Still there

She died in 2001, but I still wear her winter coat.  It's -30 here (Celsius, for my American readers) and obviously freezing, so I put on my mother's wonderful coat.  She was decidedly and demonstratively unaffectionate, nevertheless it feels as if she still hugs me. 

Same way I feel when I don her flannelette nightgowns.  Although very conservative, unlike I, my mother bought a very fashionable coat with a fleece lining and faux-fur trim on the sleeves and neck.  And it's warm as heck.  I also still sport her mink headband.  Imagine, my mother with a headband!  But I had one made and evidently she liked it, so had her own made.  When I wear her clothes, I still feel her so close to me.

Of course, Christmas brings us all back to our families -- good memories or bad.  Mine are all good and I am looking forward to trimming the tree alongside children and grandchildren with ancient decorations handed down over generations.  Who can ever throw out family tree ornaments?  Not I.
     
Guess we never get over our mothers and fathers. 

Good thing.   

Put up or shut up

Here's Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente's take on what's going on on the Hill:

"Here’s the scene: One of your colleagues is a married guy. You both play on a recreational sports team. One day after a game, he asks you back to his hotel for a drink. (He commutes to work from another city.) He makes clear that he wants to have sex with you, but you don’t want to have sex with him. What do you do? (a) tell him no, and leave? Or (b) join him on the bed, say nothing and hand him a condom?

"Even in our brave new age, where consent to sex is supposed to be explicit, most people would agree that if you get on a bed with a guy and silently hand him a condom, he could reasonably infer that you’re willing to have sex. And if he’s wrong, it’s hard to complain that he misread your intentions.

"But that’s exactly the complaint (as we understand it so far) made by an anonymous female New Democratic MP about Massimo Pacetti. He’s one of the two Liberal MPs who were summarily banished by Leader Justin Trudeau for serious but unexplained “personal misconduct” involving unnamed female MPs.

"Now, in a series of interviews with the media, including The Globe and Mail, one of the two female complainants has explained what the misconduct was. Mr. Pacetti had sex with her, but without “explicit consent.” She didn’t tell him “no” and she wasn’t drunk. She didn’t leave because she “froze,” having been assaulted on another occasion, years before. She doesn’t want her name to be made public because she wants to “heal.” She doesn’t think Mr. Pacetti should be punished (it’s a little late for that) and she hasn’t gone to the police (in any event, as any lawyer will tell you, she doesn’t have a shred of a legal case). But she does want the incident to be investigated, providing she remains anonymous. She thinks Mr. Pacetti should apologize and get counselling. Mr. Pacetti says he’s innocent of wrongdoing.

"The details should make everybody cringe. Although I have no sympathy for married men who cheat, Mr. Pacetti is actually the bigger victim here – it sounds like his first apology should be to his wife. Mr. Trudeau (and, by extension, his party) should be cringing because he’s recklessly trashed the career of a man who seems to be guilty of nothing more than boorishness and infidelity. The NDP should be cringing because Ms. Anonymous has embarrassed the caucus and trivialized the seriousness of genuine sexual assault. This complainant is no intern or some star-struck groupie exploited by a powerful older man – she’s an elected federal politician.

"We should be outraged on behalf of victims of assault. But in this instance, she’s not one of them. She’s blithely jettisoned due process and demanded that her privacy be protected, but not his. I completely understand why women are reluctant to come forward, but men’s reputations are worth something, too. And these days, assault accusations are the kiss of death. (See Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby, et al.)

"The second Liberal MP, Scott Andrews, has been accused of harassment under the influence. His lawyer vigorously denies it. The allegations were supposed to be confidential, but everyone has been leaking like sieves.

"This story does illustrate a valuable point, however. In some cases of sexual misconduct, two people’s versions of what happened can markedly differ, not because one of them is lying, but because they may experience the same intimate encounter in very different ways. I’m not talking here about out-and-out rape or forcible assault. I’m talking about more subtle situations. Watch The Affair, a television drama that turns exactly on this premise. It’s told as two alternate versions – his and hers – of the same story, but with diverging memories, feelings and facts. This is what makes some cases of misconduct (or alleged misconduct) genuinely ambiguous.

"Sexual misconduct has always been a hot potato, but the allegations, leaks and general confusion on the Hill have become a farce. It’s obvious that both the Liberals and the NDP should have run, not walked, to recruit some experts in workplace harassment at the first sign of trouble.

"Because there will always be trouble. Any gathering in politics, where high-energy people are thrown together in intense environments far from home, will guarantee that. And like every other workplace, the institution needs fair and equitable ways to deal with it. Please, people – get a grip. And keep your wretched sex lives to yourselves."
______________________________________________

She's totally correct.  Yep, women continue to insist on being their own worst enemies.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no

I have to admit I find it very empowering when I bother to put it on.  I'm talking about makeup.  'The Current' had a very interesting debate about the pros and cons of the war paint women wear and I really come down on both sides of the argument.  After years of having to wear it every day for work, I relish not having to put it on most of the time.  But every now and then I love putting on my face and stepping out. 

And there are some places I would never go without it.  Such as Mass or out to lunch or dinner.  But schlepping to the grocery store or the pool, I never wear any.  I once had to return made-up to the pool to collect something I had forgotten, causing the women at the front desk to nearly fall over in shock.  That's what a huge difference makeup can make.  Peering into a brutal mirror first thing in the morning I often say, "Can you imagine being a man and this is the best you're going to look all day!"

The women debating the issue on the radio this morning made very sound arguments for both sides -- that it was empowering and that it was also degrading.  Personally, I feel empowered when I am all made up and dressed to the nines with a great pair of high heels on my feet.  But I would not want to have to wear it, which is what I did for 40 years going to the office.

I hail from the first "women's lib" generation -- the late sixties -- when we discovered the pill, threw away our bras and let our hair go natural.  Back then it was sort of "de rigeur".  But I found the natural look didn't really suit me, so I gradually allowed makeup and hairdo back into my life.  Frankly, I think women should do whatever they feel comfortable in doing.   

I worked with a woman who had only recently re-entered the workforce and she told me that for all the years she had stayed home, she dropped everything at 4:30 to get dressed and made up so she could greet her husband looking her best.  Poor thing, she died very young -- the self-inflicted stress having probably killed her.  But she looked great in her coffin. 

Happily, my husband couldn't give two hoots.   

Chance encounters

"Why would anyone leave the house wearing an ugly T-shirt like that?" I asked the young man beside me.  He almost spit out his lunch laughing.  I was referring to his companion, sitting on the other side of him at the bar into which I had popped in for lunch yesterday.  Heck, I had to put on makeup to go to Mass, so I figured I'd go out for a little lunch.  "It was laundry day and this was all I could find," he explained.  "Next laundry day, find something nicer," I said, laughing. 

"Well, well, my favourite customer," the young man had said as he and his friend sat down next to me at a local watering hole.  I was very surprised because he is a server at The Keg around the corner, which is where B and I met him, yet here he was frequenting the competitor.  This young man is adorable and working towards a medical degree.  He wants to be a pediatrician, but has promised to allow me to be his one and only geriatric patient, when the time comes.

Calgary was abuzz yesterday with the Western final Stampeders and Eskimos football game unfolding at McMahon Stadium.  Calgary won and will now play the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the Grey Cup in Vancouver this weekend.  Having been raised in Ottawa, I hated Hamilton and will be cheering for Calgary, my new hometown.

When my two companions left, a complete stranger walked up to me and said:  "Excuse me, but I just had to tell you that those two young men said you were the coolest woman they know."  Really??!!  That's kinda' sad, but I think it's because I don't filter much when I express my opinions. 

This luxury comes with experience --  one of the benefits that accompanies aging.

            

$376.00

Just so I could "binge watch" 'House of Cards', that's what I spent.  Oh, Netflix is only $7 a month, what a deal, I told myself.  But the rest of it was ridiculous!

"This is all you need," said the 12-year-old salesman at 'Future Shop'.  "Just hook it up and you're set for Netflix."  But, of course, we can't set anything up, so had to call Geeks-on-the-Way.  "No, this only let's you watch Netflix using your cell phone," said the technician.  Well, that's stupid.  So I had to schlep the useless device back to the store and exchange it for an Apple TV thingy.  But I also had to get wireless, so that was a bunch of bucks because apparently you have to have wireless for Netflix. 

That little service call cost $205.  Well, now I'm finally set, I thought.  Except I wasn't.  Still couldn't install the Apple thing and could not hook up to Netflix.  After another call to Geeks, I welcomed yet a second $96 visit from another technician today to finalize everything and teach me how it all works.  So that was another pricey service call and in the end, it all added up to a whopping $376.

That's the price we boomers pay to get hooked up.  Heck, I remember typewriters and carbon paper!  What could I possibly know about all this crap?!  But today I was able to watch every episode of 'House of Cards', which was delicious.  Good thing I took notes because to go from cable to Netflix is a maze of button-pushing and switching. 

G-d!      

No one gives a sweet

I listen to 'CBC Two' all the time, but am reconsidering, thanks to the bleating of 'Buck 65', aka Rich Terfry.  He is the host of the afternoon show, which used to be pretty good.  But now Buck has released a new CD and it's all about how sad he is about his divorce.

Hey, get over yourself Buck.  Many of us have been divorced, but do we go on every radio show and cry about it publically?  No.  Divorce is a very painful, but personal, event and everyone's is different.  So why Buck thinks his is "special" enough to be shared with the rest of Canada is a mystery?

Wimp that he must be, he first shared his rap "songs" with his ex before he even considered releasing them.  "If she had disapproved, I would not have done the CD," said Buck in yet another tedious interview.  Really? 

It's all so boring.           

Another hackneyed cliche

Some people don't get my blog and that's fine.  But once again, if you're not an "official" follower, don't comment negatively -- especially when you don't get my point.  Better still, don't read it, which is what my husband does.  "I don't read Nancy's blog," he tells people who want to talk about it with him.  Even better, write your own.   

"Don't blame the victim" was one comment on my blog about Rinelle Harper.  Obviously, this person had no clue about what I was saying because I was not blaming the victim, I was blaming the parents -- although they see themselves as "victims"....of "the system", that is.  I was also blaming native leaders who take advantage of their members in tragedies such as this to advance their own cynical political and financial agendas.   

I post my blog on facebook and about 100,000 people around the world read it, which is very flattering.  Seconds after I post one, 50 people are immediately reading it.  (Guess they have nothing better to do).  But only "followers" comment on the actual blog site itself, which I appreciate, and I often post thoughts that don't agree with mine.  Many others leave comments on facebook, but if you're going to comment there, at least come up with something better than a tired, hackneyed cliché such as "don't blame the victim".

So dear readers, enjoy my blog, but try and be a little less "PC" and a tad more original, thoughtful and creative with your comments.  Otherwise, you're just embarrassing yourselves.        

Do yourself a favour

Watch this movie.  Their hits are legendary:

• Sherry
• Big Girls Don't Cry
• Rag Doll
• Can't Take my Eyes off of you
• Walk Like a Man
• Who Loves You
• Workin' My Way Back to You Babe
• Dawn
• The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore........

............just to name a few.  'The Jersey Boys' is a fabulous movie -- especially if you are from that era , as am I.  It was so well done.  Laughed, sang along and cried through the whole thing because it was so happy, so sad, yet not cheesy in the least.  Francesco Stephen Castelluccio, a.k.a. Frankie Valli, was a marvellous falsetto singer and made that group.  Hey, the guy is still going strong at 80!  So are Bob Gaudio, who wrote most of the hits, and Tommy DeVito, who now lives in Las Vegas.  Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in '99, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons were a marvel. 

Loved the movie. 

It has to be said

What was a 16-year-old doing hanging out on the streets of dangerous downtown Winnipeg after midnight?  Where were her parents?  Why would she go for a stroll with two strange young men along a deserted river? 

I refer, of course, to Rinelle Harper, the native teen who was brutally attacked and left for dead a few days ago.  A border at a Winnipeg student dorm, she signed herself out a week ago to the care of her parents who had recently moved to Winnipeg.  But she didn't show up at her parents and instead went on a very perilous excursion.  What I want to know is, if she had signed herself out to parental custody, were they notified?  They must have been, "ass-covering" being what it is in these situations.  And if the parents had been notified, why did they do nothing and not look for her all evening and night?  A passerby found her near death the next morning and dealt with her care. 

Of course, the parents and band members called a press conference to......wait for it.......blame "the system".  How is any of this "the system's" responsibility?  Purporting to be concerned for their daughter, the parents nonetheless seemed oblivious to their responsibility in all this.  Why was Rinelle so unaware of the dangers of what she chose to do?  As Susan Martinuk said in her Herald column today (google it), "Some crimes could be avoided if people simply stayed away from areas and people where there is a heightened risk of violence." 

As a teen, I had curfews up the ying-yang and was fully-aware of which areas of Ottawa were off-limits.  Parents phoned each other to make sure all was what we had told them.  We were picked up after a certain hour, so as not to have to take the bus home.  It was all so logical and reasonable.  But in the case of this poor young woman, "the system" should have taken care of her.  It's ludicrous. 

We don't need a national inquiry about these problems among natives.  Statistics show most murdered natives are killed by other natives.  The numbers also show that native crimes are solved as often, and in as timely a fashion, as in the rest of the population.  Look it all up before you believe native leaders at a shameless and self-serving press conference.

Let's get real here. 

 

Even the Brits agree...........

By Kevin Myers , 'The Sunday Telegraph' LONDON :November 2013:

Until the deaths of  Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region.

And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does. It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.

Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts.

For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy.  Almost 10% of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.'

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian
soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.

Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time.

Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter, Mike Weir and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British.

It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakeably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces.

Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular
non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control paratroopers
murdered two Somali infiltrators.  Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbor has given it in Afghanistan?  Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year (2013) more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.

 Lest we forget.

 

Rembrance Day thoughts...........

The guard used to wave me through because he knew me and the dark-blue Cutlass I drove.  I was off to pick up my father at the rubber lab he oversaw at the National Research Council on Montreal Road and the shortcut was through the Rockcliffe Air Base.  Now closed, it was the perfect route to get from our home to Dad's office.  I picked him up because I wanted the car.  I had just been awarded my driver's licence.  I was 16, it was heady stuff. 

I think of my Dad, as Remembrance Day dawns.  He was considered by the Canadian Government too important to have been allowed to enlist because he was instrumental in developing synthetic rubber.  Natural rubber was unavailable because the Burmese rubber trees were inaccessible, so my Dad was a key player in getting around this problem.  Rubber is one of the foundations of civilization as we know it.  Think about it.  Rubber is everything everywhere.

I had another uncle who answered the call and served with distinction in Italy.  B had an uncle who was killed in Italy by a sniper at the tender age of 24.  His father was with the British Merchant Navy.  Another uncle was with the Indian Army.  All served with distinction.  One other of my uncles was also considered too important to serve.  He was deputy minister of finance and had to stay in Ottawa to fund the war.  But we honour them all every Remembrance Day, as we have since I was a young child.

This year, we will be going to the Cenotaph in Cochrane -- regardless of the -18 temperatures expected.  Watching coverage of the Cenotaph in Ottawa, I am a tad nostalgic.  Having lived there most of my life, I remember going there every year to remember the fallen. 

We must never forget.     

Finally brave enough

"Stand up against the wall because I can't see your teeth properly," said my orthodontist.  He then proceeded to press himself against me, with predictable consequences.  I was paralyzed with fear.  Terrified, I complied.  I was 12 years old.  He then put me back in the chair and allowed his hand to drop lower and lower on my chest until it was resting on my...........Again, terrified, I said and did nothing.

"Isn't Dr. 'Blank' handsome," said my mother when I joined her in the waiting room.  I was mute.  I certainly didn't tell her what had gone on because my treatments hadn't finished.  I had to go back and endure his assaults time and time again.  Did I know it was sexual assault?  No, but I did know it was wrong.  Did I tell anyone?  No.  I was afraid it had been my fault.  I was afraid my mother would be angry with me. 

That's the way it was back in the late fifties and early sixties.  Years later, I looked him up in the telephone directory.  Yep, he was still practicing.  How many other children had he assaulted?  I could not have been the only one!?  And yet, no one seems to have reported him.  In fact, he was a very prominent Ottawan, becoming commodore of a well-known yacht club, among other accolades. 

So, it's not unusual for assaults to go unreported, such as the Gomeshi victims chose to do. 

As to "date rape", it's also very common -- or was when I was an adolescent.  Happened to me on a blind date, with his parents sleeping in the same cottage.  In the morning, he and his mother laughed about it.  There's more outrage to this tale, but I won't go into the rest of the detail.  Years later, when I met the perpetrator at an elementary school function, I called him on it.  There he stood, chairing a meeting of the parents' council, lecturing all of us about how to be good and supportive parents.  I was dumbfounded!  "That's the guy who raped me," I said to B.  Whaaaaat?  We have no secrets, so I proceeded to re-introduce myself to the perpetrator and remind him publically of the incident in no uncertain terms, with B at my side.  He could not get away from me fast enough. 

Sexual assault is rampant.  Because of my experience, I always told my girls to tell me immediately if anyone, other than the doctor when I was in the room, ever touched them in their "private parts".  I am glad "Gomeshi-gate" has happened because it has allowed me to be brave enough to speak up.  I hope others do the same.

Happily, I did not dwell on these incidents and did not allow them to overtake or bring me down.  It was a choice I made and it has turned out to have been the right one.