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.