They were right

When I was told flowers get tougher out here and harden off, they were right.  After buying my patio plants too early and covering them for a couple of weeks at night, they out-did themselves.  I think my flowers are the most beautiful I have grown.  Here they are, in all their glory:





We also celebrated my daughter's mother-in-law's 60th birthday.  Oh, to be that young again!

Reed's paternal grandparents, Brian and Dolly McArthur, wonderful people.

 



Daddy Colin, fresh from fighting a big house fire, with Reed.

Mid-summer adventures

On another jaunt to a race with daughter, Susanne, and Reed.  This one a "mud" variety.  Just this side of Canmore at a "real" ranch, with everyone on horseback and stuff.  Here are a few shots:

A tad filty after crawling through the mud.

We had fun.

Another letter to the editor.............

Wrote to The Calgary Herald about gun violence, here it is:

Creeping in

By Nancy Marley-Clarke, Calgary Herald
July 28, 2012 9:01 AM

Re: "Vigils will burn out, but gun crime won't," Naomi Lakritz, Opinion, July 25.

I don't think we can let ourselves get too smug about gun violence. Yes, Americans have far too many guns, but not long ago, gunmen rampaged through a mall and a picnic in Toronto, killing several people. We also had random, deadly gang violence right here in a Calgary restaurant not long ago. And let's not forget Vancouver's recent wave of gang violence, during which many were killed on city streets and their own front lawns.

We Canadians like to think ourselves as peaceful and law abiding, but the "sick mindset about guns in the U.S." that Naomi Lakritz describes is creeping into our own neighbourhoods with alarming speed. Scary.

Nancy Marley-Clarke, Calgary

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Not a pretty sight

So, there I was, draped atop an overturned grocery cart in the parking lot with my you-know-what hanging out.  I had exited the store, only to run up against the unforgiving gulf between sidewalk and parking lot.  My cart stopped dead; my corp continued.  Thus, the sight of me, flung over the cart, diet coke spilling everywhere, was the parking lot feature of the day.

Do you think red-blooded Calgarian teens would help me?  Not on your life.  They sniggered and walked past, as I struggled to right myself (unsuccessfully) with a tad of dignity.  No.  The teens who rushed immediately to my rescue wore head scarfs.  Calgarians, but not the kind we think of as native.  The young man immediately helped me up and then proceeded to check every can to see if it were leaking; I lost only two.  Those he threw in the trash and bagged the survivors.  The young lady helped me to my car and unloaded my groceries.  They were so charming and lovely.  I tripped-over-chairs to thank them profusely for their kindness.

Did not hurt myself, thank heavens.

It is always upbringing that defines or separates us, never race or religion.         

Vacuuming

Just finished a hard slog of it.  Now, I only do one floor at a time and cycle through the house.  As a result, it's never all clean at the same time.  Like I care.  As to outfits when undertaking this odious chore, it's underwear and an old t-shirt.  Remember?  That's the get-up I had on last Fall when I locked myself out of the house while shaking out a throw rug and had to call the police to get me back in.  Truly, a charming moment.  (See blog "Your tax dollars at work", October 11, 2011) 

Over the years, I have experimented with many varieties of cleaning ladies -- all ages, nationalities, shapes and sizes -- but have been happy with narry a one.  Oh, there might have been an exception, a young woman who came three times a week and did one floor each visit.  She also did laundry and ironing and taught me how to fold socks so they were perfectly flat -- not bunched up into balls.  But it used to irk me to fork over a lot of money to the others to have my house not-as-I-wanted-it. 

Calgary is the dustiest city I have had to vacuum in (or is that "in which I have had to vacuum").  Granted, I have only vacuumed in two others, Toronto and Ottawa, but it's astonishing how much dust piles up on everything here on the Prairie.  The only upside is that we don't get the wilting humidity that engulfs Ottawa when it's hot.  The humidity keeps the dust down there, but here it settles happily on the whole lot.

Every time I vacuum, I think of something a young mother I know said to justify the fact that she had a cleaning lady, but did not work outside the home.  "The only reason I have a cleaning lady is that I hate vacuuming."  "Oh come on, the rest of us love it!"  I replied, after picking myself up off the floor. 

Now, that is one of the more ridiculous remarks ever uttered by one woman to another.   

Why so many words for this sorry state?

"Drunk."  For some reason there are almost 50 synonyms for that word -- more than I have ever seen for any other when I use a thesaurus.  Why is that?  B and I were having a laugh in the car the other day, trying to think of as many as we could, but didn't quite hit 50, although we did come up with many not suggested by the thesaurus.  Here they are:

dead drunk
drunk as a lord
blotto
smashed
sh-t-faced
(well) oiled
plastered
sloshed
bombed
blasted
pie-eyed (my late Aunt Pat's favourite)
trashed
ploughed
feeling no pain
tidley
blitzed
tanked
stoned (high-jacked by the drug culture)
wrecked
zonked
ripped
legless (new to me)
under the influence
three sheets to the wind
one over the eight (also new to me)
inebriated
intoxicated
loaded
stewed
soused
crocked
cranked
buzzed
lit (up)
liquored (up)
pickled
high
tight
in the bag
tipsy
boiled
gassed
gunned
pissed
whacked
over-refreshed (love that one, originated in "Frank" magazine)
feeling no pain
out of it
pinned, and
canned

For the moment, that's all I can come up with, but I am sure there are many more.  Linguistically, I can't figure out why there are so many?  I wonder if other languages have as many?  I know in French, the expression "J'ai pris une brosse" means "I got drunk".  It translates literally as "I took a brush" -- guess that refers to how the head feels after over-imbibing.

The social stigma attached to being "drunk" may be the reason we use so many other words to describe the condition. 
What can I tell you?  Bizarre things such as this with language facinate me. 

Hair thoughts..........

Danny, the Ottawa stylist who did my hair for 22 years before we moved out here, (do yourself a favour and read his fabulous blog, "Beauty is an Ugly Business."  His moniker is "Hairburner") wrote back when I consulted him about growing my hair at my age.  Here's what he advised:

"Absolutely! Grow it!  Grey hair is the status symbol in the 21st century.  Even hair colour companies have jumped on the band wagon with silver permanent colour shades.  A really avant garde look is for people to go salt and pepper.  I kid you not.  You've already got it!

"Invest in some hairbands.  They will be your best friend in the coming year.  Pull your luscious locks away from your face and scrunch the curls.  You've always been a stylish dresser and an expert on accessorizing so in my humble opinion, I know you can rock it out (like the kids say!)

"Don't get frustrated (everyone does) and if you need a trim, go to a salon and tell them you need to get a shaping for the length it is as you're growing it out.  Ask them is there anyone here who will do that?  Trim it 2-4 times a year.  Good luck growing your hair."

Dan was also the guy who encouraged me to "go for it" back in '92, when I decided to stop dying my hair.  So I stopped right then and there.  I had to go through the "bag lady" stage, with roots and the like, but I remember the happy day he cut the final dyed bits away forever.  I felt completely liberated from the drugstore products I had been chained to for many years. 

Letting your hair "go" means freedom to wear anything you want.  The vision that prompted this latest desire to grow my hair was Emmy Lou Harris.  She is my age, one month older, and has the most beautiful long, grey hair.  Why the hell not?  I have been determined to do this for about five years, but sadly never get past the "yuck" stages.  Will I succeed this time?  No clue, but with Dan telling me to hang on and...."just wear a lot of headbands"....I may get through the hideous stages. 

I have grown my hair before and guess what?  When I find myself tying it back all the time, I just cut it off.

As I have blogged, "We are our hair, ladies."