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.