Grammar...again

Here I go again. There are three main parts to any verb: simple present, simple past and past perfect. There are many more tenses, but with these you can pretty much cover everything. So, if you take the verb "to come", for example, we have "come, came and come". We don't have "come, came and came". But you hear it all the time in the public thoroughfare and it drives me crazy. A presumably educated guy on the radio -- head honcho at a local retirement home -- just said..."A lot of families had "came" to get their loved ones before the holidays..." Please.

When our kids were little, we used to play this game in the car all the time. We would say a verb and they would have to give the three tenses. So it was:
am (is)...was...been
swim...swam...swum
ride...rode...ridden
wake...woke...woken
call...called...called
speak...spoke...spoken
plead...pled...pled
take...took...taken
eat..ate...eaten
give...gave...given
see...saw...seen
quit...quit...quit
take...took...taken
shake...shook...shaken
brake...broke...broken
lie...lay...lain
spell...spelt...spelt
ring...rang...rung
write...wrote...written
bring...brought...brought (no, it's not bring, brang, brung!)
give...gave...given
drag...dragged...dragged (no, it's not "drug", as they say on American television)

There are many regular verbs and a gold mine of the irregular variety. It's actually a lot of fun to see how many you know.

And don't ever use "gotten" -- a non-word. There is always another option when you are tempted to utter "gotten". Future past? Please say, "The conference was to have started tomorrow." Not, "The conference was to start tomorrow." The latter is all you hear on the CBC -- an impenetrable bastion of terrible grammar.

When you love grammar, you love grammar. I was fortunate enough to have stumbled upon a 1934 Ontario teacher's handbook entitled 'Grammar is Important'. Yes, folks, they used to teach grammar in Ontario elementary schools back in the day. (Don't you hate that expression.) It is such a gem because, yes, grammar is important. It's perfection, it's delicious, it's satisfying, it's orderly, it's sublime, it's sweet. Remember that old nomenclature "grammarian"? Well, I am one. And for that I give all the credit to my grade eight teacher, Miss Anderson; she was a tyrant in that department and gave absolutely no quarter. Ever. Unfortunately -- and I am not being a snob here -- I am sure my ears will continue to be battered by the mangling I hear.

Two feet away and you'd scream!

Standing around naked with women of all ages is the most normal thing in the world -- if you are in the changing room of the local pool. But step two feet out the door and we'd all scream and flee in horror! It's only a distance of a foot or two, but the social and personal protocol is rigid.

Was thinking this today as I showered and changed after my swim amidst 20 or so other females of all ages. Why is that? Nonchalance the watch word in one space, sheer horror right outside the door. Little boys are permitted in the women's area up until age six, but let's face it, six-year-old boys are very curious and stare and stare. So, for that matter, do little girls -- especially when most of us no longer bear any remote resemblance to the nubile contours of their 30-year-old mothers. I think the age needs to be lowered in this wired age because I certainly don't feel comfortable being stared at by a kid who's nearly seven.

The good thing is that at least all the women concentrate exremely hard to ignore each other.

A brush with fame, once-removed

For some reason, the talk turned to wrestling. "I have nephews who are wrestlers," she said. "Oh really," I responded, thinking she would relate a story or two about a few amateur bouts around town. "You might have heard of one of them, Bret Hart." Bret "The Hitman" Hart! I almost shrieked. "Bret, The Hitman, Hart is your nephew!?!?!" I am a huge fan, huge!

I was dumbfounded. Here we are sitting with new friends in a little Italian restaurant in Calgary when this very refined, petite woman announces casually that her oldest sister was Bret's mother. And the late Owen's and 12 other children in that huge Hart wrestling family, headed by the late patriarch, Stu. I could not believe it. The closest I had previously come to fame was as the maid of honour at the marriage of Matthew Perry's parents (she was my best friend in high school)...that and meeting the Queen. But I digress; those are other blogs for other days.

We were dining with well-known Calgarians, to whom we had been introduced by a mutual friend (thank you, Angele). The husband is so renowned as to have been roasted by anyone-who's-anyone in this city. He is connected politically to everyone-who's-everyone and can pick up the phone and get Harper on the line whenever he takes a notion. Often, in couples like that, people tend to ignore the wife and focus on the celebrity. But my training as a journalist has given me another angle. I interview people. Can't help it. Whenever I meet someone new, I simply interview them. Nothing makes a person happier than being interviewed.

So, there I sat chatting with the wife and finding out all kinds of facinating stuff. Like the fact that she is from Long Island; the accent remains thick. "Near Stephen King's Ammityville?" I asked. "Not far," she replied. I also found out that her father had been a long-distance Olympic runner -- hence the athletic genes in the Hart boys.

As we were leaving the restaurant I said to the owner, "Do you realize that this lady is Bret Hart's aunt!" "Oh yes, of course. In fact, Mr. Hart and his family were here for lunch today." Man. Dumbfounded again.

So, now my hope is to one day meet The Hitman. Google him and you will be amazed by his accomplishments. What a thrill that would be.

The reason we are here has arrived!

Well, Reed Thomas McArthur has finally made his entrance. It's hard to believe that this 8 lb. 11 oz. little fellow has so much power! Afterall, he is the reason we uprooted our lives and moved to Calgary. Grandparent is now my main job, that's the bottom line from here on in. What a Christmas this will be, getting to know this little man. Here he is, about three hours old, heading home with Daddy and Mummy to his new life in Cochrane.

When I had Susanne, I never imagined I would follow her to Alberta to be a grandma. I can remember her birth at the now-demolished Grace Hospital in Ottawa -- the same hospital in which I was born. Things were different then, you stayed in the hospital a few days and only met your baby at feeding time. Now it's up and out the door in a few hours so you can get acquainted on home turf.

Poor Pearl. Used to being the centre of attention, this dear little puppy is completely bewildered. What is this creature?! What is it doing in my house?? When will it leave! Better be soon so we can get back to normal. And when Reed cries, Pearl is dismayed. What is this bizarre noise? I certainly don't like it.

Better get used to it Pearl. This is your new family unit. Just wait until Reed gets bigger; then he will be your best friend.

Utility birds

You can rarely find them, but if you do, buy one immediately. My mother used to buy a utility turkey every Feast. Back then they were the result of reckless or calamitous slaughtering techniques, not as proficient as those of today. A butcher might wildly slash off a wing, a breast might inadvertently be hacked, a leg might thoughtlessly be removed, a rump maimed...in other words, the unfortunate bird was not "table-picture-perfect".

Speaking of primitive butchering techniques, I can remember my Grandfather Stapledon in the backyard of their house on Cartier Street, killing the squawking bird my Grandmother had bought at the Byward Market, burning the feathers off, and skinning and gutting it before turning it over to the grandchildren to pluck out reluctant and stubborn feather shafts one-by-one; our tiny fingers were perfect for the assignment. Now, that was arduous preparation! But frankly, when these home-hacked, yet sumptuous, hybrids and misfits graced our holiday gathering, no one noticed.

Peering into the freezer chest, as I schlepped through the Calgary Co-op the other day, I thought I was witnessing a perfect Christmas miracle. A turkey for $12.00!!##$%%&&!! A big one. You guessed it, it was a "utility bird". I immediately had affectionate thoughts of my mother, as I gratefully cradled and lowered it into my cart. Mum, you would have been proud of me.

"You never see them anymore because the slaughtering is so precise," the cashier said to me. "And when we get a few, that's all we get, no more. Smart that you nabbed one."

I felt as if I had won the lottery.

One more thought on Christmas. Remember I blogged about how Canadian society features other religious festivals and feasts, but has to reduce or ignore Christmas? Well, today in the Calgary Herald there was a prominent feature in the City Section about "Lighting the Menorah"..."Pre-Hanukkan event adds unorthodox touches", said the headline. As I said, Canadians are breathtakingly tolerant of other cultures and religions.

Thank God I live in Canada.

Frivilous litigation and the Charter

Do you think the courts would be less clogged with frivilous cases if they changed the name of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the Charter of Rights and Responsibilities? As I read about yet another disgruntled citizen's silly challenge it hit me: it's the wording of the Charter that triggers the cases.

Everyone with a personal bone to pick hires a lawyer and mounts a Charter challenge. "It's my right to do so and so...It's my right to have the freedom to....whatever." The greater societal good has been shoved blithely and merrily aside in favour of personal wish lists and inconsequential demands.

With rights in Canada go civic and social responsibilities. That's one thing I learned working for the tax department. It is every Canadian's responsibility to pay taxes. I know I yammer on, but taxes make the world go 'round. A couple of things I don't yammer enough about are volunteering and charity -- two other solid lynchpins of Canadian society.

Forget your "rights" for a moment and focus on a few responsibilities at this wondrous time, as we await the birth of Christ.

No one cares

Has anyone been receiving those hideous cards with pictures of the senders on the front and a narcissistic recitation of what they have done -- or not -- over the past year? I absolutely can't abide them. Like we care. Please.

To put it bluntly, we all have kids, we all have pets, we have all gone somewhere over the past year, we have all moved, we have all re-decorated, we have all had a grandkid, we have all had health issues, we have all rediscovered something....I mean what is so special about people who send photos of themselves with a litany of highs and lows of the past year to people they hardly talk to?

I find it mind-numbing, boring and audacious in the extreme. It's Christmas, folks. Why send a photo of yourselves to celebrate the birth of Christ? Ludicrous and unbridled hubris spring to mind.

I remember one year saying to B, "I think I will write one myself, describing how many times I picked up after my dog, how many meals I cooked, how many laundry loads I did, how many toilets I cleaned, how many beds I made, how many times I schlepped the garbage to the chute, how many bosses I endured, how many evenings I was totally exhausted from my ridiculous day...." My husband told me not to do this because, he explained, the people who send you litanies of their year actually believe you want to read about them! They are supremely confident that their year was much more important than yours. Get out of your chairs, folks.

What is galling is that B and I are never featured in their Chaucer's Tales -- even if we had spent time with the self-involved scribes. I mean, if we are sufficiently unimportant as to be edited out of your Annual Yawn Report, don't add insult to injury by sending it us.

You can't hide behind the "dress-code" veil

Faced with the fact that the wearing of the niqab or hijab is not religiously prescribed, some Muslim's are now putting forth the argument that Canada is undemocratically enforcing a "dress code" when it bans the veil during the taking of the oath of Canadian citizenship. Well, yes. All Canadian communities have well-accepted dress codes enshrined in local bylaws.

Women can't parade around topless -- and neither can men in many communities. Sadly, the latter is not enforced to the annual disgust of many of us who endure repellent beer bellies and massive mammaries during the heat of summer. (And I won't even mention the "cheeks" that often protrude from the rear of too-tight, low-slung shorts. Yuck.)

Such codes are in place to reassure Canadians about what is, and what is not, culturally acceptable. They are in place so that your grandmother or maiden aunt can venture into the public thoroughfare with the assurance they will not face an onslaught of unacceptable or offensive displays of garb -- or the lack thereof. It's about public decorum and behaviour.

Dress codes are usually part of any social invitation. If not, guests often call the hostess and ask, "what is the dress code?" It's all perfectly normal and culturally acceptable. That's why expressions such as "over-dressed" and "under-dressed" exist. Someone breached a societal dress code and it was remarked upon.

Dress codes are also enforced at private schools. Can you imagine deciding to send your child to a pricey institution, but balking at the uniform? If you don't like the dress code, don't send your child to that particular school. And, by the way, that most certainly includes Muslim schools, where a dress code is strictly enforced. If you don't like Canadian dress standards, don't come to Canada.

Not to flog the proverbial horse, but try to enroll your child in a Muslim school and object to its dress code. Just try. See what happens.

Get over yourselves and adhere now and then to western dress. Go ahead, enjoy both the freedoms and securities Canada affords everyone.

The Joy of my Mother

I never feel closer to my mother than at Christmas. The '50s were an enchanted time to be a kid in Canada. Christmas pageants abounded, tree lots were bursting...there was an excited anticipation that permeated everything and everyone.

I remember the card table my parents put up in their bedroom for two weeks while they operated a virtual assembly line of goodwill -- a living, breathing card business. My Dad wrote some, my mother others. Hundreds left our home to end up all over the world. I used to look at the lists and wonder who these strangers were in England, Detroit and Florida?? But all the connections were made every year in December.

I can still see my parents, knee-deep in our snowy front yard, my Dad on a ladder, my Mum calling instructions while they strung blue lights on the huge blue spruces that ringed our corner property. I can also see my Dad, prone on the floor behind the Christmas tree, a ball of string in one hand and a flashlight in the other, while my mother told him where to secure a loose branch to the trunk, to fill in an unacceptable hole in nature's imperfect handiwork.

I can still smell the red nail polish my mother applied just before we all went to Aunt Betty and Uncle Elgin's for Christmas dinner. What a fabulous gathering that was! Aunt Pat, Uncle Rollie, Aunt Ruby, Uncle Charlie, Grandma Stapledon, Great Aunt May, Great Uncle Charlie, Aunt Alma, all my cousins...it was huge.

I can still smell the almonds my mother blanched, skinned, roasted and salted to take to Betty's. I "helped" by eating most of them before they left the kitchen. I can still see her in her nightgown, stuffing the turkey at dawn.

The comforting aroma of a huge bird roasting, the orderly tang of fresh furniture polish, the sophistication of my aunts' exotic perfumes, the festal tinkling of crystal high-balls, the flickering glow of silver candle sticks, the fresh smell of my uncles' aftershaves....these all evoke happy memories and warm feelings of belonging, love and merriment.

She has been gone for 10 years. I weep when I think of my mother at this time. But happily this is also the time I take out her flanellette nightgowns and start to wear them. So glad Calgary is frigid.

Finally

More sense out of Ottawa this morning. Immigration minister Jason Kenney announced that anyone taking the oath of citizenship cannot do so with the face covered. "Taking the oath is a public declaration and cannot be done under a veil," he said.

I support this wholeheartedly. As a Canadian and a woman, what are people doing here with their faces covered in the public thoroughfare? That's what bandits do, that's what the Ku Klux Klan does, that's not what Canadians do. I have never understood why women have to be covered? What is so shameful? What is so provocative? What is so secret? What is so taboo? And as far as I know, it's not a religious practice; it's cultural. Well, tap into Canadian culture folks -- at least for the few minutes you are actually in the process of publically declaring yourself a Canadian, or going through security before boarding an airplane. It's about openness, safety and freedom. Get over yourselves.

I am sick to death.....

...of that ad on TV for life insurance. "Are you hard to insure? Afraid you won't get coverage?"....and that hideous old bag featured in it. There she is, whining and scowling about her lot. Give me a break. She shakes her head in desperation and looks completely defeated. Then the ad switches to a dyed-blonde, 20-year-old on the phone, "You have nothing to worry about. Coverage is automatic."

G-d!! Spare me!!

They even show a photo of the bag when she was young, then mercilessly pan to her in the now: ugly teeth, stringy hair -- a walking advertisement for how bad life can become when you're an old bag. It is so depressing.

I hate that ad.

Time to get outta' Dodge

I know I have been on about Attawapiksat, but there is a lot to say. Unless the natives themselves get pragmatic, nothing will happen. The government -- by that I mean the taxpayer -- can't do the job on its own. Money is not the answer. Look at the billions funnelled into reserves year after year. After 200 years, at $12 billion per, I wouldn't even dream of doing the shocking and hideous math!

No, the native leadership has finally to admit the reserve system doesn't work for the people who have to live on them. Oh, it works for the chiefs all right. The reserve system engenders never-ending rivers of money. That's why they have kept it. Money. But money always comes with strings; there's a price for everything. Chief Theresa Spence has ordered the third-party manager, sent in to help, off "her" reserve. "Just give us the cash, don't tell us what to do with it." Ah, but that's where the corruption starts.

Mark Milke, the Fraser Insitute expert on aboriginal affairs, points out that Atitokan, a small Ontario town with double the population of Attiwapiskat, pays all civic officials and servants, i.e., the mayor, councillors, road crews, etc., $3 million per year. By contrast, what do the Attiwapiskat leaders pay themselves? $11 billion. As Ricky Ricardo used to say..."Lucie, you have some s'plainin' to do!"

In non-native Canada, communities and towns have been spawned by resource development -- commodities such as minerals, lumber and ore. But when the resources dry up, or the export markets shift, these communities wither and die and residents are forced to re-locate and start all over again.

To their everlasting detriment, aboriginals have not accepted this reality. Their chiefs tether them to a reserve system (money, again) that does not allow for moving and starting a new way of life in economically viable and sustainable communities. That's the problem. The average reserve has absolutely nothing to sustain it except taxpayer funds. There are a wretched 3,000 in this sorry state across the country; there are 12 currently under third-party financial management; 120 under water advisories...85,000 new housing units urgently required...It goes on and miserably on.

It's time to get real. The reserve system does absolutely nothing to help the pitiful and abject people living under its tyranny. It's time to get outta' Dodge.

A Christmas Tree?

A beautiful Christmas tree has been put up in the lobby of the Y, where I swim. At first I was shocked. "Wow, this is just too politically incorrect! I can't believe they can get away with an actual Christmas tree at Christmas." But then I realized this is the "Young Men's Christian Association", so they can get away with it. In fact, it's quite fitting that a facility founded on Christian principles actually celebrates Christmas out loud, with its face hanging out. How lovely.

But as I left my cynical side said, "Whadda ya wanna bet someone will complain that it's offensive." And if they do, whadda ya wanna bet the director will take it down, forgetting about the "Christian" in the Y.

What can people possibly be thinking?

If you are prim, stop reading. Changing after my swim this morning at the Y, I had to walk around a woman...wait for it...sitting there clipping her toenails! Snap, snap, snap. Where were they flying??!! It was completely disgusting. I gave her the same look of revulsion as if she were butchering a hog, but to no avail. I looked askance at the woman standing beside her, but realized when they started chatting over the clippers they were sisters. No wonder she didn't sympathize with the glare.

Then it was off to the supermarket for a couple of things. At the "express 12 items or less" I waited behind at least 20 items on the belt, but no customer. The cashier started apologizing, "She's just gone to get something else, sorry about that." Five minutes later, she arrives with things she had to check the price of. "It takes a lot of nerve," I said, "to hold up the express line like this." Then she had to have all her stuff paper-bagged and then plastic bagged and then she didn't have enough money...and on...and on...and on........."Maybe next time she won't be so quick to hold up the line," I said. "Oh, forget about that, she's a regular and does it all the time," the cashier replied.

As she left she scowled and harumphed, "Some people!" Presumably she was referring to herself. "Probably lives on her own with 10 cats," I added.

This and that

1. The big news is that I easily found a doctor here. At 83 years old, my Ottawa doctor, Jim Dickson, was not going to soldier on forever. Although, as a crusty scotsman, you never knew. He had been our family doctor for more than 35 years and a trusted friend -- even making house calls and giving me his personal pager number so I wouldn't have to go through his office. I simply loved the guy.

But getting another in Ottawa I knew would be next to impossible. Waiting with trepidation for my Alberta health card, I investigated on-line what the doctor deal is here. There is a process, but it appeared complicated. Trust B to cut through all that and find a brand new clinic accepting new patients. We went for a "meet and greet" appointment, set up mainly to ascertain whether one is healthy enough to be taken on. Asked to describe my health, I threw in the latest terminology. "I am a wellderly," I replied. That means elderly, but relatively healthy.

So, I now have -- for the first time in my life -- a young woman doctor. All is well.

2. Son-in-law, Colin, has taken up hunting and yesterday he bagged his first kill. Everyone hunts here -- which is why I can now wear my fur coat without fear of spray painting. Here he is, proudly showing off the doe he killed:

3. As to psychotic kids, the sad fact is it appears to be an industry. When I read there are 5,000 diagnosed in B.C. alone, I nearly flipped! How can there be that many? I picture crazy parents seizing on some quirk or other and wildly rushing their kid to a child psychiatrist (another profession I don't get, I mean, how can the average kid be nuts enough to need a shrink?). To justify the profession and make money, the doctor duly diagnoses psychosis. It's all very sad.

What are the words again?

Apparently lots of Canadians don't know the words to 'O Canada'. (By the way, that's our national anthem.) The results are even more interesting linguistically:

Alberta.................83%
Manitoba/Saskatchewan...83%
Ontario.................78%
Atlantic Canada.........77%
British Columbia........75%
...but in Quebec, only 61% of respondents could rhyme off the French version without stumbling.

In the first place, the fact the numbers aren't 100% across the board is pathetic. I mean, shouldn't every Canadian know the words to our national anthem? They should, but they don't. Just look around you on the rare public occasion that O Canada is actually played at a public event -- other than a hockey game. More than half of those gathered are mute. It is just not acceptable.

I remember when I was in elementary school, we started the day with 'God Save the Queen', O Canada and The Lord's Prayer. You simply had to know the words. And, by the way, we also had to sing it in French every day. Without sounding too much like a good-old-days whiner, I think we need civic's classes brought back.

Where's the money??!!

After handing Attawapiskat $90 million, a few intelligent folks are asking where it went??!! Chief Theresa Spence has no credible clue. Whaaaat!!*()&#$! How could 1,800 people still live in squalour after being handed that much money? There are only 1,800 people living there. That's it. 1,800. And Spence added she was "offended" that the PM asked about it in the House of Commons. Finally, someone is looking into it. Just heard a CBC reporter quoting from an audit that shows "significant problems" in the management of the band's finances. Well, hello?! This is one can of worms that desperately needs opening.

Just listening to Regional Grand Chief Stan Louttit on TV who calls it..."a systemic shortfall of resources". Whaaaat!! And as to the $90 million? Louttit says the government is trying to blame the community. He then added they don't get enough money.

That's it on this file for now. But stay tuned, the airwaves will be filled with this until they aren't.

Wait a minute

The Red Cross has gone into a northern reserve because the people are destitute? They have declared a "housing emergency". Whaaaaaaa??!!! Just watched this story on TV. I am dumbfounded. Where did this reserve's portion of the $8 billion Canadians give natives every year go? I have blogged about this national disgrace before, about how our natives are not accountable for a penny of the money they are given every year. You can't tell me that this reserve didn't get its money.

What I constantly wonder is why the natives don't ask their own leadership what they are doing with the money. Just read that Parliament has passed legislation forcing the chiefs to publically account for the money they get (or is is "hoard"). It's high time! There are between 20 and 30 (depending on your source) chiefs who make more than the Prime Minister -- that's up near $200,000. I mean, feature it!

Naturally, one chief's response was to accuse the federal government of being "colonialist" in asking for accountability. More PR at work here. Please.

But the Red Cross! Naturally, the blame will be slapped on the feds -- not where it should land.

Maybe forever?

Looking so forlorn 41 years ago, the jade tree from which I snipped a cutting was barely surviving under my mother's care. Lillian Griffith did not have an indoor green thumb, but her outdoor thumb was on fire. We had the most beautiful blue spruce trees, hedges and gardens on our property, but her house plants -- that was another matter. They were pretty much ignored, covered in dust and watered....whenever....or not. Jade trees can take a great deal of abuse and these scrawny sticks, languishing half-dead in a pot in her kitchen window, cried out for an intervention. There they sat, stunted.

I decided to grab a cutting all those many years ago before I moved to TO. That jade tree grew into a fabulous specimen. It got bigger and bigger and bigger. I gave away cuttings over the years to all my children. Their plants grew and grew and grew. All were thriving. Then came the day when we moved to Calgary. The original jade tree was huge and not portable. Even if we had managed to lug it into the moving van, it would not have survived the thousands of miles to Calgary. Luckily, my step-son Scott took "Gram's" jade tree to live with him. I almost cried as I watched it roll down the hall on a dorry to his car.

But before that tree departed, I again snipped two more cuttings, wrapped them in wet paper towel and popped them into my carry-on. They arrived in good form. After sitting them in water for a couple of months, they grew roots long enough for planting. That's what I was doing in Canadian Tire the other day -- buying pots and soil to plant them.

One went to daughter Susanne in Cochrane and the other now sits here with me. My mother's jade tree lives on.

What planet are we on??

I guess the same sad one. Yesterday, B and I had to go to the bank to sign some papers; the appointment was with a middle manager. Out she comes to greet us. She is about 30 -- or as I say, 12. Maybe it was my lack of makeup, my thrown-on outfit, my ill-matching scarf and gloves, or my worn boots, but she treated me like an ignorant, old wife.

"Have a seat Nancy. Are you sure you're OK? Now, you just have to sign a few documents and I'll walk you through them, so don't worry. Are you familiar with Brian's accounts? Do you know how the banking is done? Have you ever done any of the household banking?"

I was stunned. "You know, you really should familiarize yourself with your finances. As a matter of fact, I am dealing right now with a poor widow who is having a very difficult time figuring out her finances and it's always a good thing to learn, in case anything happens to your husband."

I was more stunned. This young know-it-all-smarty-pants automatically presumed I was some kind of loser/doormat who had no clue about anything. She did not ask me about my background, whether I had a job, whether I had ever had a job, whether I was a heart surgeon, whether I was an astronaut, whether I had split the atom...No, she just carried on blabbing in smug ignorance, taking as a given that I was a perfect dummy and that it was her job to explain the world of high finance to me and everyone else she met. I could just picture her at a party, boring the life out of everyone unfortunate enough to have to talk to her. Memo to the Royal Bank: update your training program now!

Before I came to my senses, I heard myself saying, "Oh, I have had a long career and many senior positions, so I am familiar with bank accounts." What was wrong with me??!! I worked for Revenue Canada, for G-d's sake, so money is not a mystery. I quickly caught myself. Settle down, sister and give your head a shake...is what I felt like saying. But I just became very icy -- not that she noticed. She was going on a vacation to Hawaii with her husband the next morning and that was all she could talk about -- that and her experience with Shaw cable......as if I cared. The complete lack of self-awareness and sensitivity was breathtaking!

It was a sad moment. As I said, what planet are we on??!!

More high heels

As if I needed more high heels, but that's exactly what I bought last Friday. I discovered Arnold Churgin Shoes back in 2001, when step-daughter, Sarah, lived in Calgary. I bought a pair of black, patent leather heels that I have worn and worn and worn and worn. I have had them repaired a dozen times because they are the most comfortable high heels I own. They go with everything and I adore them. But even they will not go on forever. So, in I popped to Arnold Churgin. Emerged with a new pair of patent pumps, a gorgeous pair of multi-coloured suedes and a lovely, low-cut pair of browns. The browns have what is called "toe cleavage" -- the splits between your toes show, which is so attractive (I think). In the '20s, toe cleavage was considered very risque. Read that in The New York Times. At my age and stage, toe cleavage will have to do.

Obviously, there is a reason this blog is called "The View From High Heels". I believe shoes make the outfit. I mean, put on a great dress, fabulous jewellery and the wrong shoes and your outfit is toast. I spend much less on clothes because the shoes carry the day -- or night. That and jewellery. The cheapest pair of the right earrings will take a nothing outfit over the top. Can't count how many times I have seen women in expensive outfits with expensive -- but very dull -- earrings. The overall effect is zero -- especially if they add stupid hair to the mix. What's stupid hair? Dyed for too many years, too long for your age, the 50's page-boy look when you're 60, inch-long roots, Margaret-Atwood-hair...you get the idea.

So, that's my shallow blog for today.

Music!

Aging and cumbersome -- with about a thousand different coloured wires, plugs and speakers -- our stereo system and speakers are now part of a "white elephant" sale at our old parish in Ottawa. I finally did it. I bought a Bose Wave Music System. What a brilliant system!

Yes, you have only to unpack and plug it in; just like the advertising says. I am now listening to all the CDs I love. Gerry Rafferty, Ahmad Jamal, Tom Cochrane, Shania Twain, Celine, the Bee Gees, Joe Cocker, Bryan Adams, Rush, Marvin Gaye, Elton John, The Rolling Stones.....you get the idea. Not to mention all the Christmas CDs -- Handel's Massiah and gospel choirs. Really getting into the spirit.

Happy, happy.

Trail names, Canadian Tire, Fur and Beef on the Hoof

The names of many of Calgary's thoroughfares, as I have blogged, are facinating. This morning I found out where many of them originate.

Deerfoot Trail: Named for the Blackfoot runner, Deerfoot, who during the 1880s was the top-ranking long-distance runner in this region -- beating all comers from both Canada and abroad.

Macleod Trail: Named for Col. James Macleod, commissioner of the NWMP in 1876, and negotiator of Treaty 7 with the First Nations of the region. He changed the name of Fort Brisebois to Fort Calgary.

Crowchild Trail: Named for David Crowchild, Tsuu T'ina chief from 1946-53, a man who built bridges between whites and natives.

Calf Robe Bridge: Named for Ben Calf Robe, a scout-interpreter for the Mounties and another bridge builder.

John Laurie Blvd.: Named for a distinguished English teacher and champion of education for aboriginal children.

Stephen Ave.: Named for the first president of the CPR, George Stephen.

So, there you have the goods behind a few of these gems.

On to Canadian Tire. Was in there today looking for a bag of soil and two pots for the jade tree shoots that I have been rooting. "Do you still sell soil and pots this time of year?" In an Ottawa Canadian Tire -- if you could find a sales person at all -- the response would have been, "No, lady, not this time of year. It's winter." And off that person would have raced to join his/her other colleagues hiding in the back rows of the store to avoid customers at any and all cost. Are you with me here? Yeah, of course you are. In an Ottawa Canadian Tire you can never, ever, ever find a clerk. And if you happen to stumble upon one, they are so pissed off and annoyed that you mostly grovel and apologize for bothering them.

But this Canadian Tire was in Cochrane. There were clerks everywhere. "Do you still sell pots and soil this time of year?" Oh yes, they're stored away now, but no problem, I'll get someone to help you right away." She barked into her walkie-talkie and immediately another girl appeared and escorted me to the back of the store, up some rickety stairs..."please be careful on these"... and into the summer stock storage area, where she helped me pick out the pots and soil and led me back to the cash. Wow! Imagine that kind of service in a Canadian Tire in Ottawa! But, as I said, this was Cochrane -- a swell little town.

Standing at the cash sporting my 30-year-old, 80s-style, totally passe fur jacket, an elderly man struck up a conversation. "That looks like a really warm coat, what is it?" Now, I have to tell you I actually have no idea what the fur is. I bought it at Burkholder's a thousand years ago and was told it was "European cat"...whatever the heck that was? A few years ago, I read that they were killing alley cats in Europe and making them into fur coats and I said, that's what my coat is! Alley cat! Grey and blue, it had always appeared to have been dyed, but low and behold, the truth was about to be revealed in the Cochrane Canadian Tire.

A young woman also in line chimed in: "European cat? Let me google that." She took out her phone, looked it up and said: "European cat is a member of the racoon family, with brownish-blue-grey fur." Amazing! the coat wasn't dyed afterall, it was natural. I left the store with a new-found love for my old coat. That's the kind of thing that happens in Cochrane.

Driving home, I passed for the umpteenth time the grazing, black cattle along the highway leading back to Calgary that will soon be somebody's dinner. In the Ottawa Valley the cows you see along the roads and farms are usually dairy, so you never really get that queasy feeling that you will soon be munching on them. But the beef cattle happily chewing their cud along highway 1-A will shortly be gracing plates all over the area. For a fleeting second, I toyed with the idea of becoming vegetarian. But the second passed quickly. I do so love steak tartare.

Tough

It's official. Waterpolo is the toughest sport in the world. Based on a number of criteria, such as endurance, speed, strength, agility, skill and physicality, waterpolo bested all other sports -- including hockey, football, boxing, ironman, hurling, basketball, soccer and rugby. Have to say I am not surprised. Apart from the basic fact that you have to try not to drown while playing it, waterpolo is a gruelling spectacle.

Not that I have ever played it, but I have watched my daughter play it over many years and was constantly amazed at how difficult it appeared to be to sprint-swim, while controlling or throwing a huge ball all the way down a pool and trying to avoid violent opponents intent on inflicting great harm. It is viscious. Lots of very dirty business going on underwater that the refs don't catch. I mean, it was not unusual for girls to emerge dripping in blood. By the way, you can't touch bottom folks; this is all done in the deep end, so to speak.

So there you have it. One of the most ignored sports in the world is officially the toughest.

Veterans without uniforms

As I sat in the Cochrane gymnasium -- named for the many Cochrane Cobra teams in that high school -- I reflected for the first time in my life about what constitutes a veteran? We were there for the Remembrance Day Service and the gym was packed. Growing up, I had thought only my Uncle Rollie had been a real vet. Afterall, he had been the one to have served overseas in the Second World War, in Italy. Afterall, Uncle Rollie had a uniform, medals and still worked as paymaster for several reserve units in Ottawa. Clearly, Uncle Rollie was a real war vet.

I had five uncles. On my mother's side there was Uncle Charlie, her brother. But he had had rheumatic fever and his weakened heart made him unfit for duty. My other uncles -- Elgin and Rollie -- were married to my aunts. We knew Rollie was a vet. What about Uncle Elgin? On my father's side, his brothers -- Louis and Larry -- did not serve overseas. No one had a clue why, but no one ever discussed it. I remember these uncles as being very brilliant, but quite odd and decidedly anti-social. Marriage was not their strong suit. But I digress.

What I knew as a child was that my father, Thomas Raymond Griffith, was the head of the rubber lab at the National Research Council. I also knew he had about 250 patents to his name and that, as a chemical engineer, he was dazzling. What I came to know was that he was not permitted to be a soldier, toiling in the "physical" trenches, because his duty was to contribute to the invention of synthetic rubber. His work was in other trenches. Natural tree rubber was not available during the war and rubber was critical to....well....everything. Daddy succeeded. One of the things he invented were what were called "rubber shoes" on the propellers of planes. These were coverings that conducted electricity to defrost the props so that planes could fly in freezing weather.

I remember him saying..."The most difficult thing was to make rubber electrically-conductive. The other problem was developing a glue that would adhese the rubber to the propeller." Here was a man who was instrumental in the war effort, but spent the war years in the rubber lab solving gigantic problems. I remember a James Cagney movie where Cagney portrayed a fighter pilot caught in an ice storm. He radios he is about to try these new de-icers on the propellers, but isn't sure they will work. The drama, as he flicks the switch and we watch the ice fly off the props, is amazing! That is all my father's genius. Cagney saves the day, thanks to Tommy Griffith. By the way, my Dad went up in the first test flights at the Rockcliffe Air Base when the de-icers were tested; they worked perfectly.

After the war, the NRC lent him out for months at a time to Goodyear, BF Goodrich, Firestone, etc., where he worked helping the mega tire companies refine synthetic rubber. He simply collected his modest salary and loved every minute of it. When you watch NASCAR and hear the scream of tires, think of Tommy Griffith. When you watch Daytona and see the rubber burn, think of Tommy Griffith. When you thrill to the Grand Prix, think of Tommy Griffith. When you buy your own tires at the local garage, think of Tommy Griffith. When you watch massive tanks roll, think of Tommy Griffith. I could go on, but you get the point. Synthetic rubber makes the world go 'round.

This was the era of pure and applied chemistry, when Canada contributed mightily to industrial progress. Today we are a nation of people who do each others' laundry. We don't create wealth, we exchange it. Other than that, we suck oil from the ground and chop down trees. Where is the innovation of our potential?

But a nod my other wonderful uncle, Elgin -- prevented from going overseas because he was a gifted, young bureaucrat in the Department of Finance. His was to work in other "trenches" in Ottawa, funding the kind of inventions and innovations my Dad produced.

All three were giants, veterans with uniforms or without. I thought of Daddy, Elgin and Rollie with much love today.

(Footnote: Uncle Rollie is still living and quite "with it". He just turned 96.)

I keep meaning....

...to say a few words about the notion of "infallibility". Anti-Catholics are always raving about the ridiculous idea of the "infallibility" of the Pope. How, they argue, can any human be infallible? Obviously, no one can. But the description of the Pope as infallible simply means he is the last word on the Catholic faith. Simply put, there is no one beyond -- or except -- the Pope who can pronounce final decree on the dogma of the faith. His is the last word and therefore "infallible".

This, however, does not mean the Pope cannot sin in his own personal life, or that he is necessarily free of errors. The doctrine of infallibility relies on the supremacy of the Pope and his authority to be the ruling agent in deciding what will be accepted as formal belief in the Church. (Picked these last bits up from wikipedia.)

But the Pope is not God. There are three parts, not four, to God. We do not have "The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit and The Pope". And the Pope does not speak for God. That is left to an assortment of wealthy television preachers, evangelists and healers. Don't get me wrong, I tune in regularly to a couple of dedicated television preachers and am a devoted follower of one or two. Having been raised a protestant, I love their ability and talent to preach The Word as no one else. But like the rest of us, they are not infallible.

New heights in CBC-speak

This afternoon's CBC radio program featured a woman (well-paid out of the public purse) interviewing a mountain climber. She chirped:
"It's hard to believe you completed such an amazing vertical climb over the past year! Was it all uphill?"

She ended the interviewing by telling us:
"You can enjoy a fabulous slide show of this feat -- complete with pictures -- in Banff over the weekend."

You could not make this up.

Two things I'm getting really sick of

Two stories dominate the news here. One is the Dustin Paxton trial, the other is the "occupy Calgary" live-in. I'm pretty sick of both of them.

The gist of the Paxton trial is that this guy allegedly beat the sh-t out of his roomate for a couple of years and then dropped the half-dead victim off at the local emergency room, where he lay in a coma for a few weeks and is now mentally and physically crippled for life. Shouldn't this trial have lasted about a day at the most? I mean, the evidence is overwhelming. But no. It's gone on for more than a month. Every day Paxton's mug stares out at Calgarians from every newspaper. Every hour every newscast is filled with mortifying, detailed coverage of the degradation this guy endured in what amounts to a ludicrous sideshow. And you're paying for it. It's basically a male version of "battered wife syndrome": pretty cut and dried. Let's wrap this up -- please people!

The other carnival spectacle is the "protest" in Olympic Park. Last time I checked, you and I would have had to have obtained a permit to demonstrate. And if any of us decided to sleep in a public park, we would have been removed and fined. But no. These people have been allowed to live there for weeks, littering and damaging the place, with nary a discernable purpose or objective -- other than to....um, gosh...I have no clue??!! Judging by the inane, rambling interviews their "leaders" give, neither have they.

Mayor Nenshi has this one wrong. Move along, folks, move along.

Another heartthrob surfaces

Gary Tressider was one of the most beautiful teenagers I have ever seen. I and every other girl in Ottawa in the '60s. Think Troy Donahue, Brad Pitt, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, a Beach Boy...golden and lean, with a killer smile. And there he was in last Saturday's Calgary Herald. My heart literally skipped a beat, even though I had not thought of him in more than 40 years.

Back then he went to Ridgemont and I went to Lisgar, so I only caught sight of him when our football or basketball teams played each other. Rarely. But he was so beautiful you just could not take your eyes off him. He didn't know I existed -- in fact I don't think I ever met him -- but all of pubescent, female Ottawa knew who he was. Most of us just accepted the miserable fact that he was completely out of reach.

The Gary Tressider in the Herald was still long and lean, but his once-perfect face was craggy with the cowboy life he must have been living. But, man, he still looked good in that cowboy hat and jeans! Funny how the emotional memories you don't even know you retain leap to the surface and grab you with the same intensity as if you had just caught a glimpse of him in the bleachers across the 50-yard line.

Four hours was a little much

I managed to sit through two hours of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni', but could not muster the fortitude to endure four. B had bought tickets to a live broadcast from the New York Metropolitan Opera's performance of this gem, being shown in a local movie theatre. I was amazed that so many people were there at 11 a.m., prepared to skip lunch and hang in for the entire opera. Calgary is a city of youth, but I would wager every senior in the city was at this performance yesterday.

Thankfully, subtitles translated the Italian, but a lot of the dialoge was strangely archaic. "Beat me for what I have done and I will kiss your hands," sings one heroine to her jilted fiance. Don Giovanni romps through the opera, raping and attacking thousands of women -- all seen as our hero simply being "irrestible" in the extreme. I think I would have preferred it in the Italian without the subtitles.

To love opera one has to summon up the retro brain; I snuck out after Act I.

Nellie McLung and I....

...have something in common: we seem to be non-persons. Found this out when I attempted to apply for an Alberta driver's licence this morning. Armed with a passport and several pieces of mail addressed to me at my new address, I was blithely dismissed because I was not recognized in Alberta, according to the ID I had presented. B was breezed through, but I had to leave empty-handed. Man, was I more than annoyed.

Here I was, a retired executive, having worked all my life, paid lots of taxes and made sure I was never dependent on a man, only to find out that because my name was not on a utility bill and our bank statement was electronic, I was not recognized. I could not produce the type of "official" mail with my name and address on it that the Alberta Ministry of Transport insists upon. This all came about because B -- in "hunter/gatherer" mode -- had done all the running around and sorting out of our various household accounts; naturally, everything ended up in his name and his alone. So I slithered meekly out of the registry office in a quiet rage. I was actually talking to myself all the way to the car. It was very depressing to see my husband chatting at another wicket, getting everything he needed because his name was on the documents, while I was basically a nobody.

This put me in mind of the "Famous Five" -- those brave women in the early 1900s who fought as suffragettes: Emily Murphy, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney, Henrietta Edwards and Nellie. They asked the question that was supposed to fix it all: "Does the word 'Persons' in the British North America Act include women?"

A hundred years later, as I was shown the door, that question still felt unanswered.

Alberta's re-location tax

It's not official, but Alberta has a re-location tax. It's called "getting your out-of-province car certified for licencing". My daughter had warned me about how hard they were on "foreign" cars in Alberta, but I dismissively waved her off. "My car is in perfect shape, that won't be a problem for me. Was I wrong. What an ordeal! And costly. Granted, my Civic is a 2001, but it is the only car I have kept serviced perfectly, meeting all the service dates and replacing parts as required. I even had the Ottawa mechanic pull the entire service record before we left, confident that would be all I'd need to have it signed off in seconds and re-plated. Not on your life.

Decided to take it to a local Honda dealership, where the mechanics would certainly know the vehicles innards. For the certification exam, there is a flat fee of $190 -- but that just tells you if your car passes or fails. Confident my Civic would breeze through, I awaited their call. "We estimate it will cost you $2,200 to get your car up to Alberta standards." Whaaaaat!$%&%%^$%??!!! The item that caused me to pull the car and get a second opinion was an estimated $272 to fix a backseat belt that would not latch. How could it take 1.5 hours and nearly $300 to fix a buckle!!?? I smelled huckster.

What you have to know is that Calgary is a town of a lot of jalopies. It's only newcomers whose cars have to be up-to-snuff; the locals gaily motor around in big, honkin', smelly pickups and shaky, old pails. B hit the computer and found another small garage, also authorized to issue a certificate, and off we went. This time the estimate was under $1,000 -- including another $190 for a second inspection. A $1,200 saving. That is the size of the ripoff I was being handed at the dealership. Car people are still hucksters. If you're not a mechanic yourself, you are (un)fair game.

Outrageous. But $920 later, the Civic has a shiny new licence plate and a new lease on life as a cute, little cowboy car. I am happy.

Girls and women

I was going to write something frivolous about how Vancouver is third on the list of worst-dressed women in the world (apparently because of yoga outfits) and how Canada fares little better, but lately the news has been full of autrocities against women. So I decided to mention a few of these. They are sickening.

The best thing in China, India and other similar cultures is if the doctor gets to your village in time to give you an ultrasound to determine the sex of your baby. If it's a girl, goodbye; she is aborted on the spot. If the doctor is too late and you give birth to a female, you can immediately throw her into a ditch -- dug for that purpose -- move on and try to have a boy. Dowries are the reason -- along with the male offspring who will bring his wife into your home and look after you when you are infirm. If you recklessly decide to keep the girl, the next step is to have her genitally mutilated. She may die, but if not then, probably in childbirth.

If you actually keep your daughters and emigrate to Canada, you can still kill them if they "dishonour" you. That happens if they want to be Canadian, fall in love, not wear the hijab, get an education, become a doctor...in other words, if they want to be "persons". This hit me like a ton of bricks when I read coverage of the trial of an Afganni father, his wife and son who are currently on trial in Kingston for the "honour" killings of their three teenaged daughters and the father's first wife. The crimes of the former were to be "Canadian"; the crime of the latter was to be barren.

This all happened in 2009, when the family lived in Montreal. The evidence is that the father, mother and brother pushed the daughters' car into the Rideau locks on the Kingston waterway and they all drowned. The father's story is that the girls took the car on a joyride, but police wiretap recordings show that the father and mother were proud of their deed and hoped that...."God would sh-t on their graves." They stuck to their belief that they had killed their evil daughters -- aged 18, 17 and 13 -- and that they would do it all over again "if the daughers lived".

Canadian authorities are not off the hook. All three girls pleaded at various times with both their schools and child protective authorities to take them into custody. All such pleas fell on deaf ears. Have we become so "politically-correct" that we let parents kill their children? I guess we have.

How sickening. But, as Christie Blatchford wrote, "These people might have well still been living in Afghanistan."

How lucky we Canadians are. No wonder there are a million backlogged cases of people who want to be Canadian citizens.

Women and the French

Watched a bit of another French moving yesterday, 'La Loi', 1959. It was apparently "Yves Montand" day because he was also in this movie; so was Gina Lollobrigida. You get the idea. Macho male and sexy female vie for power; the former with his fists and the latter with her wiles. By today's standards, its depiction of women was inconceivable. Here was head honco, Yves, sexually attacking and slapping loose woman, Gina, around while she alternately egged him on with relentless teasing and then laughed off his viscious attacks. She was also sleeping willy-nilly with this one and that, which made Yves even more heated, if you get my drift.

In this film, Yves is the bossman of the village, but Gina has the real power because she is the wayward daughter of the local Don. The pecking order established itself early, with a sort of Greek Chorus of villagers sitting on the sidelines, commenting on the action. I was riveted watching Jules Dassin's depiction of the male/female relationship and how the power ultimately lies with the woman because she dispenses sex as required to further her ambitions. (Not much has changed there.)

In an effort to rein Gina in, her mother, aunts and sisters...get this...seriously...strap her to the dining table and take turns viscously whipping the life out of her! Nevermind, ever the brave heroine, Gina refuses to cry and is finally rescued by one of her father's lascivious servants, who climbs on top of her in an effort to convince her that if she accepts his "advances", he will unbind her. Once again, Gina uses her sexuality to pretend she will let him have his way, but rejects him once he lets her go. More slapping.

Not restricting himself to women, Yves wallops and smacks his too-independent son around, along with anyone else who defies or disobeys him. I could not turn the tv off! In the end our Gina prevails by convincing her father on his deathbed -- again with her wiles -- to have Yves arrested. Oh yes, I forgot, there is another suitor -- Marcello Mastroianni -- who she sleeps with from time to time, because...um...?...I guess just for the heck of it(??!!).

Coincidentally, I watched this movie before I read that French prosecutors have now dropped all charges against Dominique Straus-Kahn, recently accused of the rape of a french journalist. You remember this guy -- the one who escaped the New York courts for allegedly raping a maid. Apparently in France, "sexual assault" and "rape" and miles apart and the fact that he claimed only to have "kissed" her a couple of times against her will was deemed to have been pretty harmless. Afterall, he didn't actually proceed to a full-on-Yves-Montand-style rape. Nice guy, he let her leave, so they dropped the charges. How considerate of him -- especially when he must have been in such an Yves-heated state.

All this is in stark juxtaposition to a new ad campaign here in Calgary. It features drunk young women being taken advantage of by horny young men. The caption reads, "Don't be one of those guys. Just because she doesn't say no, doesn't mean she says yes." This is a marked switch from the "she asked for it" refrain, whereby women are to blame for their rape. Now young men are also being held to account. Good thing, but ultimately both men and women have to behave appropriately. Being scantily-clad and drunk in a bar is still a dangerous thing to do because my guess is there will still be lots of guys lurking around in the shadows who haven't yet seen the ad campaign -- or who have, but raucously laughed it off.

Just to add yet another bizarro twist, today's paper also featured a story about a middle school in BC that has banned breast cancer awareness bracelets because they read, "I love boobies!" The bracelets are part of the "Save a Breast" campaign, but are apparently too edgy and offensive for some parents.

Go figure.

Celine is no Piaf

She's also no Judy. Edith Piaf was the original. Just flipped to an old movie, "Etoile sans lumiere", starring the magnificent French chanteuse. It made me realize what it was that set Piaf apart. Raw emotion. Forget Barbra Streisand and forget Celine. Both have glorious and resplendent voices, but they aren't the real thing. They just do not have the primal, gut-wrenching draw of an Edith Piaf or a Judy Garland.

Watching this sparse, black and white 1945 movie, with its primitive sound track, one-note muscians and rudimentary sets, I realized that Piaf was the first; she was unique. She played an innocuous background singer -- imagine Celine or Barbra doing that -- who was the real voice behind a famous singer. It was her voice they dubbed and she was grateful for the money. When the star dies, the promoters decide to feature the authentic voice of Piaf in a musical hall performance. The scene where she sings her audition is riveting. She actually "plays" the song and her gestures and expressions are almost painful to watch. She gives it absolutely everything and is exhausted when it's over. She does not break into a smile, or bow for applause. She remains in the state the song has induced for quite a while because she has really "become" the woman in the sad song she has just sung.

All looks promising, but when she steps on stage, visions of the dead star appear and she and freezes. Finally, terrible sounds come out of her, as she tries to continue. She can't, she faints. As they carry her off, the promoters are already dismissing her and talking about the next "star" they will feature. The last scene is Piaf walking alone out of the stage door, into obscurity. Very "French", I know, but can you imagine Striesand or Dion singing badly and ultimately failing?! Wouldn't happen.

Garland had the same electrifying effect when she took to a stage. It was impossible to watch either of these two women perform and not know they meant every word and had probably lived every line. People adored them in a viceral way. Watching that movie I understood why. Never having seen a live Garland concert, I have nonetheless seen many televised versions and my reaction to the naked vulnerability she revealed always made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

I have seen televised concerts with Celine and, although her voice is magnificent, you just don't get the impression that she is living the songs. It's all about her and her image; same with Streisand. It's also all about money, which was never the case with their predecesors.

With the pipes, but not the soul, neither can hold a candle to Piaf, the original, nor Garland, the next and last in that line of tragic, yet stunning performers.

Finally

Hit the pool yesterday for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long. Months. Way too long! It's a YMCA facility and immaculate -- unlike the Ottawa city pool in which I swam: disgustingly filthy. Howard Hughes would never have dunked a warped toenailed toe into it. Muscles have no memory, as Claude, the longtime manager of the Ottawa Y pool, used to say. Found that out, but it felt so good to be back swimming. Swimming and writing are two things I am compelled to do. So went back this morning and here I am blogging about it.

They have the "slow / medium / fast" lane thing going, but with a twist: the lifeguards switch the signs depending upon the speed of the swimmers. So, I was repeatedly swum over by a very fast, agressive girl because I hadn't noticed they had renamed the "medium" lane to "fast". I probably should have been flattered at having been deemed acceptably deft and nimble for the fast lane, but I felt too slow, so ducked into the medium again, only to be too fast because all the "slow" people had moved there. What to do, what to do?! I will figure it out, eventually.

A word about street names in Calgary. I love them. Trails with names like "Shaganappi, Sarcee, Nose Hill, Crowchild, Deerfoot and Stoney". Then there's the "12 Mile Coulee" and the "Calf Robe", not to mention all the Indian names. Yes, Calgary is a frontier city. But so progressive in so many ways, with a woman premier, a woman leading the Wild Rose Party and a Muslim mayor.

Just love this place!

Your tax dollars at work

Well, haven't been in Calgary more than a month and today I frittered away quite a few tax dollars. Started when I popped outside the back door to shake a carpet. I immediately heard the sickening "click" of the security post, as it efficiently slid into place in the door jam. Oh my g-d! No, no, no!!! There I was, locked out of my house in a pair of ratty shorts, a ripped T-shirt and barefeet. And it was very cold. What the hell to do now?! I stood there, stunned. All kinds of thoughts raced through my mind...did I leave the stove on? Was water running? Now what?

I started roaming the deserted streets in search of....what?? No clue. Finally a woman appeared, walking with her grandchild. She tried hard to avoid me and crossed the street, but up to her I marched, introduced myself and as she re-coiled from this mad-looking bag lady wandering the streets with a carpet in her hands, dressed in beach-wear, I politely said, "Good morning, I'm your new (mental) neighbour and I've just locked myself out of my house while shaking this rug." What the hell I thought dragging the rug around with me would accomplish I have no clue. Lend credulity to my story? The grandaughter took one look at me and promptly started wailing.

Explaining the situation, I asked if I could use her phone to call...who? 911 seemed ridiculous, but eventually we both agreed that with no phone book (thanks to cellphones), the only thing to do was to actually call 911.

"911, what is your emergency? Do you need police or fire?" That almost stumped me right there. Did I need the police or the fire department to get back in? Dread seized me, as I pictured my firefighter son-in-law being the one to arrive in a fire truck to find me dazed and wandering the streets in such a state. I opted for the police. "Uh, well I'm not sure if this is an actual emergency, but I have locked myself out of my house and I'm standing out in the public thoroughfare half-dressed." Pause. Oh dear, said the sympathetic 911 operator.

She told me she would send the police. The kindly neighbour went back into her house and emerged with a fuzzy, turquoise bathrobe. I donned it gratefully and went back to sit on my front stoop to await my fate. When two of Calgary's finest drove up 30 minutes later, they found me huddled in a garish bathrobe with a carpet wrapped around my frozen feet. Professional to the end, they politely introduced themselves and proceeded to try to pick the lock. Another half hour later, we all admitted defeat. They called a locksmith.

Sitting for the first time in my life in the back of a police cruiser, I tried to make the best of this nightmare and began to chit-chat with my two rescuers -- both young constables, both extremely charming and understanding. I tried to turn the whole thing into a sort of social event, babbling on about the new premier, the mayor, the traffic, the speed limits, the coyotes, the rabbits......and on and on. Another half hour and the locksmith arrived. Two minutes and $80 later, I was back inside my home. But wait. The whole thing -- although beyond the pale -- had yet to conclude.

Not five minutes later, a fire truck raced up to the door and three of Calgary's other finest banged for entrance. Whaaaaaaat??!! Apparently, the police had phoned in a natural gas alarm; we had all noticed the odour while sitting in the cruiser. Because they phoned from outside my door, my door was the one upon which they banged. Praying one of them was not my son-in-law, I opened the door. After explaining the whole sorry incident, they left to drive around the neighbourhood to see if they could find the source of the smell.

As I said, lots of tax dollars wasted this morning.

More on high heels

Read an interesting view of high heels by Russell Smith in the Globe and Mail the other day. He said:

"This is a political question that a man dare not venture an opinion on (bad grammar there, but not mine). I came of age in an era in which high heels were denounced as instruments of male oppression. They hobble, damage the feet, distort the tendons in the leg and are deliberately painful, like corsets and all the other constraining female garb that men, not coincidentally, do not have to wear. In my 20s, the women around me would have considered wearing any kind of heel a betrayal of their most dearly held principles. And many of those women still feel that way. Like most guys, I react powerfully to the erotic charge of the elongated leg and outthrust buttocks that high heels deliver. But to this day, I feel vaguely guilty about it."

Nevertheless, I wouldn't be without them. I just love high heels.

Ten pieces left over

That's how many nuts and bolts we had left after putting together an IKEA desk. Oops! And why does it always involve a lot of swearing and fighting? At least, that's how B and I put the stuff together. First of all, you have to pretty much strip down to your undies because you work up such a sweat. So, don't bother to shower first; that you do afterwards. What a bloody rigamarole!

Good thing B is a lateral thinker. It allows him to just pull out the screws we put in on the wrong end of a piece, instead of taking the whole thing apart and putting it back together with the screws in the right place...so the top will fit on...so the dowalls are in the right place...so the drawer fits right...oh hell, just forget those two screws. And out he yanks them.

We take on the roles of Jackie Gleason and Art Carney during these sessions. This morning I was determined not to get sucked into putting together his blessed desk. First of all, I didn't think he needed another desk in our small office. Lost that fight. So, the desk is delivered, but so heavy we can't even get it out of the garage, let alone up the stairs and into the office. Our son-in-law performed that task before dinner last evening. Nice one, Nancy. Invite your daughter and her husband over for turkey, but by the way, would you mind schlepping a desk upstairs first?

I ignored him for a whole half hour with my own puttering until he said..."I don't get this." History tells me that if I don't get involved at that stage, he will just barrel ahead and force-fit the whole thing into a complete jumbled mess. So, I grabbed the 400-page instructions and diagrams and started. I played Ralph to his Ed -- with all the attendant raving, calling each other stupid and idiot and moron and how-can-you-be-so-f-ing dumb! But low and behold, two byzantine hours later, the thing was finished.

Except for those 10 nuts and bolts....???

I swear I hear it this way.........

"Cowgary". That's how it is pronounced here. The "l" is absent. If you pronounce it "CaLgary", people know you are from away, as they say in Newfoundland.

But it's not all that different from Montreal or Toronto. If someone says, "MAWN-tree-ALL", you know they are not Canadian. If they say, "Tor-ON-tow", they are not from here. It's "Mun-tree-ALL" and "Tronno". That's the Canadian way of pronouncing two of our major cities.

Language and linguistics facinate me. When I lived in The Valley -- the Ottawa, that is -- it was easy to tell when folks hailed from a small town, such as Almonte or Carleton Place, because they inserted "like" at the beginning of each sentence and "eh" at the end. They also used creatvive words for "said" and "is". A typical greeting might be: "G'Day lad! It be's a nice day, eh!" This might be followed by..."Like I was talkin' to my mum, eh, and, like, my mum goes 'why d' ya buy that dress, eh?'" I loved to tour The Valley of an afternoon just to drink in the local dialect and jargon. So Irish and utterly captivating.

Unfortunately, importing such jargon into the city workplace had its disadvantages. I remember one very bright young woman who worked for me and used Valley speak. She had utterly transformed herself in every other way, but she still spoke with the local twang and inflection. She was professional, beautifully-dressed, well-educated and charming. But when she opened her mouth in a meeting and let loose with...."Like I was doin' the budget, eh, and like we have a friggin' shortfall"...Marilyn was doomed. Before I left for another position, I called her into my office and had a verboten, prohibited chat about her speech patterns and use of language.

"Marilyn, you have everything going for you, but you just cannot speak that way and get ahead." She was shocked, but smart enough to be grateful because, frankly, she had no idea she came across that way. A couple of years after we parted company, I was flipping through the paper and noticed an ad welcoming "Marilyn.... to our accounting office as a senior financial advisor". I was not surprised, but clearly to her credit she had refined her professional tongue. The Liza Doolittle's are still around.

You still can't mention Trudeau in Alberta

After all these years, you still can't mention Trudeau without getting an earful from Albertans. I mean, get over it. The National Energy Program was created in 1980 in response to the arab oil cartel, which was fixing prices and keeping them high. That led to the energy crisis of the '70s. Whatever you think of Trudeau -- and I think he was one of the worst prime ministers we have ever had -- he had a vision for all of Canada. Quebec didn't like it because it wasn't "Quebec" enough'; Aberta didn't like it because it wasn't "rich oil" enough.

Here's the deal: Canada runs on food and oil. You need oil to get food to Canadians and the energy crisis had led to harsh unemployment in Canada -- particularly in the Maritimes. Trudeau's energy program was three-pronged:
1. To ensure the security of supply and ultimate independence from the world oil markets,
2. To ensure that all Canadians had the opportunity to participate in the energy industry, particularly oil and gas, and to share in the benefits of its expansion, and
3. To ensure national equity, with a pricing and revenue-sharing regime which recognized the needs and rights of all Canadians.

Albertans didn't like that because it meant they had to forego revenues world oil markets would have given them. Well, that's what being a part of Canada is all about. While it's true natural resources are within the provincial purvue, Trudeau realized that the national interest had to override provincial coffers. That's why he is still hated here.

Let's not forget that Alberta was a have-not province until the 1940's. Before that, Ontario supported it, so let's not hate Ottawans and Ontarians too hard out here.

The Prince of Ottawa

Another wonderful man has passed. Mike Copeland was literally the Prince of Ottawa. Charismatic, handsome, charming, he was a genuine dandy in the old sense of the word. When we were teens, no party was complete without Copey. He was a great dancer, a hilarious comedian and a notorious ladies' man -- but most of all he was a loyal and true friend.

When my brother tragically died many years ago, the first person to drive up to my house in the big, blue cadillac to console me in person was Mike. I will never forget that. Not having seen him for a few years, I remember being surprised for a split second, but not for long. Of course Mike would be there. He always was. It was for that kind of loyalty that he is the godfather of both my children.

As a young man, he had Ottawa for the taking. He always had the best-looking woman on his arm, but she was never a bimbo...well not usually. Although I can think of a few exceptions as he got older, his women were classy. I never dated him, but I liked him much better as a friend because I got to keep him longer -- my entire life. Never married, he broke countless hearts, as one woman after another tried to tame him.

As we all drifted into marriages and children, Mike remained forever a kid -- one of the boys, so to speak. He played football on Saturday mornings until well into his fifties -- an excuse to hit the bars all afternoon. And that's what finally did him in: booze. So many of us tried to help him, but in the end he drifted into a sad existence in the seedier parts of town. At one point, I had to put him on "call screen" to avoid his crazy ramblings.

Sadly, we were not in Ottawa for the graveside service. But our son, Scott, represented the family. Apparently, it was well-attended -- with an appropriate pub roasting afterward. Tales were told and stories spun, but in the end we all loved Mike for the true gentleman he was. Good night darling Mike. You were so loved.

Don't let your cat out

Rose this morning to view the sunrise, as I have every morning since we moved into our townhouse. Our back faces east and the horizon is magnificent.

"What the hell are people doing, letting their dogs roam around off leash at this hour," I said to the empty living room, as I spied what looked like a small german shepherd trotting along the path in the tall grass along the trail. Except it wasn't a dog. It was a coyote. Not 10 feet from our back door, a female and her juvenile loped around hunting "breakfast" among the wildlife waking up in the field. What a thrill! Riveted, I stared at the mother. She stopped in her tracks and stared back. Both frozen, I blinked first and ran upstairs to try and get a better view. Unconcerned, the juvenile ran back and forth, playing happily. But as the sun rose, mother took it away and off they trotted into the grasses beyond.

As I said, I think I am going to love Calgary!

If he can take apart a combine machine.........

........he can certainly manage a dimmer switch. That's the kind of fabulous people one meets here. Attended a Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree installation ceremony and reception last evening and met some facinating people -- like the chap who explained in detail how he had completely dismantled a combine the other day (or was it a harvester?) and put it back together. This in response to my pitiful query about where I could find a handyman to put in a few dimmer switches and hang a chandelier.

He gabbed at length and with authority about..."harvester chains....chaffers...rotary concaves...adjustable sieves...grapples...hitchers...augers...loaders...buckets....bale spears -- and my favourite the combine snout". Now here was a very talented and facinating man. What a delightful holiday from the boring political banter and mannered cultural repartee of the average Ottawa party. I was riveted and frankly flattered that he assumed I could keep up with his precise technical expertise. Of course I couldn't keep up, but I nodded enthusiastically and hoped he would have the belevolence to lend us a hand.

His wife was as charming, with a beautiful, friendly smile and enough information about various parishes and Calgary in general to compete with a guide book. I think I am going to love Calgary!

The minute I stepped into it.....

....I felt at home. My Civic was finally all fixed and we picked her up this morning. What a relief to finally have my darling car back. I think it felt content too, having me behind the wheel again. We have been together since 2000 and are the best of buddies. I think a standard enjoys only one driver and when I depressed the clutch and shifted into gear, we were off with the familiar sounds of my little Honda engine doing its efficient thing. Even though not familiar with Calgary, I feel very safe in my trusty and loyal hatchback. I simply could not have left her behind.

Tomorrow the furniture arrives. The rest of my life will commence to slide back into normal. Of course, there will be chaos, but I will prevail. While waiting around the other day for something or other to arrive or be fixed, I tried out the resident dishwasher. Clatter, bang, hum, whirr.......forget it. Add that to the fact that "heavy" and "normal" didn't run and it was off to Sears. This other best friend will arrive Friday. Had gone into Sears to buy a lipstick and walked out with a housekeeper. G-d, I love a good dishwasher!

A word about wrinkles. Peered depressingly into the bathroom mirror the other morning and spotted a new wrinkle just above my left upper lip. Mmmm....guess I must have slept wrong. That crease will obviously disappear shortly, I lied. Just have a shower, flex the facial muscles and it's gone. But no. Funny how wrinkles execute a perfect landing overnight, taxi onto a weak facial spot, settle in and proceed to take up permanent residence on a once-resilient patch of skin.

Cowboys

There is a rodeo going on here in Cochrane this weekend. Very accessible and very affordable. Some of the same riders as compete in the big ones, but without the sideshow of a Stampede. I have never been a fan of any Ex in any city, ever. Also enthusiastically avoided winterlude, the tulip festival and all rock concerts and festivals. Must be something about those charming porta-potties....

Still awaiting our furniture, thus bothering our long-suffering daughter and son-in-law by planting our intrusive selves in their home while they are trying to rennovate before the baby arrives. I wish I had control over the guy driving the moving trailer, but of course I don't. Speaking of out-of-control, my sweet little honda civic arrived with the entire back window smashed out. Yep, undriveable. And do you think we have had any help from the moving company? Well, you know that answer to that one. None whatsoever. It was, "You'll have to call the people who shipped the car, I don't know anything about that," from the salesman who pocketed a ton of our money. "But didn't you pick the car shipper? Wasn't that all you?" Sorry, you'll have to call a 1-800 number in Edmonton. Perfect.

So began the saga of getting the car fixed. I played helpless female, so B had to drive around in a beat up car and get two quotes in a city we know nothing about. But, he did it. In the meantime, we have to rent a car..."unfortunately, we don't cover that." That's what they think. I mean, how can they force you to pay for a rental when they have bashed up your jalopy and you can't drive it!!?? More on that file later.

The good news is that we have had the entire place painted and new carpet installed up the stairs and in the bedrooms. The previous owners had decorated in an unfortunate and unsuccessful combination of white plush and pet dog. They had also painted the entire place varying shades of green and lime. Need I say more. The other pleasant part of being homeless is that we have to eat out a lot in Calgary. One place we have settled on is 'Joey Tomato's' -- a charming place staffed exclusively with adorable, gorgeous young women dressed in sexy, tight, black mini-dresses. I don't consider this sexist at all. Making good money, all these girls are getting ahead in their lives. One even wrote out complicated instructions on how to successfully don false eyelashes -- or "falsies", as she called them. They treat us like kindly grandparents, which of course we are.

B bought a couple of lounge chairs in which we sit awaiting various trades to show up and yesterday we put them to good use in our adorable back yard. While dozing, I was entertained by many birds -- including a hawk hunting whatever lives in the tall grass behind our home. Fabulous. Today we are back in Cochrane and plan to take in more rodeo. This time I will wear the new cowboy hat I bought yesterday. Time for a local style update!

Teddy bear grief

What is it with people? You can't turn on a tv without seeing yet more grieving lines of Jack Layton-ites. People who didn't even know the guy standing for hours to file by his casket. Another Princess Di mawkish freak show. I mean, the guy was obviously popular, but this is too much.

I agree with Christie Blatchford and others who think a state funeral is totally over the top. He certainly didn't rate one, if protocol means anything -- which it ovbiously doesn't. You gotta love Harper, though. He just cut everyone off at the pass by offering a state funeral before the ignoramus' in the media tore him to Queen-Elizabeth shreds. A consumate chess player, if ever there were one.

You would have thought that Jack -- one of the people, the "people's prince" -- would have shunned such pomp and circumstance in favour of a pine box and a pauper's grave. Eventually everyone starts to believe their own press.

What lunch at 'The Savoy' should have been

Montreal is still a treat. Drove down yesterday for lunch on our wedding anniversary and it felt like a little re-honeymoon. When we married, we honeymooned in Montreal at the Hotel Bonaventure; this time it was lunch at one of the premier hotels in the city -- The Sofitel. Nevermind that they had to tear down the historic Van Horne mansion to erect it; that's Montreal politics for you. Cornelius Van Horne was the builder of the National Railway -- a creator of Canada, if you will. Van Horne also served as a governor of McGill University from 1895-1915 and was one of the first in Canada to acquire artworks by members of the French impressionist movement. Quite a guy by all accounts. But only in Montreal would you get permission to demolish such a monument to Canadian history. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge to a few dodgy burghers, grease a few wheels at city hall, palm a few decision makers and -- as an old boyfriend of Sarah's used to say -- "It poofs!" Gone! (I really liked George, but I digress.)

Remember our experience at The Savoy in London -- how nothing worked right? Well, lunch at The Sofitel is what The Savoy should have produced. With fewer waiters, busboys and table captains, The Sofitel nonetheless had us seated at a well-shaded, choice table on the patio, water and bread at hand and drinks served within ten minutes of our arrival. All gussied up in chapeau and high heels (of course), I ordered steak tartare -- an enduring favourite not served everywhere. It was divine, absolutely melt-in-your-mouth. Not too many capers or onions to drown out the flavour. Just delicious.

Looking around was the most fun. Montrealers have returned to their '70s habit of downing a couple of martinis and a bottle of wine at lunch. I myself participated in more than a few such "downings" when I worked in the journalism business and had a publisher who didn't like to drink or travel alone. The youngest and prettiest on his staff (just a fact because all my colleagues, with the exception of one middle-aged female, were male), I was the one he always picked. Willingly and eagerly I went. I mean, Montreal and Toronto on an expense account with your publisher when you are 22 years old? What's to worry about?!

There was a real cross section of business men and women, middle-aged matrons and motley family gatherings. The matrons were decked out in suits, sensible shoes and expensive, conservative jewellery. With every hair elaborately coiffed and under rigid control, they discussed children, grandchildren and absent females -- the latter getting a breathtaking going-over. Some of the business patrons were fairly well-dressed, but it was the father/daughter and mother/daughter combos that attracted my attention -- naturally for all the wrong reasons. What are people thinking having an expensive lunch garbed in baggy jeans and flip-flops? Not designer jeans, grubby ones. Pile on autrocious table manners and you have a disagreeable mess.

The topper presented itself in the form of a grandmother, daughter and infant. Not only did they push into the confined patio with a HUGE stroller, they proceeded to pretend to order lunch, but quickly changed their minds when the bread basket arrived. No, we'll just have coffee. So there they sat, scarfing the entire bread basket while ordering only coffee. Quite a trick. Any minute, I expected one of them to pull out a couple of slabs of ham from a purse and make a sandwich! You could tell they had done this before. Just to ice the cake, the grandmother -- sporting frayed jeans, ratty birkenstocks and matted, orange hair flowing from grey roots -- added insult to injury by promptly lighting up and propelling revolting cigarette smoke in every direction. She then proceeded to parade the baby up and down so we could all venerate it. Please. After the daughter fed it, gram again grabbed the kid which then proceeded to vomit all over her. I had to laugh.

I guess I notice all these events with a keen, writer's eye because I later scribble them. B. didn't catch any of it. But the waiters miss nothing. I said to Martin, "Man, you have to put up with everything, don't you!" Smiling he replied, "Madame, you don't know the half of it."

Nevermind, it was all great fun and I pulled a blog out of it.

Warren Buffett agrees with me

I told you I was probably not finished with the tax thing. It seems the fourth-richest man in the world agrees he and his ilk should pay lots more taxes. According to an article I read this morning, Buffett thinks it's just plain wrong that the poor and those struggling to make ends meet pay more taxes than he and his billionaire friends. He pays about 17%, the average American pays 25%. We, of course, pay more, but as I say, it's a privilege to do so in our fabulous country.

"While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.

"Our leaders have asked for 'shared sacrifice.' But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched," Buffett wrote. "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress," he added. "It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."

What else is there to add.

p.s. Do you think he is related to Jimmy?

Troy Donahue

Remember him? The gorgeous, blonde, hunk-surfer-California guy? 'Parrish' was playing on TCM this afternoon, thanks to a whole day of Claudette Colbert movies. Poor Claudette, she just happened to be in this movie, but Troy was the star. I used to moon over Troy. How gorgeous he was! I remember going to see that movie and being transfixed by his gorgeousness. There was our hero Troy, saving the day, beating up the son of an old family enemy, falling in love with the forbidden daughter........living happily ever after. You know, all the requisite cliches. And all this while running a tobacco farm. The tobacco farm bit was weird. It featured prominently in the movie, with labourers (mostly gorgeous young starlets) working away in the fields, chewing the stuff. Yes, there was Connie Stevens chewing tobacco in her cutest, downhome buttons-and-gingham outfit. Anyway, the taboo against the whole, ugly smoking culture today made watching the movie an odd experience. But at that time, everyone smoked all the time and the cigarette industry was booming.

Back to Troy. If you want to shock yourself, google him and you will find a photo of a four-times divorced degenerate who looks like he should be dying at the Mission. I was stunned. The guy looks like Jason in 'Halloween'. Absolutely ghastly. I learned from wikipedia that his real name was "Merle Johnson, Jr". How could "Troy Donahue" be "Merle Johnson, Jr" from nowhweresville Florida? Because he was so bloody gorgeous, that's why. Think Brad Pitt, but gorgeous-er. Dead at 65 (G-d, I'm 64), the usual clutter and tangle of drugs and booze did him in. Another celebrated celluloid idol who starts to believe his own press.

Nevermind. I went back, sat down and watched 'Parrish', feasting my eyes on one of the most starry stars Hollywood ever plunked in front of a camera.

It's not about the mothers

Saw a documentary last evening about a woman who gave up her out-of-wedlock baby 40 years ago. Good for her, I thought. But the whole program was about how terrible it is for mothers who had to do this. Really? What about the babies? That's where my money comes down. It's not about the mothers, it's about the babies.

Sixty-four years ago, my birth mother gave me up and thank G-d she did. If you want to get really clinical and anatomical here, the developing fetus doesn't care which mother is nurturing it. All that happens as part of a normal bodily function. Naturally, every fetus deserves a healthy host, but there is no love there of which the newborn will be deprived if it is taken away from the birth mother. The bond develops after birth between mother and baby. Granted the mother is very involved with the baby as it develops, but that is no reason to keep a baby if you are an unemployed teen without an emotional or financial support system. That's just plain selfishness.

This documentary dwelt on the mothers -- all of whom said they should have kept their babies. "I just wanted to grab my baby and run out of the hospital," one said. "I was treated very poorly in the delivery room," lamented another. "It was so unfair that I had to give my baby up," cried another. The rough life most of the babies would have had if the mothers hadn't done the unselfish thing wasn't part of their fantasies. I see it every day -- teens on welfare pushing baby carriages, grandmothers in their thirties at Walmart with teenaged daugters pushing yet another infant soul, without much hope of anything good coming out of any of it. A viscious cycle of child poverty perpetuated for generations. Sad.

Forty years ago, newborns were taken right after birth. Sixty years ago, mothers had to stay locked away with their babies for six weeks before turning them over to already-chosen adoptive parents. Imagine that. Six weeks. The sacrifice of mothers like mine was truly heroic. Having discovered my birth family, I am very grateful she gave me up. Interestingly, the daughter this woman eventually found wasn't interested in having much of a relationship with her. "It would be too disruptive for my family." The self-centred birth mother was crushed all over again. I suppose she had envisioned a raw, emotional and love-filled reunion, with everyone falling about in tears of joy. Doesn't always happen that way. I can relate. Some members of my birth family were welcoming, others were aghast, none was unabashedly overjoyed. To this day -- more than 30 years later -- none of my cousins has reached out (My mother had died, so we will never know how that might have turned out.)

Curiousity drives adoptees to discover their birth heritage, but these people are not really your "family". I don't need to get into what makes a family, we all know. I thank my birth mother. In my case, she did the right thing.

More tales from the crypt

Right on the heels of the entrancing Kingston pageant, we had another funeral to attend this week. The lovliest gentleman had died, the owner of Scrim's Florist. Many a petal was bought there and many a Christmas sheath. Scrim's enhanced our weddings and our funerals over many, many years. Very careful with a penny, my dear mother always said, "You never go anywhere except Scrim's." And this from a woman who taught me how to coax and conjure a gourment feast out of an onion and a potato.

Always dapper and perfectly turned out, his presence at the old-age home where my last surviving uncle resides shocked me. At first I thought he was visiting someone, but no, he had moved in. How quickly it all happens. One minute you're running the premier flower business in the city and the next you're sitting forlornly in the lobby of an old-age home, bored to death, waiting for the next meal. Bang. Just like that.

No soggy sandwiches and weak tea in the church basement for this wake. The reception was held at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club and it was perfection. Just like every bouquet and arrangement the man ever created. One Christmas, as I was purchasing yet another $100,000 natural adornment for the door (I exaggerate, but not by much), Paul said, "Why don't you get one of these gorgeous wreaths made of dried switches. It'll last for years." That's the kind of guy he was. He would rather a client save some money, but in the process do himself out of an annual purchase. I still have the wreath and it graces our door every season -- with a little help from an artistic daughter, who tarted it up a few years ago and gave it new life.

So, another Ottawa icon passes. Happily, his family still runs Scrim's so it will remain the only place to go for commemorative beauty.

A little rant

A large, officious envelope arrived in the mail today. It was addressed to:
Brian Marley-Clark, and
Nancy Marley-Clark
.....no "e" on either name.

This came from our lawyer, a lawyer we have patronized for 20 years. A lawyer who has collected a lot of $$$ from us. I was outraged -- or was it "pissed off". I mean, seriously, how can you get a client's name wrong?! Giving the hapless solicitor the benefit of the doubt, I opened the envelope to see if maybe only the address label had been incorrect. Maybe the letter itself had been correct and our name graced with the required "e". Nope. Not a chance. The lawyer had signed it himself. Marley-Clark, without an "e".

Here's the deal: With names such as Clark(e), or Mac, Mc...you have to check the correct spelling. Is it Clarke with an "e"? Clark without an "e"? Is it "Mac, capitol someting? Is it "Mc, capitol something?" Is it "Mac, lower-case something?" Is it "Mc, upper case something? There are so many possibilities. And here we have a well-paid lawyer who.... GETS IT WRONG!

You have to know that taking on B's double-barrelled name was a challenge. (I was going to say "problem", but am trying to be polite). For many years it has always been, "Mrs. Clarke" this...or "Mrs. Marley" that. Many think my maiden name was "Marley", that I am a liberated woman who kept her maiden name -- a hyphenated/liberated feminist. No such luxury. I am in bondage like every other woman with a husband, children and a fulltime job. When I married B I had to decide whether to revert to my maiden name, or take on his. My children had their father's. Would I keep that one? No, I decided to take on B's name. I was his wife; that would be my name.

In a small town such as Ottawa that has proven both a blessing and a curse. With an ex-wife who insists on keeping B's name -- without his permission -- "Marley-Clarke" stands out in this town. Happily, after 30 years we have long established our own identity as a couple. But I am one who thinks women who wish to keep their husband's name after an (unnecessarily) sour divorce should have to be given legal permission by the ex-husband for the privilege. Why dine out on a man you hate? I guess the answer is obvious.

But back to our lawyer. I called him to complain and he had the audacity to say it was a "typo". No, it was not a typo, I explained. A typo would be one missing "e". Four missing "e's" was not a typo. It was inattention to detail and pretty much inexcuseable. The lawyer continued to argue that it was "just a typo". This is why I will not use that lawyer again. He could not help himself..."Once it gets into our computer system, it's wrong on everything." Whaaaaaaaat??!!@ How is that an answer!!!??? I remember working for a lawyer in the "carbon paper" era. You could not get anything wrong. Ever. If you typed something incorrectly, the entire document had to be re-typed for it not to appear to have been tampered with. With computers, getting anything wrong is unfathomable.

I told him to re-send the entire package. I ripped the "typo" one up.