Grannies Are Good For You

Cut to an episode of CSI:  Gil Grissom looks up over the corpse of a woman found dead in a tanning booth (you knew they were bad for you, right?) into the smouldering eyes of ex-Vegas showgirl Catherine Willows.

"Looks like she couldn't take the heat," he says enigmatically, "By the way, how was your dad's fishing trip?"

Okay, so that would never happen.  

From what we see (or don't see) in movies and on TV, one could assume that, around twenty years of age, an individual's parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles simply cease to exist.  These relationships are mostly ignored - Embarrassing, right?  Horribly uncool - swept aside in the wake of the ever-present, often frenetic, search for Love.  Love with a capital L. Romantic Love.  Sexual Love.

But what about all the other kinds of love?  What about the love of your parents, who let you live at home again when you can't find a job?  What about the love of your grandparents, who always get you the wrong thing for Christmas, but who see the best in you, and reflect it back so you can see it?  What about all the people who knew you as a child?  Who saw the innocence and good in you then, and who still see it? 

I never realized how important these relationships were to me, until I moved away.  Once-yearly visits have left me yearning.  

Many people live far away from their families, doing important work all over the world, or else immigrating so as to give their children opportunities for fulfilling work, fair pay, access to health care.  The wonderful thing is that these days, ways to keep in touch increase daily.

Still, there's something lost in an email that can be gained by sitting in a room with your grandmother, watching her eyes wrinkle as she laughs, seeing her delight as you tell her about your day.

(Picture of our Granny taken by Brianna Greaves)

Cleaning Out The Fridge

Maple leaf imprints on sidewalk
Originally uploaded by flickrheather

There are only three days left until the big move. It has come to that awful point where almost everything I do, and everyone I see is for 'the last time', and I can't stop myself from noting the finality. The goodbyes accumulate.

Yesterday, a great group of friends took me out for sushi. We sat around eating salmon rolls, drinking oversized Kirin beers, and laughing until it hurt.

I think the way we deal with truly final goodbyes is similar to the way we often look at death. With furtive, sidelong glances. Refusing to stare it in the face until it is forced upon us, and then stopping only fleetingly, afraid of what will happen to us if we look too long.

I'm cleaning out the fridge, trying to use everything up. It's a departure from the regular routine, but I don't want anything to go to waste. Carrot soup, strange stirfry, banana bread with the last of the coconut, chocolate chips, chopped-up Easter bunny. It's a therapeutic exercise, tying up all the loose ends.

But people can't be tied up the same way. They tug at dangling heartstrings, refusing to be shoved out of mind.

It's a power greater than we mostly realize, the power of one person to influence the life of another, and it's amazing how long these impressions last upon the psyche. Even casual aquaintances stay with us, colouring the way we speak, what we think, who we are. Can you not think back over the hundred, maybe thousand people you've known over the course of your life, bring someone to mind, and come up with a startlingly clear vision of this person? How they spoke, what their laugh sounded like, what they found hilarious?

It's a gift, I think. A reflection of the inherent worth of each of us.

So, while I shield my eyes from the glare of these oppressive goodbyes, I'll remember that these people have been burned into my life. Beautiful and ghost-like impressions, left behind on the sidewalk after the leaves have blown away.

Black Beauty

coffee + apron
Originally uploaded by ali edwards

Sip...Ahhhhhhhh. (Just don't do that too loudly, or you'll annoy your husband).

This year, for Lent, I gave up coffee. (As much to curb my daily sugar load as anything else. Triple, triple, anyone?) It was a LONG forty days. But it was something I knew was good for my health, as well as that of the planet. Most of all, as a true addict, it was a good test of willpower and my ability to set a goal and stick to it.

It felt really good to get off the bean. Well, okay, it felt really BAD at first, but after the first four days, I was off to the races! In fact, I felt so good that I began to think that maybe, after the forty days were up, I might just give up coffee for good.

Um, about that.

I haven't gone a day without a coffee since Easter. And my intentions to reduce the sugar-coffee ratio? Not so good, either.

Why do we love our coffee so dearly? What is it about this black beauty that compels us so insistently? Many people would say it's the caffeine, but I think it goes deeper than that.

For me, my hands wrapped around my steaming morning coffee, I'm back at the kitchen table, a little girl reading the back of the cereal box, the aroma of coffee filling the kitchen. Dad looks over and smiles at me before gulping his coffee.
Sip...Ahhhhhh.

Random Bug Fact Of The Day:

DSCN4364 Mantis Looking (archive)
Originally uploaded by Mike McCaffrey

Did you know?

The Praying Mantis is the only insect that can turn it's head 360 degrees a la The Exorcist. Wild and crazy stuff!

Why It's Okay To Brush Your Hair With Your Fork

Eating Utensils
Originally uploaded by noellium

We human beings are odd creatures, aren't we? We live interwoven lives in webs of often completely bizarre social customs and taboos, most of which we don't ever realize. Until we are forced to confront one.
Flash to a night, not too long ago, when I was serving the late shift in the busy restaurant where I work. Suddenly one of the other servers comes breathlessly around the corner and declares: "A GIRL AT MY TABLE IS BRUSHING HER HAIR WITH HER FORK!" There was a look of half-crazed mania mingled with disbelief on her face.
Immediately a gaggle of other servers are on the scene, voicing disgust verging on outrage. "That's so gross! Throw the fork out!"
But my question is, why is this so completely upsetting to people? I mean, it's rather unorthodox, yes, but the fork was previously IN HER MOUTH. And it will be washed. I swear.
I'm not saying we should all pick up our silverware and groom ourselves post-dinner party, I'm just pointing out the fact that this horror is disproportionately intense. Germ-wise, you'd probably be better off with the fork from her hair.
Though given the choice...well, I shudder either way.

Breaking News! The Library Is Free

Books of the Past
Originally uploaded by Lin Pernille ♥ Photography

Ok, so we're all on the same page on this one, right? The Library lets you take their books away - FOR FREE - read them, and then bring them back. Common knowledge, right?
Wrong.
Imagine my utter flabbergastedness when a 25 year-old co-worker asked "For free?" when I was describing the items I had recently borrowed.
"Um. Yes," I replied, "That's sort of their whole deal."
To be fair, my colleague then blushed and backtracked. "I know, I know! I just didn't know they had movies, too!"
Still, aside from understanding the concept of a public library, I have found that very many of my peers NEVER darken their doors. So I have to ask myself, "Why not?"
To a certain extent, I understand the pleasure of building a personal collection of your very favourite books. Ones you'll read again and again.
But for the most part, I have to go with Seinfeld on this one: "What do you need them for, after you read them?"
Now I know the library isn't EXACTLY free. I do pay taxes.
But it remains a very special pleasure - entering, perusing, choosing, and then borrowing for a while, all on the basis of trust.

Passing It Along

Two days after my husband and I were married in August 2007, we loaded up our little car to the hilt and drove West.  It was a long journey, punctuated by stays in some very fine motels, and when we arrived, we had nothing with us except our clothes, some sheets and towels, and my husband's stereo system and massive cd collection.  No furniture.  None.

So at this point we bought a bed, and kept our eyes peeled.  And lo and behold, furniture began to make itself available to us.  It was like a dream!

A kind couple downstairs in our building were getting a new couch, and gave us their old one.  Someone else was throwing out a solid wood dining table with lovely pedestal legs that needed only a bit of glue to make it as good as new (okay, it wasn't mint, but it did the trick).  With a lot of patience and a bit of luck, bit by bit our home took shape.

So now that we're moving, it seems only right to pass our furniture along.  

My friend Aimee is taking our bed, Blair gets the bookshelf, and the girls downtown are taking the BBQ.  A few items I put up on Craigslist in the "Free Stuff" section and was amazed at how quickly they were gone!

But, best of all, the remainder of our furniture has found a new home with a sweet family that just moved in upstairs from Mexico, with nothing.

There really is nothing like a couch when you just want to sit down.

What A Gorgeous Day!

Spring in BC's lower mainland is something to see.  I can't believe I'm moving in less than a week.  Today I got out into the sun and walked through neighbourhoods around where I live.  The thing that strikes me is how beautifully tended the gardens are around practically EVERY HOUSE.  It's incredible.  

The palm trees and flowering bushes and warm breezes all give me the impression of a tropical vacation.  It's even better when I find myself breathing in the salt-smell of the ocean!

Yet, back to Ontario I go.

I grew up in a little town on the shores of Georgian Bay, among the sharp cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment.  It's a beautiful place:  Hot, lush summers, brilliant orange and red autumns, loooooong, silent, deep winters, and springs that flirt and tease for weeks and then one day burst wide open with green grass and birdsong.  

So I leave one gorgeous place for another.  

Goodbye ocean, and misty blue-green mountains capped with snow.  

Hello whitecaps across the bay, grasshoppers in the tall yellow grass.

It Isn't Easy Being Green

I was watching HGTV yesterday (something I admittedly spend WAY too much time doing) and the show House Hunters was doing a special 'green' episode in honour of Earth Day.  I watched it for about ten minutes before beating my head against the wall until I fell down, unconscious. 

Okay, not exactly, but I did change the channel.

Now don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to bits that environmentalism is now 'hip' and people are beginning to see the error of their non-recycling, over-consuming, pesticide-using ways, but since when is a 4,000 square foot home for two retirees "green"?  Oh, it's got energy efficient light-bulbs you say?  My bad.

But I guess I should be happy that attitudes are shifting.  A love of nature has been a big part of my life, and I, like most people, struggle with the aspects of my life where my behaviour does not match my values.  My eco-friendliness is inconsistent, at best.  I am willing to put in more elbow grease if it means cleaning the tub with baking soda instead of noxious chemicals, I often walk instead of drive, I buy most of my clothes used, and I have forgone the bleach blonde look and am rocking my natural brown hair (who knew?).  

Still, in the winter, when the local veggie market is closed the prices in our supermarket's organic section give me a heart attack, and I find myself selling out.  Also, I try to eat only local, seasonal fruit and veg, but many weeks those big naval oranges just look too good, or else I NEED that cucumber from Mexico to make sushi.

So I guess the moral of the story is that we all try, and fail, and then try again.  And it's a good thing to remember next time we get the urge to proselytize.