmukah without adaptation, otherwise known as compromise? If you don’t have sufganiyot, those little jelly-filled doughnuts, you go to Tim Horton’s and get an assortment of Timbits. If you don’t have traditional potato latkes, you make a low-fat version in a cast iron frying pan on a BBQ. We lit Chanukah candles and played Chanukah music, but also had a Christmas tree and played Christmas music. We exchanged Chaunkah gifts on Friday night, and Christmas gifts on Saturday night. The children enjoyed the gifts equally, not matter what type of paper was used to wrap them. The older kids entertained the middle kids, who entertained the younger ones, and a good time was had by all. Grandson #2 (designation by age) had a soccer game [deleted].
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.