Times have changed

Phone stores are jammed,.  Jewellery stores are ghost-like.  That's a very different Christmas experience from what I grew up with.  Tramping around a local mall yesterday, I was amazed at the crowds shopping for phones, as opposed to diamonds.  Hey ladies, get a grip!

Of course, back in the day we only had land lines and pay phones.  I mean, who would shop for a black, hard-plastic, dial phone for Christmas!?  Yep, that's how far back I go.  Back to the days of carbon paper, manual typewriters and white out.  Heck, I even remember my grandparents' home with a wind-up ring phone on the wall, which required an operator to plug in the number and connect the caller to the call-ee.

In recognition of my previous blog about women just wanting "the ring", I maintain self-supporting women are short-changing themselves if they opt for a phone or an IPad.  My message is don't sell yourselves short by dumping your education and sitting on your ass, being kept by some man.  But if you support yourself and are a true financial partner in a marriage, by all means get a little jewellery girl!  To those women who have taken up an expensive seat in an institute of higher learning, yet have wasted their education by sitting on their asses at home, I say, "You have betrayed the battle original feminists waged on your behalf.  Frankly, don't ask for jewellery from your benefactor, you don't deserve it."

Merry, merry. 

            

Food source secured

Scholars say that until a food source is secured, no society can progress.  Well, trust me, a food source has been secured at the House of Dior.  Just watched a documentary on Netflix about bringing out a collection by Dior and I was appalled by the ludicrousness of it all.  Here were hundreds and hundreds of people working all hours under incredible stress to make....dresses.

Really?!  All so unimportant.  I know this sounds bizarre coming from a woman who writes a blog entitled, 'The View From Hats and Heels', but this level of fuss and mega bucks over clothes is absurd and preposterous.  It was pathetic how everyone in the film thought every stitch was almost a religious experience.  Actually, scratch "almost".  It was a religion for these misguided souls. 

I like to look good as much as the next gal, but taking it to this level of worship is sad.  I mean, I can get as big a bang out of an outfit with a $7 pair of earrings from Shoppers.  Trust me, I can pull it off. 

The "big night", when the collection was debuted, was ridiculous.  I now put Sharon Stone in the same who-cares class as Anna Wintour.  They are both worshipping the wrong gods.  Fashion is run by hucksters and carneys, a cult into which women buy.  (And by the way, Donatella Versace's lips now resemble those old rubber tires we used to raft on as kids.  Ridiculous!)

Women haven't come "a long way baby".  Not by a long shot.  Witness this Birks ad running in The Globe and Mail, no less.  The advertising director -- must be a man -- needs to give his head a shake for thinking this a good idea:

Never mind getting a university degree, never mind starting an independent career, never mind being self-sufficient.  No.  Let's just get that ring on our finger!  What a sad state of affairs and what a demeaning, shocking and insulting comment in 2015 to those of us who have supported ourselves FOREVER.  It is a disgusting slur and an affront to women everywhere.  Sadly, Birks has no idea what its ad communicates.  None.  

Don't ever shop at Birks again. 

   

Most are dead

Boy, going through my address book to deal with Christmas cards was a revelation.  Most of the souls in the "M's" are dead.  Either that, or they don't talk to me or I them.  Monsignor Martineau is dead, my McKegney birth relatives are all dead, old friends Heather and John Munro are both dead and Hume Martin and I have lost touch.  That's the "M's" dealt with. 

There are others in there we met at cottages over the years, shared great times and with whom we vowed to stay in touch.  Didn't happen.  There are still others I hung out with in Ottawa, but who now never cross my Calgarian mind.  Some people continue to cherish high school friends until they are fairly long in the tooth; I don't.      

B's cousin -- also an "M" doesn't talk to him ever since he called her on her BS.  And all my cousins, save one, don't talk to me either.  A very good thing, frankly.  They may be family, but we have nothing in common anymore, our collective parents long gone.  I don't like people who don't like me, simple as that.  This year, the Christmas cards emanating from our house will be fewer, but I still send them because I think it is completely cheesy and appalling to send greetings via the Internet.  Go out, buy a few cards and stamps and spend a few hours sending messages to your friends.  For Gawd's sake!

If you send Christmas cards, please send "Christmas" cards.  I know it's difficult to find cards that actually mention "Jesus", but they are there.  Today I crawled around on my knees on the bottom shelf in a Hallmark store in Market Mall and managed to scrounge a couple of boxes.  I wear a lapel button which says, "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" and it annoys many people who manage to read it as they pass me.

Too bad. 

  

Does anyone have the nuts?

Pierre Trudeau, father of our current PM, invoked The War Measures Act in 1970, when Quebec Separatists ran amok and actually -- actually! -- murdered a cabinet minister.  With what is going on in Paris, I have heard several pundits saying this is what must be done in France. 

I totally agree.  And by the way, where is Harry Truman when we need him?! 

Trudeau junior's "warm and fuzzy" policies about rushing to welcome to Canada 25,000 refugees doesn't cut it.  In fact, it's insane.  It is no accident that the flood of displaced Syrians pouring into Europe coincides with this latest mass killing in Paris.  Terrorists hide and infiltrate refugees and guess what?  Paris happens! 

There will be more.  At the first sign of anarchy and terrorism here in Canada, civil rights be damned.  When civil society is attacked by a violent mob, our country has the means to deal with it.  It's called The War Measures Act.    

Is he white?

That's what an East Indian woman I see regularly in the locker room asked when I told her my husband was born in Bombay.  We were talking about grandchildren and I mentioned I would be having them for the day the next day.  "Do you have them often?" she asked.  "God no.  I couldn't possibly manage that." 

I went on to say that I believed it was cultural.  "Many Chinese and East Indian grandparents seem to take their grandkids all day every day and it's really cultural, in my view.  In Western culture we don't tend to do that."  She snapped.  "No, it's not cultural, it has nothing to do with culture.  People are people!" 

Whoa!  Telling her that my husband's (white) family -- all born in India and there for generations -- did everything together and lived within shouting distance, I added that when the patriarch moved to Montreal they all moved there.  And when he moved to Vancouver, they all moved there too.  B's grandfather used to call them "the tribes of Israel".  And of course it was cultural.  Did she think there was no such thing as culture?  But I had to add, "Let's be clear, I'm not talking race here, I'm talking culture."  That's what most people get wrong.  The minute you talk about "Chinese" people or "Indian" folk, you are accused of being racist.  That trap I will not permit and I call people on it. 

"Do you think the Indians polluted your husband's white culture?"  That's exactly what she said.  No point in talking to people with chips on their shoulders.  Think I'll steer clear of that one. 

Here's why

I don't give a cent to Africa and I'm going to tell you why.  In spite of the billions we have given for generations, the middle class remains small across most parts of the continent.  Only six percent of Africans qualify as middle class, i.e., those earning $10 to $20 a day.  Judging by this, the number of middle-class earners has not changed since 2011. 

Where does your money go?  To the leaders who squirrel it away in Swiss bank accounts, leaving 90% of Africans earning fewer than $10 a day.  In spite of an average economic growth of more than 5% a year -- twice as fast as population growth -- the middle class remains insignificant because the proceeds of economic growth are not shared equally. Today, previously extremely-poor Africans are simply classified as merely "poor".  So, when I suggested my mother send my uneaten dinner to starving Africans, the effort would have done no good.  Neither do the many "Live Aid" concerts staged by millionaire rock musicians.  It's all a total "feel good" sham.

I feel the same about "pink ribbon" cancer campaigns.  The "Run for the Cure" is heartless because it encourages victims and relatives to cling to hope.  Folks, cancer is an industry.  No one wants to cure it because thousands and thousands would lose their jobs.  Cancer is all about money.          

I also don't give a penny to countries such as Haiti.  Do I need to spell out the reasons? 

No. 

A little harsh

Maybe saying that so many people I know were boring was a little harsh.  What I meant was so often I have to do all the work in social settings.  I mean, let's face it.  Conversation is work.  Sadly, too few people are willing to do it.  Can't tell you how many parties I have been to where people sit like bumps on logs -- the worst social sin one could commit in my late mother's world. 

"Don't sit there like a bump on a log," she used to admonish under her breath with a beaming smile.  "Speak to a person."  It was an ironclad rule in our house.  And shy?  That was simply another word for "rude" and she would not tolerate it.  I am very grateful for all she taught me about socializing because it has saved my sorry ass on more than one occasion.  Funnily, four topics were taboo:  money, religion, sex and politics.  Try filling an evening without those cushions, but that was how it was.  Actually, makes life so much easier if you don't know how much money someone has, or what their religion is.    

Actually, I like many people -- most folks I know, in fact.  Love most people at the pool, most at our parish and all of my facebook "friends"; any I didn't have been "unfriended".  So, didn't mean to come off as arrogant and if I did, forgive me. 

Boring

I was trying to figure out who in my life was not boring.  Couldn't think of a single soul.  Going through my old boyfriends, I realized they were all boring -- which was why I didn't marry any of them.  My ex-husband, however, was someone who was not boring, which was why I married him.  My current husband was also not boring, which was why I married him.

The Brits say the worst social sin one can commit is to be a bore.  Hear, hear!  For me, the definition of a bore is someone who is predictable.  I mean, when one is at a dinner party and knows exactly what a table companion will say......it's boring!  B and I went through everyone we knew and came up with.....bores.  The only people we could think of who were not boring were his grandfather and my father.  Everyone else was banal and predictable.   

I am sure I sound egomaniacal and I know I am a bore to many people I encounter because I am definite.  I see life in black-and-white, which is why I have a blog.  Oh, to meet someone who is not boring!