I Owe My Husband Hockey Tickets

I received an invitation the other day to Tyler's first birthday - I can't believe it's almost been a year!

It was a Thursday night and our Ice Dogs had home ice advantage over the London Knights. Tavares was playing! The second period had just started when my cell phone started vibrating in my jeans pocket and just about scared me out of my seat. I grabbed my phone and said hello but the crowd was suddenly on their feet screaming and I couldn't hear anything. I looked at the number that was calling, saw that it was Dorothy, and tried again, covering my other ear with my gloved hand. I could barely make her out over the noise, but I managed to get "hospital" and "now".

"We have to leave", I told my husband.

He looked at me incredulously. "What?", he shouted over the noise. "What!?"

"We have to leave. Dorothy just called me, she is on her way to the hospital. I have to go."

He just stared at me for a minute as if he couldn't believe I was serious. I got my stuff together and started squeezing my way out of our seats. He didn't move. I was out of the aisle and making my way up the steps and he still hadn't moved. Finally, realizing I was actually going, he took one more wistful look at the ice and followed me.

We were parked about five minutes away from the arena and it was snowy and cold. He grumbled all the way there under his breath....'can't believe you're making me miss Tavares!....she had to go into labour tonight...why does she need you there anyway?"

That was actually a question a lot of people have asked. Originally Dorothy had asked me to be her backup coach just in case her husband couldn't get there in time for any reason. Of course I said yes. We met regularly for lunch once a week and as time went on, Dorothy decided that I should come into the delivery room even if her husband was there. In some ways I think maybe it was partly because they hadn't really been together all that long so she didn't really know how he would be in such a situation, and besides she told me, I was there for comic relief.

I hesitated before I said yes, only because I didn't want her husband upset that I was 'horning' in on their moment! I told her that I would be happy to be there as long as it was okay with him.

Mike's response was basically, if it makes Dorothy feel better, it's fine with me!

As the time got closer, I packed a bag and left it in the car: sneakers, a sweater, a book, a present for the baby (I wanted to be the first) and some cookies and juice boxes!

So. My husband and I drove home, him still grumbling, and then I headed out. The hospital is about 25 minutes from my house and it was about nine by the time I got there. I found Dorothy and Mike in a room at the end of the hall. There was another woman in a more advanced stage of labour in the next bed and it was very...busy! And crowded. Right after I got there, the nurse came in to give Dorothy an epidural so I stepped outside for that. [Between you and me, of all the things I'd ever seen in videos in the doctors office - that was the only one that really scared me]. In our previous lunch chats one of the things that we had talked about was that Dorothy wanted to try really hard and go through the whole thing without drugs! One of my assigned tasks was to try and talk her out of it if she caved. When I got there and saw how much pain she was in - back labour: wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy - I just kept my mouth shut about the needle! After the epidural kicked in, Dorothy was able to relax a little bit and the three of us chatted, played stupid games, and finally Dorothy even slept for a bit. I was very popular let me tell you when I brought out cookies and juice around midnight!

It was a long night. It was not the first time I've tried to sleep in a chair. It can be done, but it's not easy. I must have dozed at some point though because I awoke to Mike gently shaking me and saying "it's go time!" It was around 4 am. By this time, we were in the actual delivery room - the three of us and the nurse. Now, I have to explain something here: it's the Barney factor. When my daughter was little, she loved Barney the Dinosaur and would sing his theme song all the time! One day I found myself at a funeral trying hard to fight tears and suddenly that song popped into my head. I have no idea why, but I started singing it over and over again in my head and it helped me keep my composure. I've done it any number of times since, and Dorothy knows about it to. So, here we were. The epidural had worn off and the contractions were hitting hard and fast. Dorothy looked at me beseechingly and said tell me a joke, something, anything, before the next one hit. Suddenly I started singing Barney. It was a joke, and it worked - Dorothy actually laughed! The nurse saw this and when the next contraction started she looked at me and said "Sing!" What? I tried to explain that is was a joke, it wasn't that singing helped...she yelled again, "Sing!!" So I sang. The first song that popped into my head: 'Julie do you love me?' by Bobby Sherman. That's right, Bobby Sherman! We had been listening to my old record albums not that long ago. Every time I stopped singing the nurse yelled at me to start again. And I guess it only made it funnier that I had a head cold and sounded like Elmer Fudd! But I sang. After two or three songs Dorothy was actually laughing so hard she had tears!

The fun didn't last though. When things started happening, the nurse started issuing orders and we just followed them. The baby was going into distress and they couldn't find the doctor. Of all the amazing things I saw that night, the most by far was the nurse massaging the baby's heart in the birth canal to keep the beat steady. While she was doing this, I had Dorothy's foot pushed into my shoulder as the contractions continued to hit, and Mike was holding her up against him. We continued like this for what seemed like hours but was probably only about 30 minutes or so.
Dorothy's blood pressure was through the roof so she had to keep taking breaks between pushing, but every time she did that the baby's heart rate would drop and the nurse would have to massage his little heart again! During this time two things kept going through my head: Dorothy was really, really strong when she was pushing into my shoulder, and where was the frigging doctor? He did finally show up and I could see the nurse was almost as relieved as I was! Things happened fast after that. Dorothy was exhausted by this time - not to mention her blood pressure - and she was having trouble pushing. I could see that the doctor and nurse were getting concerned as the baby's heart rate continued to drop and the nurse kept telling Dorothy she was doing great but she had to keep pushing! Dorothy began to cry and said " I can't, it hurts too bad". At that point, someone - it wasn't me honest, must have been that really mean nurse - snapped at poor Dorothy and harshly said "Suck it up. It's not about you right now, it's about the baby! Push damn it". Okay, it was mean, but it worked. Dorothy gave one last tremendous push and not-so-little Tyler was born.

The sun was up. Mike held his son for the first time. Dorothy asked me to go call her Mother in BC and tell her the news, so I stepped out into the hall to do that. Her mom and I both got choked up and had a good cry on the phone. Then I called work and left a message saying I wouldn't be in.

When I went back into the delivery room the Doctor was working on Dorothy and Mike was holding Tyler and the nurse was busy cleaning things up. I just tried to fade into the background out of the way until they were done. I found myself standing behind one of those tables on wheels that all hospitals seem to have so I leaned on it and took a deep breath. Then I noticed what I was looking down at - a large dish that contained Dorothy's placenta. I looked up and caught Dorothy's eye.
She looked the question, "what?".
"You are my own personal discovery channel medical drama" I said. Dorothy laughed and said she was glad to help. The Doctor looked up and gave me a look that clearly said "who let her in here anyway?"

Soon after, I went and found the cafeteria and brought back juice and muffins for the hungry Mom and Dad, and then I headed home. Walking to my car I ran into Mike's parents just on their way in to meet their new grandson. I felt amazing...exhilirated...still running on adrenaline!

When I got home, I thought about all the things I should probably do, and instead I lay down on the couch with my dog at my feet and slept for six hours.

Happy almost birthday Tyler!

I've been looking for a new car. I've test-driven a couple, but mostly so far it's just been looking. My vehicle has definitely seen better days - it got schmucked in a hotel parking lot last year, and my son added a couple of dings of his own when he started driving last year as well. Now my daughter has her beginner's license so I'm torn between getting a new car and waiting until she gets the "dings" out of her system.

Last weekend I was at the Mazda dealership to see what they have to offer. I took a car out and then sat with the salesman to get an idea of how much it would end up costing me. He started telling me the different colours it comes in and I interrupted him to say, no I would want the same colour as the one on the lot - Black Cherry - it goes with my hair. He looked at me for a second unsure of whether I was trying to be funny or having a "blonde" moment. It really is a cool colour, the car I mean.

I am not a natural redhead. I know, this is shocking! I was told once that my hair is the colour of Cherry Coca Cola - by a guy who bought me a drink in an Iowa airport - long story. But since he'd mentioned it, and we had time to kill before our respective flights, I told him the story of how I became a redhead.

A few years ago I worked with two fabulous women who also became my friends. The company was going through some growing pains and we were on our third CEO. I could spend some time describing him but in a nutshell, if you've ever watched the show The Office, that pretty much covers it. He was a Brit. He was also a chauvinist of a degree I've seldom seen before or since.
Shortly after he started, he hired his girlfriend as our Marketing Manager. This might have only ruffled a few feathers if she had any experience whatsoever in marketing, but she did not. Her emails became legendary for their spelling mistakes and poor grammar. She was nice enough, and an attractive red head - she just didn't belong in that job.

To make matters worse, she was promoted a couple of times over others in the company who not only had seniority, but were eminently more qualified. The second of these promotions was announced when the woman in question was away at a conference and my friend Anne, who was in HR, was furious. She went in to give the CEO a piece of her mind. Voices were raised and Anne's parting shot as she left his office was "I guess the only way to get promoted around here is to be a redhead!". She was shaking when she came by my office to tell me about it, convinced that she would be fired for her outburst. Her and I, and our manager went out for drinks after work and developed a plan. I'm not saying it was a good plan, but it was a plan. Anne felt that if she was going to get fired, she might as well go out in a blaze of defiance, if not glory. She was going to go home and dye her hair bright red!

In a show of solidarity, Lori and I promised to do the same. The next morning we were all working diligently in our offices when the CEO did his usual morning "rounds" with his coffee cup. He saw Anne first and almost spewed his coffee across the room. Before he could say anything to her, I walked out of my office and said good morning as if nothing was going on, and then Lori did the same. He just stared at the three of us as his eyes narrowed, then he continued on his rounds. As he walked away he muttered "None of you are funny you know".

Nothing was ever said about our hair -at least not by him. Although on more than one occasion after that I heard him refer to the three of us as The Coven. Lori had only put a temporary rinse in her hair so it washed out before too long, and Anne eventually went back to being a blonde. I on the other hand, decided I liked being a redhead. : )

Moving On

So. I find myself on the verge of embarking on a new job…again.

About a month ago my boss called a staff meeting. We’ve never had a staff meeting before. I just knew it couldn’t be good. He told us he had decided to retire.
I couldn’t say I was shocked. Anyone could see his heart wasn’t in it anymore. But I guess I had been hoping he would hang on for a couple of more years until I was in a position to make him an offer.

When he was finished talking I congratulated him and wished him well. What else can you say really? I went back to my office and when I turned to sit at my desk, I realized my two co-workers had followed me. The door was closed and we had our own little meeting. There were tears, shock, anger. Not from me. I’ve been here before.

Several years ago I was hired by a small biotech firm as an Accounts Payable clerk. It was my first full time job since I’d had kids and I was both nervous and excited. It was a growing company and I was hoping to grow with it. In the first two years I was there, the number of staff more than doubled and I was promoted to General Accountant and then to Assistant to the Controller. I loved my job. Not only was the work interesting, but I also felt really good about what we did as a company: developing hardware and software for drug discovery. The other thing I really loved about working there was that we recruited literally from all over the world. I took on the job of unofficial welcome wagon, helping new people find their way around the city. I met so many interesting people and made some life long friends.

We grew too fast. The company reached a point where we couldn’t keep up with marketing and distribution and so the owner made the decision to sell 49% of the company to a UK based corporation. Initially nothing much changed except that we now had a CEO as well the President, and hired a few more people. I still loved my job.

The UK Corp. had an option to purchase the other 51% of the shares after five years, which they did. The President and original owner of the company was gone and we suddenly felt a lot more of a corporate presence. They cut about ¼ of the staff – mostly in sales and marketing so we all worked more hours to pick up the slack.

I had thought that they didn’t come much bigger than the UK Corp. I was wrong. One morning I came in and found the CEO had called a staff meeting (yes, I know). The announcement was that our little company had been bought lock, stock and barrel by one of the biggest, soulless corporate giants I could ever have imagined. The next announcement was that “nothing would change”. Followed by they were moving the company to New Jersey.

Primarily they were after our R&D team. They offered them and a number of others jobs in NJ, but it was really the R&D guys that they wanted. And I am happy to tell you that not a single one of them took the offer. That was the bright side of the whole thing for me! Whoever was not going to NJ was offered a package, including my boss, Lori and me. Her and I and three others were offered a six-month extension to close the place down – pack up, ship out, sell off and close the books. The sane thing to do would have been to leave then and there, but I knew Lori was too responsible to do that and I couldn’t leave her to do it all herself. So I stayed. By the middle of December there were five of us left in the building and it was like a tomb. Morale couldn’t have gotten any lower.

We were busy, but there was no life left in the place. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I brought in cookies and soft drinks and set them out on what used to be the receptionists desk. Then I waded through boxes in the warehouse until I found the ones I was looking for and dragged them out to the reception area too. I started putting up the Christmas tree that we’d always had in the front entrance. One by one my co-workers walked by and stopped to help me. We decorated the tree, plugged in the lights and sat around eating cookies! It was almost like old times.

Christmas came and went and the tree was still there. Every morning I plugged in the lights. Valentines’ Day was upon us so I routed around in the supply cupboard and found some pink paper. I cut out pink hearts and stuck them all over the tree on top of the Christmas decorations and lights.

By March a lot of the equipment had been shipped to New Jersey and we were now deciding what could be auctioned off. March also brought St. Patrick’s Day. Yup.
Green paper and cut outs vaguely resembling Shamrocks were stuck up on the tree over the pink hearts and the rest. Easter came early that year and so I cut out yellow eggs and decorated them with highlighters before plastering them all over the tree! It was one weird looking “Christmas” tree let me tell you.

My six months was almost up and I’d found another job and would be leaving a week early. Everything was pretty much done.

On my last day there Lori asked me what I was going to do with the tree? I thought about it for a minute and then said I had an idea. For Christmas the previous year Lori’s husband had given her, as a joke, a large red rubber stamp that spelled out F**K It.
I cut out dozens of white squares from my recycling bin and stamped them all. You guessed it. I stuck them all over the tree. I wasn’t sure what Lori would say, but she laughed, and then the five of us gathered around the tree for one last “staff” photo.
It seemed fitting somehow.

This time around, there is no tree. The last day will see a pizza lunch. Not so much a bang as a whimper. But, I’ve found another job and I will move on, as will we all.
One thing I’ve learned is that change happens whether you want it to or not and the ones who survive are the ones who change with it. Makes me think of the book, “Who Moved my Cheese” by Dr. Spencer Johnson. Better to be the mouse that bravely goes off in search of ‘new’ cheese than the one that just sits and waits for it to find him, and slowly starves to death.

I was 22 years old the first time I saw a dead body. My friend Lisa’s grandmother had passed away and another friend Mary and I, went to the funeral home to pay our respects.
Mary drove and on the way there she said, “I hope it’s not an open casket, but being as they are Italian, it probably will be”.

What? Open casket?

By the time we got into the line my knees were shaking and the colour had drained from my face. Mary actually held my hand in the line because she was afraid I was going to pass out. Of course, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I’d worked it up to be in my head. Since then I’ve been to more open casket visitations than I can count – my husband being Italian and having a very large extended family – and it really doesn’t faze me anymore. And of course I was holding my mother’s hand when she died, but that’s a completely different ballgame.


One of the first times I went to a visitation with my husband, I was completely and utterly horrified to see little kids there, anywhere from about two years of age and up. And yet as I watched them, they were really not bothered at all by the body lying in the casket off to the side. The more often I witnessed this, the more I came to realize that this is a better way to do things. Death is just another part of life and whitewashing it the way we sometimes do isn’t necessarily a good thing. The fact that I was 22 the first time I went to a funeral home isn’t because no one died in my family until then – I lost four grandparents, two great-grandparents, and a few aunts and uncles. I can actually remember asking my mother to let me go to my Great-Grandmother’s funeral, but she said I was too young. (I was 10). I understand that my mom was trying to shelter me from unpleasantness, but the result was the terror I felt at 22 waiting in that line.

So, I started taking my kids with me when I went. They were about 12 and 14 the first time, and my daughter held tightly to my hand. They were both nervous and unsure of what it would be like to kneel in front of a dead person, but once they realized it wasn’t that scary, they were fine. We always fear what we don’t know, and now they both know that they can go and pay their respects and it’s okay. It’s never pleasant, but like me, they’ve learned that it’s something you just have to do sometimes and they know they can handle it.

That being said….

Monday my husband’s Aunt passed away. I didn’t really know her, but I am acquainted with some of her kids. My stomach immediately clenched at the thought of going to the funeral. Suddenly I was back in that line with Mary and filled with dread.

Since my mother died, I’ve had a really hard time with funerals but it has nothing to do with bodies and everything to do with the fact that it brings back losing my Mom. Especially if, as was the case in the last couple I attended, it is someone else’s mom who has died.

Honestly, I feel like an idiot but I can’t seem to get past it. My husband mentioned his Aunt’s passing at dinner last night and said visitation would be tonight and tomorrow.
I didn’t say anything, but the lack of colour in my face apparently gave me away. I tried to explain how I felt.
My daughter Kaitlin smiled sympathetically and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand”.

Alone in the office today.......

8:30am - turn off the alarm, turn on some lights...actually been here since 8am but didn't open up till now. Two on vacation, one person at a conference, I am the only one here.....

8:40am - okay, checked email, nothing pressing. Nothing much to do, everything is on hold waiting for the client.....guess I'll just enjoy my coffee....

10:32am - I am the Minesweeper Champion of the World!!!!!

11:05am - Okay, so the fax machine was out of paper. How was I supposed to know? Finally, something to do!

12:30pm - well, it was fun while it lasted. Lunch time. Crap, I've read all of these Time Magazines!

12:47pm - now what? Okay, I could go get the mail. Maybe there will be a new Time in there! Lock the door, put up note - "back in 5 min".
Nothing. Even the mail is against me.

12:58pm - let's see if I can break my own minesweeper record!!

1:14pm - how the hell do people do nothing all day?

1:36pm - Aaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

1:58pm - Was that the door? Oooohhh... a client.

2:10pm - well, that didn't take nearly long enough, but at least I saw another human being!

2:22pm - I swore I would not clean the kitchen and wash all the dishes in the sink anymore since I am the only one who ever does it....but I just cleaned the kitchen and washed all the dishes in the sink. This sucks!

2:43pm - The phone! It was my daughter calling to say she was home from school. I wanted to talk longer but she has homework. She put the dog on the phone and I talked to him for awhile! I could hear him breathing and I'm pretty sure he was licking the receiver. Note to self: disinfect phone receiver when get home.

2:58pm - just finished an online rant against the promo for the new movie 2012. Read your history people! The Mayans are not the oldest civilization the world has ever known, and they did not, ever, not even once, predict the end of the world in 2012. I hate Hollywood!

2:57pm- oh my God, did the clock just go backwards!?!

How do I love my cell phone...let me count the ways

You know, sometimes I really miss the days before I had a cell phone. The truth is, I never really wanted one. Okay, there was that one time my car broke down in the middle of an intersection during rush hour and I had my two kids in the backseat, but I didn't have one then, and I made do.

My husband had a phone through work and he loved it. He loved it so much in fact that he would often call me while I was trying to make dinner to tell me he had just left work. Then he would call to tell me that he was on his way...it was a long drive (15 minutes) and he got bored. Then he would call me to tell me that he was at the end of our street....

He often told me that I should get a cell phone, but I resisted. Then one day his company upgraded all of their employee cell phones and gave them the option of passing their old phone on to a spouse at their corporate rate. "I don't need a cell phone" I told him, but he wore me down and before much time had passed, I had a phone of my very own. It was actually kind of cool and I happily programmed the calender and various other features.

A few weeks had gone by and I had just come in from grocery shopping. "I tried to call you but your phone wasn't on" he said accusingly as I set the grocery bags down on the counter.
"I know" I replied. Somehow this answer did not satisfy him.
"Why wasn't your phone on?" he tried again.
"Because I didn't need to call anyone" I answered, opening the fridge to put the milk in.
He looked exasperated.
"You are missing the point of having a cell", he said. "I needed to call you and I couldn't because your phone was off".
"Why did you need to call me?"
"To tell you we were out of milk."
I looked from him to the bag of milk in my hand but before I could open my mouth, he had walked away muttering under his breath.
It became a constant source of annoyance for him that my phone was seldom on. I tried to explain to him that no one ever called me so it just sat in my purse until the battery wore down if I left it on, and then it wouldn't work if I really did need to call someone. Every time we had one of these conversations, he ended up walking away and muttering.

I did eventually get better at leaving it on. One day though it stopped working so we went to the store to get a new one. I tried in vain again to say I didn't really need one, but I ended up with it anyway. The store was having a promotion. Buy one phone, get another for free. My daughter happened to be with us at the time and at this news her eyes lit up like it was Christmas and her birthday all at the same time. I thought about it for a few minutes and finally came to the conclusion that she was getting older and starting to take the bus with her friends to the mall and such and it probably would be a good idea for her to have a means of calling home if she needed. Not to mention that I could track her down too. So we got two new phones and went on a "family plan". Then, in the interests of fairness, we got our son a phone for Christmas and he too went on our family plan.

In the very beginning, before the novelty wore off, there were some hefty charges for over usage, and downloading of ring tones, but once they realized that I would really make them pay for any extras, they reigned it in.

And while I liked the idea of being able to phone them and see where they were, it also seemed to work the other way. My son has gone away to school and will often call my cell when I am at work to talk to me. The problem of course is that if I am not actually in my office at the time, I don't hear my phone and miss the call. The other day I came back from making a cup of tea to see the light flashing to tell me that I had two missed calls from him. I called him back.
"Where were you, I called you twice!" (In the space of about 90 seconds).
"I was in the kitchen making tea. Is something wrong?"
"No, I just wanted to say hi."
Because I love my son and want him to call me up just to say hi, I bit my tongue.

This afternoon my daughter texted me to ask if I could pick her up from school since she was staying late for a Yearbook meeting and would miss the bus. I texted back: 'OK. See you 4:45'.
I left work at 4:30 and it takes me about 15 minutes to get to the school.
I had just pulled out into the street when my phone started ringing. Today is the first day of the new no cell phone while driving law so I decided I might as well get the precedent started. After all, she knew I was coming and what time I would be there.
About a minute later, my phone rang again. Then again. Then a text message.
I smiled to myself as I drove and continued to NOT answer my phone, imaging the messages:
'Where r u?'
'R u on ur way?'
'R u coming?'
In my head I thought about the lesson I was teaching her about patience!

At exactly 4:45 I pulled in front of the school and looked for my daughter. I didn't see her. I put the car in park and picked up my phone and read her last text message.
'Ur not picking up. Took later bus home. C u there'
I guess the joke's on me.

Rascal the Amazing Wonder Dog, Part One.

Anyone who may have read about our history with pets (See: Where Goldfish Go To Die), might be somewhat amazed that we ever ventured so far as to get a dog, but venture we did.

It was not a new idea. At various times in the past either myself or one of the kids had suggested getting a dog, but to no avail. When my husband and I were first married, I said I thought we needed a little dog and his reaction was basically, “Over my dead body!”

My son tried his best too. My husband listened to his reasons for wanting a dog and then replied, “I’m not getting you a dog. You don’t play with the pet you already have!”
Joseph looked puzzled.
“I have a goldfish! You can’t play with a goldfish!”

“Of course you can”, his father answered. “You can tap on the glass can’t you?”

When Kate was small she could get her Dad to do just about anything she wanted.
One day she gave him the full effect of her big brown eyes and said “Daddy, can we get a puppy?”

“You don’t need a dog. Go play with your brother’s fish!”

And so it went.

In October 2006, my Mom passed away. She had been sick, but it still happened rather suddenly and it was a difficult time. She was 63. One thing that it got me thinking about was that life was indeed too short! A few weeks had gone by and Kate and I were in the pet store buying crickets for Joseph’s lizard. Actually, I was buying crickets – she was mooning over the puppies behind the glass! I looked at her, and I looked at the puppies jumping at her hand and thought, ‘we need a dog!’ On the drive home I told her I thought it was time we got a dog. She looked at me and said “Dad will never go for it”, but I thought I saw a flicker of hope in her eyes. “Just leave it with me” I said.

Over the next couple of weeks I came up with several ideas, but rejected them all. I knew it would not be right just to spring a dog on my husband. I needed a plan. We were heading into the Christmas holidays, planning dinners and parties, and then it hit me. It was so simple, it was brilliant!

The next weekend I invited Mike and Jo over for drinks. As we were sitting around the kitchen table talking, I brought the conversation around to the holidays.
“So”, I said, maybe a little too casually, “are you still planning on taking the kids and spending the holidays with your family in Winnipeg?”
They were.
“Who is going to look after Jake?” I asked, and silently held my breath.

Jake is their adorable little spaniel. He is not only very sweet, but also very well behaved.
You see, it had occurred to me that for all these years my husband had been saying he hated dogs, but in actual fact, he had never been around one. So my plan was to show him that a dog could be fun, and good company and not necessarily destroy your home. (This last thought would come back to haunt me!)

Joanne and Mike exchanged glances and Jo said, “Well, we don’t know yet. I guess we’ll have to put him in a kennel.”

“Don’t be silly. You can’t do that. We’re happy to look after him while you’re away!”
I may have said all of that a little too quickly.

Jo and Mike looked from me to Mel and back to me. If Mel could have kicked me under the table he would have, but I’d thought of that and made sure I was out of range.

“Are you sure?” Jo asked hesitantly. She was giving me the friend stare that I interpreted to mean ‘you know Mel would kick you under the table right now if he could reach you’.

“Of course we’re sure", I said. "Don’t give it another thought”. And then I changed the subject.

Later on when Mike and Jo had left, Mel cornered me as I was heading up to bed.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
I thought about playing dumb but decided against it.
“What, you mean offering to look after Jake?”
“Yes I mean offering to look after Jake! Why did you do that?” he said, non-too pleased.

“Because they are our friends and they need our help. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t help them out when they needed it?”

He just stared at me for a minute. He wasn’t quite buying it, but he let it go.

The next morning I told the kids that we would be looking after Jake for a week over the holidays. Kate looked up and said, “Is this your plan? Is this how we are getting a dog?”
I didn't look either of them in the eye as I replied that all this meant was that we were helping out our friends by taking care of their dog while they were away. They weren’t buying it either. I suggested to them that it might be in their best interest to make sure that they were diligent about feeding, walking and cleaning up after Jake while he was here! They nodded happily.

The Christmas holidays eventually came and so did Jake. As I’d hoped, he was no trouble at all and I actually caught Mel rubbing his belly a couple of times when he thought no one was looking. Everything went really well with Jake, right up until we tried to kill him. Jake’s family was due to fly in on December 30th and would pick him up sometime that evening.

Not unusually for that time of year, there was weather, and their flight was delayed until the following day – New Year’s Eve. No big deal. They were coming to our place anyway that night, so they could just get him then. That day we were busy getting ready for the party: I was in the kitchen and the kids were helping out by doing chores when suddenly Joe yelled to me that Jake was sick! I went downstairs to find the poor little guy heaving over a large puddle on the floor. As I approached him, I could smell it – chocolate! Fear gripped my heart. They had trusted us with their little dog and we had killed him! I started having lizard flashbacks.

“How did he get chocolate?” I yelled. The kids both shook their heads that they didn’t know. They were as worried as I was. Poor Jake just kept yakking around my feet.

Have I mentioned that my husband never had a dog? Ever? Well, he had apparently put out a plate of chocolate truffles on the coffee table, it having never occurred to him that Jake might eat the whole plate, or that they might kill him if he did! He felt just terrible!

Just as I wondering what to do, Michael called to give me their latest arrival time.

“How are things?” he asked. “Bet Mel will be glad to get rid of Jake.” Um. “Funny you should mention that…” I explained the situation to him. He didn’t seem nearly as concerned as I was. He said Jake had eaten lots of things he shouldn’t and seemed to have a cast iron stomach. I felt a little better. Neither Joe nor Kate left his side the rest of the day, and although he got sick a couple more times, he seemed okay, even looking for his dinner right on schedule.

And so the holidays came and went. It was hard without my Mom but I had kept myself so busy that I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on how much I was missing her. Once everything settled back into a routine though, I realized I was having trouble climbing out of the hole I was wallowing in. I started searching for a dog online. Somehow I had convinced myself that getting a dog would make things better. I checked out the local SPCA site but they only seemed to have large dogs and I knew Mel would never go for that. I went further a field. A Google search brought me to a site that rescued dogs who would otherwise have been put down and found them homes.

I thought about it and realized that in a way, I was really looking for a dog to rescue me, so rescuing him in return seemed only fair! It didn’t take long before I found him.
His “bio” said he was a beagle mix, about 8 months old, and already house-trained. He was adorable and looked small enough that Mel couldn’t really complain.

I printed it out. That afternoon Mel was watching football on TV and when it went to commercial, I sat beside him and said I found a dog for adoption online and I really wanted him. I showed him the picture. He just stared at it for a while and I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Then he sighed. Heavily. He handed the picture back to me. I knew what that sigh meant. It meant the last thing he wanted was a dog but he knew that I was missing my Mom and feeling sad and he hoped that at least this would cheer me up.
“Understand this,” he said, “It is your dog. I will not feed it, I will not walk it and I will not clean up after it. And I better not ever find him on the hardwood floors or leather furniture!”

I ran upstairs and hit the send button on the adoption application that I had already filled out.
They called the next day and we arranged for a meeting to see if we “clicked”. If everything went well, I could bring him home with me. We had two days to get organized. Kate asked her friend David to go to the pet store with us to make sure we got everything we needed, since he has a dog. He was very helpful, and we came home with a bed, a crate, two dishes, a blanket, some toys, and a bag of food.

Wednesday after work I drove to the shelter in Hamilton. I met with the couple that runs it and we chatted for a while (while they sized me up). They gave me the little history they had on him and then said that they had taken him to the vet and he was up to date with his shots, but that he had not been fixed. Then they went to get him. Rascal walked into the room and looked at me. My first thought was that he was at least twice the size I’d thought, and that Mel was going to kill me. The second though was that he was absolutely adorable. The woman said that he was quite shy so not to be upset if he didn't take to me immediately - they thought he might have been abused at some point. I called him and he walked over to me. He put his head on my knee and looked up at me. I had found my dog.

Good Old Fashioned Smiting...

Everyday I get an email from Merriam-Webster with a new "word of the day". Today though I think I'd like to substitute it for another one: Smite!


The following are three headlines that appeared just today:

AP: “Austrian police: 22 suspects detained, 136 identified in global child porn sting…”


Reuters: “U.N High Commissioner condemns Guinea Blood Bath…has to ensure that all those responsible to carrying out summary executions, rapes (of women and girls in the streets) and other human rights violations are brought to justice,..”

MSNBC: "Bishop charged in child sex abuse case"

Is it just me, or has the world gone mad?

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not generally prone to such vehement statements, or to quoting from the bible, but seriously, we need some good old-fashioned Smiting! Some Old Testament, Wrath of God, Archangels-killing-demons type smiting.

The Book of Daniel in the Old Testament says: “... that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people."

We need you Michael. Smite the hell out of them.

He's not vicious, he's just hungry!

My Mom loved to tell stories. Sometimes we would beg her to tell us tales of her childhood, we loved those even if we’d heard them a hundred times before.
And sometimes she would tell others stories about us.

The anecdotes about my brother Steve mostly consisted of the trouble he got into as a small boy. My personal favourite being the time a neighbour carelessly left a pair of garden shears lying around and Steve found them. He proceeded to walk from house to house cutting the heads off of every single flower he found in our neighbour’s gardens. When he was done, he pitched the garden shears into Lake Ontario. We lived right on the edge of it; there was a fence, and then a drop into the Lake. Basically, my brother Steve pitched anything that wasn’t nailed down into the lake.

The stories my Mom told about me often involved animals. As a kid I was always rescuing something. There was the bunny I found in our yard with an injured foot; the baby birds who were abandoned by their mother when their nest fell out of the tree in a storm (they didn’t even have their pin feathers yet); five baby raccoons who showed up hungry one day (we assumed their mother probably got hit by a car since there was never any sign of her), and the list continues.

Figuring out what to feed these creatures was sometimes a challenge. The bunny was pretty easy, as were various dogs. We had to call someone about the baby birds, and ended up feeding them hard boiled egg mashed up with warm milk through an eyedropper. My Dad was ready to send me packing with them at one point – they liked to start chirping for their breakfast around four a.m. But even he was impressed when they flew for the first time. Even after they finally left the nest (or in their case, shoebox), they would come back every spring and sit on our fence.

The baby raccoons also liked eggs. We would crack them slightly and hide them around the yard so they learned to hunt for their food. Eventually they were released on my cousin’s farm.

My Mom also liked to tell people about the time I fed the bear in Algonquin Park. I know, lots of people feed bears in Algonquin, even though you’re not supposed to. On this particular occasion we were on our way home. I was four and my Mom was pregnant with Steve. We were in a car and space was at a premium, so I was in the backseat with the cooler and pillows. Just before we reached the Park gate, all the cars came to a stop, as there was a large black bear up ahead at the side of the road. Everyone was craning their necks to see it, including my parents. The bear wandered off and my Mom turned to me to make sure I saw it. She almost had a heart attack. There was her baby; cooler wide open, window rolled down, and feeding bacon to a second bear that had sidled up to our car. When my Mother could finally talk, she asked me what on earth I was thinking? I told her he looked hungry.

When I was six we moved to Burlington on Lakeshore Road. My school was several blocks away up a side street that ran perpendicular to Lakeshore. On the corner where I crossed was a service station and I walked by it twice a day going to and from school. Tied up in back was a very scraggly German Sheppard, and all the kids were scared of it. It barked and growled and strained against its chain whenever someone went by and my Mother made me swear I would never get close to it. Most days I walked to school with my friend Launa but if she was sick or something I’d be on my own. On one such day I crossed at the corner with the light and started off when I heard this dog carrying on as usual. There was no one around. I got as close as I dared and opening up my lunch, threw him half my sandwich which he ate in one gulp. The next couple of mornings I did the same thing. Then one day I stopped on my way home. I had one of those Halloween bags of chips left so I slowly walked up to him and fed him a chip. They were Salt & Vinegar, and he liked them!
And that is where my mother found me some time later. I was late so she had started off to see if she could see me coming. What she saw was me sitting on a curb with my arm around this mangy German Sheppard sharing a bag of chips!

After she’d sent me to wash my hands she sat me down in our kitchen and said, “that dog is vicious. What were you thinking?”
I told her he wasn’t vicious, he was just hungry.

Naturally, my mother loved to tell my husband stories about me as a kid, so I say he has no one to blame but himself – he married me anyway! Once our own kids were in school I decided to go back to work full time and found a great job working for a growing biotech company that recruited computer engineers and scientists from all over the world. A lot of the new employees were single and came to Canada not knowing a soul. One day my husband came home from work and noticed an extra place setting on the table. He asked who was coming for dinner? I mentioned a hard to pronounce name with lots of letters in it. “He’s a new programmer”, I explained. “He looks hungry, I don’t think he eats right”.

Without another word my husband went and picked up the phone. He called my Mother.
“Just thought you’d like to know, she’s still feeding strays, except now they’re people”.

Karma

I am a firm believer in “what goes around comes around” and I generally try to be nice when it would be just as easy to be otherwise. I hold doors for people, smile at strangers on the street, that kind of thing. And for the most part I find that people reciprocate.

I seldom get downtown, it’s busy and parking can be difficult, but whenever I do find myself having to run errands at lunch, I always ask my co-worker if she has anything to go. It saves her a trip and usually only takes me a few extra minutes. Last week I was on such a mission and had paid for parking in a city lot while I dropped off some paperwork for her. The lot had the meters that you put money into depending on how much time you think you need and it spits out a slip of paper with the time limit on it that you are supposed to leave on your dashboard. I didn’t know exactly how long I’d be so I’d paid for twenty minutes when I really only needed five. Pulling out of the lot, another car passed me coming in and on an impulse I rolled down my window and waved my parking stub at the driver. He stopped and I told him that there was 15 minutes left on it, if he wanted it. He looked kind of surprised but took it and thanked me.

Today I was downtown again. I pulled into another city lot, at the tax offices this time, and just as I was scanning the lot for a space, a car pulled up beside me and the driver rolled down his window. Yup. He waved a parking stub at me and asked if I wanted it. I smiled and thanked him. This one had almost two hours left on it and I only needed a few minutes. As I was leaving I scanned the lot again and saw an older women heading towards a meter. I backed up and rolled down my window…..

As I was driving back to work, I was at an intersection waiting to pull into traffic. The oncoming car slowed right down and I thought intended to allow me in. As I started to go she suddenly sped up and almost ran into me. Okay, so it’s not a perfect world, but it’s pretty good and it’s the little things like free parking that generally put a smile on your face.

A Work in Progress

Do you ever wake up in the morning and suddenly wonder how did I get here? It could just be a symptom of getting older but I think it might have more to do with my son going away to school. As much as I miss him, I'm also a little envious. Not because I never got the chance to do it, I did, but because I remember like it was yesterday that feeling of having the whole world open before you, just waiting to see what you will do. It was a little scary, but it was also incredibly exhilarating. Somewhere along the way though I think we lose that feeling that anything is possible.

When I was in high school, I was going to be a writer. I was editor of the school paper and won some awards for poetry and short story writing. If you looked in my grade 12 yearbook there are a bunch of comments from teachers wishing me well in my future writing career and asking for a copy of my first book! Sometimes it's best not to look at old year books.

My enrolment into University was a rather sudden and hurried happening. At the time, Ontario still had grade 13 for students heading in that direction, so even though I knew I wanted to go, I thought I still had another year. One day I got called down to the office to speak with the Principal and he said that a teacher had recommended me for an early entry program and that if accepted, I could forego grade 13 and start university that fall. Looking back, I'm not sure I made the right choice but everyone knows what they say about hindsight! I was already younger than most kids in my year having skipped a grade early on, and now I was enrolled in university at the age of 16. And I had no idea what I wanted to do. My parents, god bless them, couldn't understand for the life of them why I even wanted to go so I had no guidence there. Since I was old enough, I had volunteered for various organizations working with kids so that seemed like my best bet I thought. I decided to be a teacher.

I absolutely loved University. Don't get me wrong, it was hard. School work was hard. My first English essay rated a C+. I had never received less than an A+ in English in my entire life and I thought it was the end of the world, but after I cried over it, I talked to my Professor and he explained what he wanted me to do differently and eventually I figured it out. Paying for university was hard. I had managed to get a student loan, but it didn't cover everything so I worked after school in a bank most evenings. Was it worth it? Totally. Despite my major, my favourite courses were Political Science. I had never really paid much attention before I have to admit - to world events or for that matter things that were happening in my own country, but that class opened my eyes and I took it as an elective for three years. Sometimes I wish I didn't know what was going on in the world when I hear some of the things that are happening, but you can't bury your head in the sand even when you want to. Most mornings I listen to BBC news on my way to work and some stories they report really make me want to hit something! But in my own small way, I try to make the world a better place. I am involved in local community charities and in a couple of more years when my youngest goes off into the world I plan to volunteer some time overseas. It's something I've always wanted to do. I hold no accord with people who say the world is beyond hope. What have we got if not hope? One of my favourites quotes is from Margaret Mead: 'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has'. I also try to pay a lot more attention to things in my own backyard. I have sent so many emails to the Prime Minister's office over the years that I'm sure my name is probably on some list somewhere!

So, I went to University to become a teacher. I am an accountant. : ) The last time I was looking for a job and going to interviews we would get to the part where the interviewer would say something like, "I see you have a B.A. In Accounting? Business?" and I would reply with a smile, "In Education". I got some very surprised looks. One person actually asked me if I didn't consider that I had wasted four years of my life. That got a surprised look from me.

When I graduated from University we were in a recession and there was a hiring freeze on teaching jobs unless you were willing to go to Yellowknife or somewhere equally remote, which at the time I was not willing to do. I was planning on getting married. But I had a really good job at the bank where I'd worked part time for years and they hired me on full time. So I stayed.

From there it was a gradual transition to accounting. When I had my first child I left my full time job but still needed to work part time. My husband opened his own business and the first couple of years were pretty lean ones. He also wanted me to do his bookkeeping. I had an idea of how it all worked, but I certainly wasn't a bookkeeper. I didn't really have the time or the money to take a course, so I sort of fudged my way into a part time bookkeeping job. (Yes, I know. I should be ashamed!) My saving grace was that (a) my employer didn't believe in computers so everything was done manually, and (b) for the first few weeks he really only had me checking other employee's calculations. Between doing that, and the stack of library books I brought home, I figured out enough to get started at least. Over time of course I learned a lot more, and to my surprise found I had an affinity for numbers. Eventually I began to pursue my CGA designation. But to answer that interveiwer who suggested my education was a waste of time: for me going to school made me a different person. A better person. My eyes were opened to ideas and concepts I might never have been exposed to otherwise. And above all else, I learned how to learn. Now I am not trying to say that everyone should go to university or college. We are all a product of our experiences and everyone is different, and everyone needs to find their own niche.

So. From possible teacher to wife and mother to accountant to....blog writer? I guess if anything, I am a work in progress. There are still a lot of things I want to do - volunteering overseas is only the first thing on the list - and I'm no where near done learning yet. I guess the world does still have endless possibilities, if only you are willing to look for them.

You want me to write what?

Over the past few days I’ve been checking out a web site that, among other things, posts freelance writing jobs. Yesterday I saw one that looked promising, so I clicked on it.
The post was titled “Creative Writer Wanted”. As I read on, it continued, “looking for a flexible, open minded creative writer"…there was my first clue…"to write copy for a Sex Toy Catalogue".

A what now?

The first thing that popped into my head was working for a darker, smarmier version of J. Peterman from Seinfeld. The second was the time Dorothy and I went to a Sex Shop.

Sidebar: Dorothy and I have a friend…let’s call her Jane since I don’t think I actually know anyone named Jane so no one who reads this will assume they know who I’m talking about. ‘Jane’ had been through a very ugly divorce. This was quite some time before I had met her, but Dorothy assured me that “he had done a real number on her!”
At this time all of us worked in the same town and used to meet once or twice a month for breakfast before work, at the ridiculous hour of 6:30am, at a local truck stop. The food was pretty good, and more importantly, the coffee cup was bottomless, and it was always fun. Right down to our beloved waitress who, if asked for another round of coffee, was quite likely to reply “you know where the pot is, and get some for that guy over there while you’re at it.” Jane had finally ventured to stick her big toe into the proverbial dating pool, but nothing serious had so far come of it, when she found herself invited to a family wedding in Punta Cana. Somewhat to Jane’s amusement (and probable fear) Dorothy and I both saw this as an opportunity for her to go all “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”, that fabulous book by Terry Kindle. Jane just laughed and dismissed the idea.

As it happened, since she had a later flight, Jane was meeting us for breakfast the morning she was to leave. We decided we needed to get her something for her trip so the night before Dorothy and I headed off to a local Sex Shop to, well, shop. Now, I have to say, I have never considered myself a prude or anything like that, I mean, I watch Showcase! But I really had no idea. There is a whole other world out there. Dorothy was pretty blasé about the whole experience and I was trying to be nonchalant myself, but it wasn’t easy. Especially when she called me Honey and jokingly said, “I think we should get that one!” as we looked up at a huge display of..um, well, never mind. We eventually ended up with a plain brown bag (what else) full of things in various colours and flavours, and requiring numerous batteries. The next morning we sat at our usual table at 6:30am with the bag in the centre waiting for Jane. Our waitress came over and asked what was in the bag, so we showed her. Next thing we knew, she was walking toward the kitchen with it hollering, “Ed, hey Ed, you gotta see this!” Luckily she came back seconds before Jane arrived.
The present was duly opened and Jane went from extreme embarrassment to hysterical laughter, especially after she found out her going away present had done the rounds of the kitchen staff, and a couple of truckers who were there for breakfast!

But back to the original point: could I write for a Sex Toy Catalogue? I got a mental image of a couple of the more unusual things I’d seen in the store and tried to imagine the description that I could write for them:

“No couple should be without this… it’s a …Seriously? It goes where?
You’ve got to be kidding!?!”

Hmm…maybe not.

Bears? What bears?

“Sure, sounds like fun.”

I couldn’t believe my ears: Joanne was agreeing to go camping with me again! I quickly looked from her to the glass of wine in front of her. Nope, only half the glass gone, so it wasn’t the wine talking!

Several years ago, I had talked Joanne into going up north with me and all of our kids for a week, and it took some convincing, believe me. The summer before that, we had taken her son Liam with us and he had had a great time. There was one minor incident when I found out on our second day that Liam had brought a stockpile of candy and other snacks with him and hidden it in the tent under his pillow. Once I explained that unless he wanted a bear crawling into his sleeping bag with him one night the junk food was best left in the car, he gave it up without a fight. We actually managed to see a number of bears that trip, which all the kids found very exciting and it was this that made convincing Joanne difficult the following year.

Joanne doesn’t do bears. Actually, Joanne had never been camping before but for her the possibility of bears being around was a big check mark in the “why not to go camping” column! It took some doing but I eventually managed to convince her that the pictures Liam showed her were really very deceiving and we weren’t really that close to the bears in them, and really, his life was never actually in any danger. I also told her an itsy bitsy lie. I explained that all the bears we had seen were ones we’d gone looking for…at the dump, down old logging roads, picking blueberries, etc. Now, this was all true, but I also told Joanne that in the 25 years or so that I had been camping in that park, I had never seen a bear within the campground itself! Honest!

Now taken at face value, this statement was completely true. I have never actually seen a bear in the campground. Do I know that they are around? Of course I do. I’ve seen tracks many times, I’ve seen paw and nose prints on a fellow camper’s trailer window, and I’ve seen what they’ve done to the garbage bins on occasion. But I’d never seen a bear in the park. It wasn’t so much a lie as it was a failure to disclose all pertinent information.

Joanne eventually agreed to come, so early one Saturday morning in August we headed up with her three kids, and my two. Her son and mine had their own tent, and she and I and the three girls all shared mine. It was a little cozy, but it worked. For someone who had never done it before, Joanne turned out to a great camper! She was cooking over the campfire; we went fishing, hiking, and were generally having a really great time. And then it happened.

It was our last day in the park and we had all just sat down at the picnic table to eat dinner. Suddenly we heard a commotion through the trees behind our site. I recognized the voice that was doing the yelling as Jean-Claude, a friend of my parent’s, and I knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t good, but as no one else at the table seemed to realize it, I kept it to myself. I said I had to walk over to the washroom, but quickly ran over to Jean-Claude’s site instead, to find him in the middle of the road and very upset.

Just about the time that we had sat down to eat dinner, a Moose with two Calves had come walking down the middle of the gravel road in front of Jean-Claude’s site. This in itself was bizarre at five o’clock in the afternoon. What made it even more so, was that just as he noticed the moose apparently coming to visit, a bear came tearing out of the trees at the side of road and took out one of the calves! Naturally, Mama Moose went nuts and the yelling we’d heard had been Jean trying to shoo her back into the bush before she hurt herself or someone else. All of the commotion had temporarily scared the bear away as well and we walked into the bush to see if the calf was still alive. It wasn’t.

We were both a little shaken as Jean-Claude headed for his truck to go inform the Park staff what had happened. As I headed back to my own site, I begged him not to tell Joanne or the kids, as I was afraid Joanne would freak out.

As it turned out, I was of course wasting my breath. Before we had even gotten the dishes done, word of the bear attack had spread and the kids had heard about it. Naturally, they couldn’t wait to come and tell Joanne and I all about it. Joanne didn’t freak out. She didn’t say much of anything, and we kept the kids close for the rest of the evening. Later when the kids were in bed, Joanne and I sat around the campfire and I realized that she was jumping at every rustle in the bush so I went and opened a bottle of wine and poured us both a glass. I tried to explain just how bizarre the whole incident was. As I filled our glasses for the second time, I did my best to calm her fears by telling her that that bear was long gone. That the Rangers had come and taken away the baby moose so there was absolutely no reason for the bear to come back. This seemed to work and Joanne began finally to relax a little. Just then we saw headlights coming up the road and seconds later the Ranger’s truck went by towing a bear trap behind it, which they proceeded to set up in the woods behind our site.

“I hate you” Joanne said to me as we watched the truck drive away again. I knew she didn’t really mean it, but I wasn’t about to argue the point with her.

“Okay” I said, “this is what they’re doing. They’ve put the dead calf in the trap to use as bait. The trap door is spring loaded so when the bear crawls in, the door will slam shut and they’ve got him. Tomorrow morning they will come back and get the trap and drive it somewhere far from the campground and let him go.” We sat in silence for about a half hour or so when there was suddenly a loud bang that shook the pine trees! We went to bed. The next morning we took the kids over to see the bear before he got carted away and even Jo had to admit that he was kind of cute.

So. You can understand why I was a little surprised when she agreed to go again!

This trip was a girl’s only weekend camping getaway. No kids. No husbands. And of the four of us, Jo was the second most seasoned camper having gone once before. Jacquie was actually the first on board though. I have probably asked her about going camping with me every summer for the past 15 years and she has always just laughed at me. This year she said yes. I have no idea why, but I quickly made plans before she had a chance to change her mind. Jacquie asked Joanne, and Barb took no convincing at all. Even though she’s never done it before, she was eager to try. We took two tents, a few clothes and some food and wine. It was an easy drive up there and we had our campsite set up in no time. An early dinner cooked over the fire and we were all set to enjoy the evening sitting around our campfire.

The campers behind us through the trees had been noisy since we’d arrived. We couldn’t see much of them but from what we heard there were at least two women, a couple of men and several small children. The noise consisted of music playing and kids yelling and occasionally crying…nothing you can’t deal with at 9 o’clock at night. At 11 o’clock it’s a little more annoying. I think we went to bed around midnight and just as we settled in for the night, it seemed like all hell broke loose behind us. Suddenly the music that had been playing all day (the same CD over and over again) was cranked. Next, another stereo tried to compete playing heavy metal. The kids kept crying and yelling for the adults to be quiet. The rangers did come by and tell them to turn it off, which they did, but this peace lasted exactly as long as it took the rangers to drive out of sight. Both stereos were cranked again and their conversation became yelling so that they could hear themselves over their own din. Just as I was debating whether or not to get up and go find the Rangers again, an argument apparently broke out and spilled over through the trees into our campsite…right outside our tent window to be exact. This was a little scary, and given how drunk they appeared to be, we decided it might be better just to stay where we were and hope they went away soon!

The music eventually stopped around 2:30 in the morning, although they kept talking most of the night. The next morning when we got up around 8 am, all was quiet in their site. The kids all seemed to be up and making their own breakfast, but the adults were all apparently still out cold in their tents. Naturally, I made as much noise as humanly possible while I made coffee and got the breakfast dishes out. Yes, I know, it was childish, but it made me feel better. Shortly after, they packed up and left. I don’t know if they were told to leave or not, but I like to think so.

The rest of the weekend was great. We spent most of the day Saturday at the beach, coming back to play cards, and cook a late dinner around 8 o’clock. We laughed. A lot. And I was reminded again why these women are my friends, and have been for the last fifteen years. Much later that night, we went down to the beach again for a midnight swim. Not all of us wore our bathing suits, but I promised I wouldn’t mention that part and I’m nothing if not true to my word.

Can’t wait for next year!

Sometimes You Just Have to Kidnap a Garden Gnome!

Whether from a need for excitement in one’s life or what, sometimes you just find yourself doing something that only moments before had never even entered your mind. Such was the case the night of Dorothy’s 30th birthday party. I arrived a little early to help her set out snacks and pick out music. I certainly didn’t arrive with the intention of kidnapping her garden Gnome but as I walked up to the house, I noticed him sitting in an old planter by the door. We eyed each other for a moment, and then I simply picked him up, put him in the back of my car, and continued on as if nothing happened. When Dorothy came to the door to let me in, she never even noticed his absence. (I feel I should add here that there is nothing in my past that might suggest any sort of mania of a “klepto” nature).

The party was a great success with much laughing and dancing and it was quite late by the time I headed home. I almost forgot about the gnome in the back seat until I felt his eyes on me.

When I got home, I brought him in and sat him in a kitchen chair, and then I went to bed. The next morning I was sipping coffee when my daughter Kaitlin got up and came down to the kitchen.
“Do you know that there’s a garden gnome sitting at the kitchen table?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay then.” She went about making herself some breakfast. A little while later my son got up. “Cool Gnome” he said as he headed towards the fridge.

While on my second cup of coffee my husband came downstairs. “Why is there a garden Gnome at the kitchen table?” he asked no one in particular. “Ask Mom”, my daughter volunteered. My husband looked at me. “Should I ask?” he wondered. “Probably not” I answered.

Later that morning my daughter finally said, “So really, what’s with the Gnome?”

I explained how it came to be at our table and that I was trying to decide what to do about it. We put our heads together. Sometime later there were several digital photos of the gnome ready to print. We put black tape over his eyes and mouth and tied him to the kitchen chair with rope. Kaitlin put on a “Scream” halloween mask and posed beside him holding a large kitchen knife threateningly! Then we both collapsed into giggles that lasted for several minutes.

The piece de resistance was finding a font called Ransom that my friend Doug kindly provided at work the next morning once I explained what I was up to. The print looks just like you cut letters out of a magazine or newspaper. It was perfect! When Dorothy arrived at work that morning, the letter along with the photos was waiting on her desk. The letter went something like this: We have your Gnome. Do not call the police! If you ever want to see him again deliver one dozen chocolate chip cookies to the file cabinet in the middle of the accounting department (Dorothy makes awesome chocolate chip cookies!). Signed: the kidnappers. PS: I had a really good time at your birthday party on Saturday night.

The next morning there was a plate of chocolate chip cookies sitting on the appointed file cabinet, which I promptly shared with Doug! They were delicious. The Gnome was of course returned unharmed, and as far as I know, he never talked!

Where Goldfish Go To Die!

Like most kids, my children have always wanted pets. My daughter has killed off more goldfish than you could imagine – mostly from over feeding - and a couple of hermit crabs through basic neglect, so you can appreciate my reluctance to get anything like a dog or a cat. Not to mention the fact that my husband has never had pets and generally regards animals as things best left in the woods where they belong. He has gone so far as to threaten to move out should any suddenly appear in our house.

With my daughter, when yet another fish became a floater, I would quickly replace it before she noticed, not wanting to traumatize her at an early age. Between my husband and I, her room became known as " the place where Goldfish go to die!” However, this practice of stealthily replacing her fish became a bit impractical after a while, and so she learned about death.

I think she was about five the first time I explained that her fish wasn’t just floating on it’s back trying to catch a tan, but had in fact died. I broke it as gently as I could and told her we could have a funeral for it if she wanted. We found a small box to put it in, and buried it under the tree in the backyard. When we put the box in the hole we’d dug, I asked her if she wanted to say a few words, maybe say a little prayer? She thought about it for a minute, and then said, “Can I watch Barney now?”

All right, so she’s not the sentimental type. My son on the other hand has always been sensitive, although he’s learning to hide it as he gets older. I think he may hold some kind of record, or close to it, for keeping goldfish alive. He had one for seven years, and he also had a hermit crab that lived for about five years. When his goldfish died he was inconsolable, and I have to admit, he had me sobbing right along with him as we buried it under the tree. Not too long after that, his hermit crab also died, and after a suitable period of mourning, we decided to get another pet.

My husband quickly voted for another goldfish, but my son had always wanted a lizard.
Thinking to myself that it was likely to be the only pet he ever got with four legs, I finally agreed.

I am not ashamed to admit that we were unprepared for all that owning a lizard entailed. In our naiveté, we thought all you needed was a terrarium, food and water. And I have to say, the staff at the pet store really did nothing to disillusion me when we were buying these things.

Everything went swimmingly for a while until summer came along, and with it, air conditioning. I can only hope she didn’t suffer too much as, without a heat source, lizard number one apparently froze to death.

But we learned from our mistakes. After a suitable mourning period, lizard number two arrived, along with a heating pad that attached to the bottom of the terrarium.

I don’t know if you are aware of this, but one of the more disgusting things about lizards is that they eat live food - in our case, crickets. They will also eat mealworms, but this is really just too disturbing to even contemplate. Twice a week, when I was running errands, I would run into the pet store and buy a few crickets. When we decided to take a family vacation, the question naturally arose as to what to do with our lizard? The boy who lived next door was quite happy to come over each day and make sure it had enough water, but I was hesitant to ask him to feed it mid week. It can be tricky to get the crickets in without the lizard getting out and I live in secret fear of it escaping and taking up residence in the plumbing.

And so, we went to the pet store to ask for advice. The very helpful staff member told me that you can put in a whole week's worth of crickets with the lizard, no problem. That is a direct quote by the way, “No problem”. So that is what we did. Instead of the typical five or six, we dumped in an even dozen before we left on holiday.

When we returned one week later, there was a note taped to the front door of our house with the words “Read before you go in” written on the envelope. Somehow, I just knew that couldn’t be good. The neighbour was sad to report that during the night, on the day we left, the crickets had apparently staged a coup and not only taken over the terrarium, but had actually attacked and killed the lizard! My son took the news better than I expected, but we were again faced with a question: were we really up for lizard number three?

Before we went to the pet store (not that same one – I learned my lesson there, thank you!) I sat down with my son and explained that if we did get another lizard, this was going to be it. Not only was it getting expensive – not quite the same thing as replacing goldfish – but it was all getting to be a bit much. He said he understood.

Going to a different pet store across town, I explained the whole lizard saga to date. The clerk was quite sympathetic and a little bit horrified when I told her we put a dozen crickets in at once with our lizard. Apparently everyone knows you can’t do that! Now, the first two, both females, were of the same variety, which we particularly chose after talking to the staff at the pet store because they were supposed to be non aggressive and didn’t jump much – a good thing when you don’t want them escaping into your plumbing. This store didn’t have the same kind, but offered up instead a green anole. It was about the same size as the first two, and a beautiful shade of green. When I hesitated, she assured me that green anoles were very docile – you could play with them if you wanted to and, they don’t jump! She added that she also only ever sold females because they were even more docile than the males. So, with our new female green anole in an empty margarine container, we headed home.

When we got there, my son was all set to run up to his room and deposit the new lizard in the tank. I stopped him and told him to bring the terrarium out to the garage and we would put her in there. We were all set. The terrarium was sitting on top of the workbench at the back of the garage, my son lifted the lid and I opened the margarine container to tip in the lizard while my daughter watched from a distance. Clockwork. Except that the lizard looked up at me for a split second, then performed a move that would make any Olympic high jumper proud, and landed on my foot! Before anyone could react, she scampered off my foot and under the workbench. Two things happened at this point; my daughter started screaming because the lizard was loose and my son looked like he was about to cry as he watched his last hope of ever owing a pet vanish with a flick of its green tail.

Naturally, my first thought was to leave it there, but my son’s face got to me so I started barking out orders: I told him to shut the garage door so it couldn’t get outside, and turn the lights on, and sent my daughter (still screaming) into the house. I bent down and peered under the workbench and could just make it out cowering in the furthest corner. So, I did what any woman in a pencil skirt and black suede pumps would do in this situation – I put on my gardening gloves, got down on the garage floor, and wiggled under the workbench. I knew if I thought about it too long I would never be able to bring myself to touch it, so I just took a deep breath, reached out a gloved hand, and somehow, miraculously got it by the tail.

I wriggled back out, lizard in hand and as I stood up my son was ready with the lid of the terrarium raised. I dropped the lizard in, he slammed the lid, and we both just stood there staring at it for a moment. Suddenly my son was throwing his arms around me, saying, “Mom, you are the best ever”. Honestly, my knees were shaking so hard I really needed to sit down. As I held the door open for him to carry the terrarium back up to his room all I could think was, 'I really need a drink'!

About a month or so after this eventful homecoming, my husband and I were getting ready to go out for the evening when my son came to me quite worried because the anole, which was usually a vibrant green, was quite brown and just didn’t look good. With my husband yelling up the stairs, “Aren’t you ready yet?” Joseph and I went on the Internet to see if we could find out what was wrong with our lizard. To my utter amazement, all signs pointed to her being ‘stressed’. Stressed? The Lizard?

The next day, and about $100.00 later, the lizard had a new, bigger home, a large piece of driftwood to “sun” herself on, and some plants – and was very green indeed!

After the initial ordeal, things remained pretty uneventful for several months, and I admit, I was lulled into a false sense of security. So when my son came to me and said the lizard was lonely and needed a friend, I thought to myself, how bad could it be?

We had surely been through the worst already, we knew what we were doing now, so why not? My only stipulation was that we could only get another female. The last thing I needed was a bunch of baby lizards to worry about!

Saturday came and we went to the pet store. I explained to the staff person that we wanted another green anole but it had to be a female since the one we had now was female. There was a lot of conferring as other staff members were called in to consult on the matter. Various anoles were picked up, turned sideways and upside down and finally one was produced for our approval. The clerk said that while she could not say with one hundred percent certainty that the lizard she was holding was a female, she was as sure as she could get. I asked how she knew – they all looked exactly the same to me – and she explained that females are slighter of build and that males have a red ribbon down their throat that becomes very pronounced when they get near a female. This one had no red on it at all, so we took it home.

As before, my son brought the terrarium out to the garage for the transfer. This was even more nerve wracking than before as we not only had to get the new lizard in, but do so without letting the other one out!

It was choreographed to the last detail and went off without a hitch! Joseph and I bent down to see how our new lizard was reacting to her roommate.

Poor thing, her feet had barely hit the floor of her new home before the old lizard began doing this bizarre swaying, head-bobbing kind of dance and the biggest, reddest, balloon like…thing popped out on his throat. I watched in horror for a moment and my son turned to me waiting to see what I was going to say. I’m ashamed to tell you that I said a few things that I would not normally say in front of my children, but then the hysterical laughter took over and I needed to sit down again.

It has been two weeks. My daughter, who had never before taken the slightest interest in the lizard, now feels compelled to check daily and report back: “They’re doing it again!”

My son and his friend have been on the Internet excitedly researching how to breed green anoles! They are hopeful that we could see eggs in as little as two weeks. They said when the babies are born, I could be their Grandma! I informed them that was not funny!

I have a theory.....

Written to cheer up my friend who is not speaking to her husband because he makes her mental!



I have a theory….

You know the story of the fox and scorpion? Both want to cross a raging river, and of course, the fox is the only one that can swim. The scorpion asks the fox to carry him over on his head. Naturally, the fox refuses and says, “I’m afraid that if I let you sit on my head, you will sting me and I will be paralyzed and then drown in the river!” The scorpion replies, “Don’t be ridiculous. If I sting you, we both drown, why would I do that?” The fox thinks about this for a moment, and then agrees to take the scorpion across. Before they are even halfway, the fox feels the sting of the scorpion’s tail. “What are you doing?” he gasps, “now we will both die!”
“I can’t help it,” says the scorpion, “it’s my nature”.

Renowned child developmental psychologist Jean Piaget advanced the theory many years ago that, among other things, all children are essentially egocentric (unable to appreciate anyone else’s point of view or feelings) until about the age of seven. Piaget came to this conclusion after years of research and study of children’s behavior. I would like to further his work by advancing my own theory, that Piaget apparently never really paid attention to the adult male. Having studied this species up close for several years, I propose that Piaget only had it half right. Female children are completely egocentric until the age of seven – males, never really change!

Let’s examine, if we can, why this is so. If all children are born this way, why is it that males fail to reach the next developmental stage? First and foremost, it is in their nature, in some deep biological way that we may never fully understand. Secondly, I blame mothers.

If a male child is allowed to think that the sun rises and sets on his beaming little face, then he will. If he is pampered, and catered to and never has to examine anyone else’s feelings but his own, than he won’t. I submit to you dear reader that this is often the case. One could suppose that an older sibling, who is tasked with watching over younger ones, will learn to subjugate his needs to some extent, but I fear that in reality the male child probably threatened and locked his younger siblings in the closet when he was supposed to be looking after them. But this still does not fully answer the question of why just men? Why do men suffer from this arrested development and not women? Women play with dolls! They learn from a very early age that someone else’s needs can take precedence over their own, that they are important and need to be fulfilled. Women are also more likely to have looked after younger siblings and not locked them in a closet.

When a women marries, this is reinforced again as she discovers that her Man depends on her and needs her in a way no one else ever has before and she will subjugate her needs to his – sometimes subconsciously, and sometimes just because she has worked all day and is tired and just wants him to stop talking!


The conclusion we can draw from this is that men cannot help themselves. They were born this way, and were subsequently raised in an environment that only served to reinforce the idea. Nature, reinforced by nurture! Therefore, when your spouse cannot seem to close a door quietly when you are asleep, or feels the need to wake you up to talk because he is not tired; when he hums, taps his feet, drums his fingers and sighs loudly when you are watching your favourite television show – because he is bored – consider this before you kill him: He can’t help it, he is made this way!

Ha! You are saying, I finally understand! I just thought he was nuts! Not so, at least not in any definable way.

This is an important research breakthrough for two very specific reasons: One, to save marriages everywhere, and in some extreme cases, prevent death. And two, because we can still change these unfortunate patterns. We can still save brothers, sons, and grandsons, not to mention countless women who will suffer at their hands if we do not intervene. We can do this – it’s not too late.

Nancy Raimondo

The Goddess Asherah

I was reading this article* at lunch and now I know who to blame for the state of religion and the world view in general!! Apparently, prior to 640 BCE, the Israelites not only worshipped the God of Abraham, but also his Consort - the Goddess - yes you heard me correctly, the Goddess, Asherah. Huh? Interestingly enough, she was known as the Goddess of the Sea, or She who Walks on Water. Hmmm...that sounds familiar....

The ancient Israelites were also magnanimous enough to allow vessels dedicated to Baal, the God of the early Canaanites to be worshipped in the Temple too. Well, what do you know - religious tolerance.

Then, some schmuck named Josiah became king of the Israelites in 640 BCE and his first act was to march into the Temple and smash the statue of Asherah into dust! Dust, mind you! Hmmm...mommy issues? Research suggests that it took some serious and long term work to get the common people to stop worshipping her. After that, it was Yahweh and Yahweh only and things pretty much disintegrated from there in terms of women's place in organized religion.

*Reference: Time Magazine, "Decoding God's Changing Moods" by Robert Wright.

Honestly people! Again!

I realize I am having a bad day (don't ask) but seriously people! In what parallel universe do you believe that Dora the Explorer slippers and ladies panties qualify as a business use of home office expense? Really?

I have just waded through a stack of faded, wrinkled cash receipts of which I probably used 3%. The rest were for things that were clearly personal and had nothing whatsoever to do with this particular business, or pretty much any other.
All I can say is, when you get my bill, don't complain about how much time it took me to do your statements. Most of it was spent wading through things like this.


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Okay, I am an accountant and as long as I've been doing this, I am still frequently amazed by what people think they can get away with as legitimate business deductions. So, I've made a little list of things that you CANNOT claim:

* cigarettes purchased at the gas station when you fill up do not count as "fuel"
* if you have a home office you can claim reasonable expenses such as a portion of your utility
bills, phone, etc. Generally speaking new bedroom or patio furniture is not a reasonable
office expense.
* when submitting receipts for auto repairs on a vehicle you claim for business, don't include
receipts that are clearly made out to someone else, for another vehicle entirely.
* gifts of jewellery purchased for a spouse cannot be used as a meals and
entertainment deduction, even if you did go out for dinner first and your spouse was
entertained by the gift.

: )

Cousins

I recently found my cousin Sylvia on facebook and we've been talking online ever since. This might not sound like a big deal, but there was a bit of...well it's a mystery actually...but my family lost contact with most of the relatives I remember as a kid. I haven't seen Sylvia since I was probably 7 or 8 but we were very close and had lots of adventures together in our great grandmother's town of Cayuga. I never realized what I was missing in my life by not having anyone I could talk to who remembers the same things I do from my childhood. It has been a blast catching up and reminiscing.