Was there anyone ever as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor? No. I think I chose "Elizabeth" as my daughter's second name because of her. Elizabeth. The name evokes beauty and beauty without peer. She is gone, but it has been a joy to indulge in the coverage of her in her magnificent and radiant youth. She was breathtaking.
With today's beauty being defined exclusively by blondes, it was refreshing to remember how brunettes used to be considered beautiful. If you had brown hair, you had brown hair. You didn't streak it blonde or outright dye it that flat, plastic yellow. No, you enhanced it and enjoyed it because of women like Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn. And Jackie Kennedy, let's not forget her. These women actually had to be beautiful because they did not have the blonde tresses framing their faces to distract the observer. I don't know how many times I have analyzed the face of a blonde only to discover she was really pretty ordinary looking. I mean, take away the hair and you have..........uh.........not much to look at (or listen to).
TCM is filled with glamorous brunettes, but I think Farah Fawcett changed all that. When that poster hit the streets, suddenly every woman had to be a blonde. It was no longer just glasses that made a woman dowdy, it was brown hair. Brown hair abruptly became "mousy" (when have you ever heard "brown" without "mousy" preceeding it) and those of us with locks of that luckless and calamitous shade just didn't measure up. It's still that way.
But something happens when a woman dyes her hair blonde. She suddenly has a "blonde" persona. She thinks she may actually now be Farah Fawcett or Cheryl Tiegs or Sandra Dee or Cybil Sheppard or.......... you name it........... and the rest of us start to look at her in a different way. Even Hilary Clinton has now fallen prey to the blonde highjacking phenomenon. I catch the secretary of state on TV and find myself concentrating not on what she is saying, but on her hair and wondering, "what can the woman possibly be thinking?"
The woman beneath yellow hair dye now conjurs up "the blonde"..........starts to imagine she is actually dazzling and desirable, starts to feel enchanting and facinating. It's all such a laugh because most dyed blondes I know are pretty ordinary. Sorry girls, but it's the truth. And why would you want to look like everyone else? Every dyed blonde looks like every dyed blonde looks like every dyed blonde.........hockey players' Stepford wives come to mind.
If you dye your hair blonde you are telegraphing that you think you are a blonde. You telegraph that you are like the other dyed blondes at the party. Know what I mean? I know it sounds complicated, but as I have said before, we are our hair. When I was at university, hair was so complicated I couldn't figure it out. I had curly hair, but straight was in, so I found myself actually contorted on the ironing board pressing it into submission! After a few of these humiliations -- sharpened by being caught frizzled-headed a few times at a cottage party or out in the rain -- I cut it all off in defiance of convention. Later, when going grey, I started to dye it, but soon realized this was a losing game because the roots never quit. Ah roots, the moment of truth! These determined little power houses led me to throw away the dye and let it all grow out. Whew! Now my hair is my hair and it has its own power. My logic is that grey hair gives a woman licence in how she dresses because she can never be accused of trying to look younger with those pink high heels. Afterall, look at all that grey hair!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
900
That's the number of close asteroids a kilometer or more in diameter that might hit the earth. 900. Just one would be a "dinosaur" moment; the earth would be toast -- literally. Who knew that observatories with dedicated scientists are out there doing nothing but tracking these asteroids 24 hours a day?! TVO provides these gorgeous but scary tidbits of information all the time. Oh, and there are also 15,000 or so small asteroids within range that would destroy a city the size of New York in a milli-second. But there are 900 objects out there rolling around that could potentially destroy all life on earth in a nano second. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention all the comets and meteroites -- also orbiting with menacing regularity. Silly me! All I seem to worry about are eyelashes!
The impact of one hit would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like local fireworks. That's what the program I watched last evening said. Why do I watch? The good thing is that these realities make what I worry about all day long so insignificant.
The usual happened on St. Patrick's Day. A murder. Drunken to be sure. Every year the airwaves are filled with charming coverage of green festivities -- people in stupid hats, drinking green beer -- and every year the morning-after papers are filled with the wreckage of the night before. This year two life-long friends got into a fight and an 18-year-old stabbed a 22-year-old to death. When I think of my own two sons and the "hilarious" tales they tell of their antics, I could easily have been a mother waking up to that nightmare. As B says, "Nothing good ever happens after midnight."
The impact of one hit would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like local fireworks. That's what the program I watched last evening said. Why do I watch? The good thing is that these realities make what I worry about all day long so insignificant.
The usual happened on St. Patrick's Day. A murder. Drunken to be sure. Every year the airwaves are filled with charming coverage of green festivities -- people in stupid hats, drinking green beer -- and every year the morning-after papers are filled with the wreckage of the night before. This year two life-long friends got into a fight and an 18-year-old stabbed a 22-year-old to death. When I think of my own two sons and the "hilarious" tales they tell of their antics, I could easily have been a mother waking up to that nightmare. As B says, "Nothing good ever happens after midnight."
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Commonwealth Day and false eyelashes
They have sat patiently in my bathroom "vanity" (descriptive word for where they live) for more than two years, but I finally hauled them out, determined to conquer. I remember wearing them all the time when I was in my late teens and early twenties, but now they seemed so daunting and imposing. Do you put the makeup on first and then the lashes, or the other way 'round? What the heck, I plunged in and to my amazement, on they went. I felt as if I had two cardboard flaps above my eyes, but when I examined them in the mirror, they looked, well, kind'a normal -- albeit a bit flashy.
Watched a great documentary the other day called 'High Heel Confidential' and the eyelashes fitted comfortably -- or should I say "uncomfortably" -- into that same category: empowering. It was reassuring to watch women taking the viewer on a tour of closets jammed to the rafters with rows and rows of high heels. I am not alone and certainly not the only over-the-hill woman who adores them. Not having much discretionary fashion moola in my youth was the reason I had to get creative and inventive about footwear. That and earrings. I figured if you got the top and bottom right, you could just wear the same black outfit in between. That's basically how I dress to this day. Need a new outfit? Buy a pair of earrings, make a snazzy shawl, grab a wild scarf or get your a-- into a shoe store.
I knew I was taking a chance, wearing the lashes to an ultra-conservative event like the Commonwealth Day reception on Parliament Hill. On the other hand, when you get to be my age, who cares?! And no one did. But the whole thing felt like a new outfit -- and all for a few bucks at the cosmetic counter in Shoppers.
So anyway, there we were enjoying a marvelous evening on the Hill, in a beautiful and elaborate reception room, greeted by the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Speaker of the Senate and crowded with MPs, high commissioners and....the rest of us. As usual, the food was delicious, with hot serving stations in every corner, servers circulating with deletable and luscious morsels and a live quartet. The government does go all out and those of us in the Royal Commonwealth Society appreciate it.
But listening to the speeches, I had a moment. This occurred during one delivered entirely in French by the deputy speaker of the Senate (at least I think that's who she was, but don't quote me). Huh??!! French? This was Commonwealth Day and last time I checked, the common language of the Commonwealth was English. Period. To boot, her theme was exclusively about women. Hey, you missed that day, it was last week. I tried to conjur a similar scene at a Francophonie reception -- you know, someone speaking exclusively in English. Hello! Would. Never. Ever. Ever. Happen. This is the kind of thing that gets one's back up for no reason. Linguistic sensitivies need to work both ways. Seriously.
Watched a great documentary the other day called 'High Heel Confidential' and the eyelashes fitted comfortably -- or should I say "uncomfortably" -- into that same category: empowering. It was reassuring to watch women taking the viewer on a tour of closets jammed to the rafters with rows and rows of high heels. I am not alone and certainly not the only over-the-hill woman who adores them. Not having much discretionary fashion moola in my youth was the reason I had to get creative and inventive about footwear. That and earrings. I figured if you got the top and bottom right, you could just wear the same black outfit in between. That's basically how I dress to this day. Need a new outfit? Buy a pair of earrings, make a snazzy shawl, grab a wild scarf or get your a-- into a shoe store.
I knew I was taking a chance, wearing the lashes to an ultra-conservative event like the Commonwealth Day reception on Parliament Hill. On the other hand, when you get to be my age, who cares?! And no one did. But the whole thing felt like a new outfit -- and all for a few bucks at the cosmetic counter in Shoppers.
So anyway, there we were enjoying a marvelous evening on the Hill, in a beautiful and elaborate reception room, greeted by the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Speaker of the Senate and crowded with MPs, high commissioners and....the rest of us. As usual, the food was delicious, with hot serving stations in every corner, servers circulating with deletable and luscious morsels and a live quartet. The government does go all out and those of us in the Royal Commonwealth Society appreciate it.
But listening to the speeches, I had a moment. This occurred during one delivered entirely in French by the deputy speaker of the Senate (at least I think that's who she was, but don't quote me). Huh??!! French? This was Commonwealth Day and last time I checked, the common language of the Commonwealth was English. Period. To boot, her theme was exclusively about women. Hey, you missed that day, it was last week. I tried to conjur a similar scene at a Francophonie reception -- you know, someone speaking exclusively in English. Hello! Would. Never. Ever. Ever. Happen. This is the kind of thing that gets one's back up for no reason. Linguistic sensitivies need to work both ways. Seriously.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Reality TV
Yesterday's calamity was proof we are but nothing in the scheme of things. Watching cities wash away, I was awe-struck by the power of mother nature, by that I mean God. It was sort of like standing between two mirrors and watching yourself in infinity.........it goes on and on into forever.
Clutching the converter, I had to click away every now and then for sheer relief. That's when it smacked me. We are so completely ridiculous. Flipped to a show about plastic surgery. I guess I could stop right now and you'd get it, but I just have to get into it. Here was a woman who looked, well, normal. About 40, not unattractive, but obviously very troubled. Talking into the camera, she revealed that all her problems were caused by....wait for it.....her uneven nostrils. Whaaaaaaat??!!&(^*^!! She could not get a man and had paralysing family and personal relationship issues because, seriously, one of her nostrils was not exactly the same shape as the other. Seriously. That and, oh yes, one of her breasts was slightly larger than the other. Unhappily, we were treated to unpleasant zoom-in close-ups of both the underside of her nose and her boobs. Duh, every woman has one breast slightly larger than the other, usually the one on the heart side. I could not tell the difference, but apparently her narcissism demanded plastic surgery. Clicked back to the tsunami. Now there's an issue.
What is wrong with people? Put me in mind of a documentary I unfortunately watched a while ago (why do I do it?) about teenaged girls in Britain who were getting boob jobs. And their demented parents thought it was a great idea!! Here were mum and dad, sitting around the kitchen table saying what a great idea is was for 14-year-old Jenny to be getting her boobs done. It was sick..........back to Toddlers and Tiaras.
Clutching the converter, I had to click away every now and then for sheer relief. That's when it smacked me. We are so completely ridiculous. Flipped to a show about plastic surgery. I guess I could stop right now and you'd get it, but I just have to get into it. Here was a woman who looked, well, normal. About 40, not unattractive, but obviously very troubled. Talking into the camera, she revealed that all her problems were caused by....wait for it.....her uneven nostrils. Whaaaaaaat??!!&(^*^!! She could not get a man and had paralysing family and personal relationship issues because, seriously, one of her nostrils was not exactly the same shape as the other. Seriously. That and, oh yes, one of her breasts was slightly larger than the other. Unhappily, we were treated to unpleasant zoom-in close-ups of both the underside of her nose and her boobs. Duh, every woman has one breast slightly larger than the other, usually the one on the heart side. I could not tell the difference, but apparently her narcissism demanded plastic surgery. Clicked back to the tsunami. Now there's an issue.
What is wrong with people? Put me in mind of a documentary I unfortunately watched a while ago (why do I do it?) about teenaged girls in Britain who were getting boob jobs. And their demented parents thought it was a great idea!! Here were mum and dad, sitting around the kitchen table saying what a great idea is was for 14-year-old Jenny to be getting her boobs done. It was sick..........back to Toddlers and Tiaras.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Women
International Women's Day has come and gone. Lots of articles were written about this and that ....and this and that.... and this and that.... and this and that. Mostly about how women are hard done by. In first-world countries, no less. Please. Happily, a few more enlightened columnists wrote about the myriad of choices Canadian women enjoy. We can:
1. Have a career,
2. Have a career and a family,
3. Have children with no father,
4. Have children with no father and be supported by the state,
5. Whimsically deny a father access,
6. All of the above.
Canadian men, on the other hand, can:
1. Have a career,
2. Not birth children,
3. Not have children without the mother around,
4. Have a grim time with access,
5. Have their salaries garnisheed,
6. All of the above.
In Canada women are very privileged because we have a cornucopia of choice. While the biological realities of reproduction pose impediments to careers, the gift of having children far outweighs the few years we may miss (by choice) in the workplace. Nonetheless having children remains the most important contribution many of us make. As women, we are given this huge gift. And as if that weren't enough, some of us are also given other gifts.
Yesterday I remembered three women who changed my life:
1. Miss Anderson, my grade eight English teacher who taught me everthing I love about writing, grammar and the bliss of great literature;
2. Miss Bishop, my grade eleven English teacher who hurled chalk with deadly accuracy in an attempt to teach me to write essays and love great writers; and
3. Miss Portugal, my pitiless boss at Maclean-Hunter who mercilessly edited my copy, thereby teaching me to write.
These three unsung women changed not only my life, but that of countless others who arbitrarily crossed their paths.
Opening the local paper yesterday morning, these heroines came to mind, but in vivid contrast to what I was reading. The hype was all about International Women's Day and the star-studded luncheon that heralded it. Attended by the pm's wife, this MP and that, this minister and that and numerous famous female celebrities, the gathering was reported not in the news pages, not in the financial section, but in the women's social section. Yes, of course, why not. No matter what women have achieved, we are still featured in the women's section. There they were, all dressed up and no where to go.
Yes, female ghettos remain alive and festering.
1. Have a career,
2. Have a career and a family,
3. Have children with no father,
4. Have children with no father and be supported by the state,
5. Whimsically deny a father access,
6. All of the above.
Canadian men, on the other hand, can:
1. Have a career,
2. Not birth children,
3. Not have children without the mother around,
4. Have a grim time with access,
5. Have their salaries garnisheed,
6. All of the above.
In Canada women are very privileged because we have a cornucopia of choice. While the biological realities of reproduction pose impediments to careers, the gift of having children far outweighs the few years we may miss (by choice) in the workplace. Nonetheless having children remains the most important contribution many of us make. As women, we are given this huge gift. And as if that weren't enough, some of us are also given other gifts.
Yesterday I remembered three women who changed my life:
1. Miss Anderson, my grade eight English teacher who taught me everthing I love about writing, grammar and the bliss of great literature;
2. Miss Bishop, my grade eleven English teacher who hurled chalk with deadly accuracy in an attempt to teach me to write essays and love great writers; and
3. Miss Portugal, my pitiless boss at Maclean-Hunter who mercilessly edited my copy, thereby teaching me to write.
These three unsung women changed not only my life, but that of countless others who arbitrarily crossed their paths.
Opening the local paper yesterday morning, these heroines came to mind, but in vivid contrast to what I was reading. The hype was all about International Women's Day and the star-studded luncheon that heralded it. Attended by the pm's wife, this MP and that, this minister and that and numerous famous female celebrities, the gathering was reported not in the news pages, not in the financial section, but in the women's social section. Yes, of course, why not. No matter what women have achieved, we are still featured in the women's section. There they were, all dressed up and no where to go.
Yes, female ghettos remain alive and festering.
Monday, March 7, 2011
OK, wait a minute?!?
Visiting my son in the T dot (as some refer to Toronto) this past weekend, he mentioned that many Canadian-born children of immigrant parents can't speak English. I scoffed and didn't buy it. Driving out this morning I heard the reality on CBC radio. Roughly one third of Canadian-born kids in Peel, for example, where the study had been conducted, have to avail themselves of ESL classes. Whaaaaaaaaat?!??!!$%^&*? Apparently, this is because another language is spoken exclusively in the home. That, coupled with the fact that the parents' satelite dish beams only native-tongue tv programs and news stations into the living room, means that these kids DON'T LEARN ENGLISH. In Canada. No English. In Canada. Bottom line is that you and I are paying for ESL for Canadian-born children to learn...............English! There is something very wrong about this.
I remember when new kids were introduced into the classroom back in the '50s. We were thrilled that "Otto" or "Maria" had arrived, but couldn't speak English. That meant one of us would be chosen to help them become "Canadian". The competition was fierce when the teacher would ask for a student to volunteer over the lunch hour or after school. All hands went up, jabbing and screaming to be chosen. We were filled with bursting pride when we were picked to take on the newcomer and help them learn to be "Canadian".
What a great solution. We were so proud to be Canadian and we were so proud to show these newcomers what a great life Canada offered. We didn't know this was what we were doing, of course. But the very fact we were sharing skipping ropes, jacks, marbles, hopscotch, bicycles and other joys meant we were introducing these kids to Canadian life. The child felt special and welcomed and we felt honoured to be helping them. No need for special teachers, no cost, no ghettos, nothing. In a few months, these kids were fluent and getting better marks than we. We looked up to them and were simply overjoyed to get to know someone from a "foreign" country. I remember one girl under my charge in grade seven. She was beautiful and when I went to her house after school, I discovered the joys of perogies and exotic soups conjured by her wonderful and mysterious mother. In fact, it was in one of those visist that I discovered garlic -- something my own mother would not use. Too "foreign" for her. Feature it.
Multi-culturalism is a booming failure.
I remember when new kids were introduced into the classroom back in the '50s. We were thrilled that "Otto" or "Maria" had arrived, but couldn't speak English. That meant one of us would be chosen to help them become "Canadian". The competition was fierce when the teacher would ask for a student to volunteer over the lunch hour or after school. All hands went up, jabbing and screaming to be chosen. We were filled with bursting pride when we were picked to take on the newcomer and help them learn to be "Canadian".
What a great solution. We were so proud to be Canadian and we were so proud to show these newcomers what a great life Canada offered. We didn't know this was what we were doing, of course. But the very fact we were sharing skipping ropes, jacks, marbles, hopscotch, bicycles and other joys meant we were introducing these kids to Canadian life. The child felt special and welcomed and we felt honoured to be helping them. No need for special teachers, no cost, no ghettos, nothing. In a few months, these kids were fluent and getting better marks than we. We looked up to them and were simply overjoyed to get to know someone from a "foreign" country. I remember one girl under my charge in grade seven. She was beautiful and when I went to her house after school, I discovered the joys of perogies and exotic soups conjured by her wonderful and mysterious mother. In fact, it was in one of those visist that I discovered garlic -- something my own mother would not use. Too "foreign" for her. Feature it.
Multi-culturalism is a booming failure.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
In case you thought it was just me..........
It's not. Turns out I am not the only one who can't figure out what the h-ll Canadians are doing paying for people to get out of the latest war zone: Libya. Read an excellent and factual article in today's paper by David B. Harris, a guy with 30 years' experience in the intelligence world, including CSIS by the way. He reminded us that all the "Canadians of convenience" (what did I tell you a while ago about people coming here because it's easy to get a passport) now screaming to get out were there by choice, making lots of dough. Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances, or in the case of everyone over there enjoying whatever they are enjoying, Ya makes lots of money and ya takes yer chances. Mr. Harris notes:
"Is it unfair to suggest that Canadians there on business -- including the oil business -- were making generous salaries in part because of the risks of being in Libya?" No it's not. "Libya has been a notoriously brutal, torturing and terr0r-supporting dictatorship. As for any tourists: could they really have failed to realize that they were swanning through a country-sized prison camp and torture chamber?" Get real people. If you want to work in dangerous places and get danger pay, foot your own exit bill.
Remember Lebanon a few years ago? Canadians paid..........wait for it.........here it comes...........$85 million to haul 15,000 "Lebanese" Canadians (with the emphasis on the "Lebanese") back to Canada. And..........wait for it again..........more than half of them all rushed back when the crisis subsided! I guess we should be grateful they didn't ask us to pay for their return flights! Not only does Canada protect its citizens while we live here, it also has to protect them when they choose to live in war zones. Whaaaaaa??!%$??^?
What's wrong with us??
"Is it unfair to suggest that Canadians there on business -- including the oil business -- were making generous salaries in part because of the risks of being in Libya?" No it's not. "Libya has been a notoriously brutal, torturing and terr0r-supporting dictatorship. As for any tourists: could they really have failed to realize that they were swanning through a country-sized prison camp and torture chamber?" Get real people. If you want to work in dangerous places and get danger pay, foot your own exit bill.
Remember Lebanon a few years ago? Canadians paid..........wait for it.........here it comes...........$85 million to haul 15,000 "Lebanese" Canadians (with the emphasis on the "Lebanese") back to Canada. And..........wait for it again..........more than half of them all rushed back when the crisis subsided! I guess we should be grateful they didn't ask us to pay for their return flights! Not only does Canada protect its citizens while we live here, it also has to protect them when they choose to live in war zones. Whaaaaaa??!%$??^?
What's wrong with us??
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