Odds and Sods – Late Night Early Morning Musings

Physical bullying at school, as depicted in the film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s 3:30 am and here I sit wide awake.  Yesterday the boys and I headed off to Kitchener to meet my SIL and her 3 grandchildren at one of the city’s museums.  There was a special area set up for Circus themes and activities which included high wire walking for the children.  We waited.  In line.  For almost 2 hours.  Each child after being strapped from stem to stern with safety wires and harnesses had the opportunity to walk the high wire and we quickly figured that the wait would be about 5 minutes per child in line.  That meant of course that 12 children equaled a 60 minute wait and the adventures therein were many but that will have to wait for another post.

The point is that by the time I got home I was exhausted, stiff, and sore.  The day was tons of fun so it was worth it, but I knew when I got home I would want to sleep so I kept moving, puttering about here and there and finally gave in to a couple of glasses of fermented grapes and a little TV.  I finally surrendered to the sandman way too early, but oh my, it did feel good to slip between those sheets and head off to the land of nod, just to wake bright and early – well the bright part is me as it is still dark outside my window- thinking great thoughts, and pondering all things ponderable.

I noticed more brave little stories on FB about bullying and an article about Charlie Sheen on yet another rant, this time about his daughter being bullied, and this got me to thinking about this way too sensitive subject.  And from that pondering came questions.

Where will the heroes of tomorrow find their brave?  So many outstanding people suffered some form on bullying or rejection (which seems to somehow have become equalized to bullying) and in doing so became braver, became stronger. They became our leaders, our artists, our models for success.

Strength, I have heard, comes from Adversity.  Are we removing or trying to remove all adversity for the younger generations?  And in doing so are we making their future more difficult?

Are we over defining bullying?  When does a taunt between children playing become bullying?  The lines have become blurred.  I can clearly see brutality, which I think is a more accurate word than bullying, which ends in child suicides and torturous lives, and should have far more severe consequences than it seems to.  But where do we draw the line?  How will anyone learn to ‘suck it up’ and carry on?

When I was a child there were lessons to be learned; Life is not fair, some people are jerks who will be hurtful and the challenge was not in negating hurt but recognizing it and becoming stronger because of it.

I fear that because of the extreme cases of brutality we are going too far in teaching our children to cry ‘poor me’ in less severe situations, instead of teaching them to stand up, be strong and understand the reality of the world.  The reality is that in spite of our great hue and cry against brutality (bullying) there still continues to be bullies and there still will continue to be bullies in the future.

George Carlin and Dean Koontz have both expressed, one on stage and one in fiction, that when we over protect our children we are doing them a disservice.  They cannot become immunized against adversity because we do not allow them to experience adversity.  Is that what we are doing in this situation?

You see, I applaud anti-bullying programs.  We have more situations when groups of people, particularly students are standing up as a group against bullying. That is a good thing.  There are all kinds of education on recognizing when bullying takes place, stopping the act of bullying, and denouncing it publically, but I have yet to see a program that teaches us the reality of the how and the why of it and coping.  It just seems that we are so busy with the ‘buzz word’ of it all, that we are failing to carry through with the successful coping of it all.

 

Related articles

• Bill to stop workplace bullies (theage.com.au)
• Bullying, the Buzz Word of the Moment (thekimberlydiaries.com)

Sarah Selecky’s Little Bird and My 1963 Corvair

Sarah Selecky is an accomplished author who amongst other things writes prompts for aspiring writers.  She also hosts Little Bird Writing Contest that you will find here.  I am as usual a day late – well almost a week late in starting – and a dollar short, a saying I seem to be using a lot of this time of year.  So I decided to give it a try.

Now the idea is to read a prompt and then take 10 minutes to write it in a notebook.  By the end of the month you can submit a story from the lot, or several stories to Sarah who then has a judge (this year it is Alix Ohlin) choose a winner.

We may not want to post what we write, but my first story in ten minutes is something that I want to share.  I wrote it in ten minutes and have not done any editing yet, which of course is the idea of the whole thing.

1963 Corvair

Prompt:

Write a scene using the name of your first car you remember. In 10 minutes.

My mother was on the phone talking to her family in Scotland.  I was thirteen at the time and we were excitedly waiting for my father to return with our very first brand new car.

I looked anxiously out of the large picture window to the front driveway waiting for my father, and the car.  Brand new.  What would it look like?  What would it smell like?  My parents had only told us this morning and we were more excited that a three year old waiting for Santa.

“Mum, he’s here, pulling in the driveway.  Oh it’s beautiful, I didn’t know it was white.  Mum hurry, get off the phone, you are going to miss all the excitement.”

I figured we would never get this exact moment again and I so wanted her, needed her to get off the damn phone.  She knew how important this was to my father.  Get off the phone, I silently screamed at her.

Mum turned her back to me and spoke hurriedly and all quiet like into the old black dial phone.  What could be so important, I thought, and quickly came to the conclusion that nothing, nothing on  earth was more important that this event.  Why was she taking so long?

Dad was now getting out of the car, its big wide door swung open.  The four other younger children were running around, squealing, jumping and touching everything inside and outside the car.

Mum finally, after what seemed an eternity hung up and stared quietly and unmoving at the floor.  She took a deep breath and finally looked at me, finally acknowledging my presence that she seemed to try to ignore only moments ago.  She did not speak for a bit, just looked at me as I kept looking past her to the wonderful scene in the front drive.

Raising a family of five on a working man’s wages meant we didn’t get a lot of new things including clothes that were often hand-me-downs. This was an occasion.

Mom walked over to the window then turned to me and said, “Chris, this is your father’s day.  Don’t tell him about the phone call.  Let him enjoy this day.”

Confused I asked exactly what the phone call had been.

“My twin sister, Ellen, just died in Scotland.  I will  tell your dad later.”

Putting her shoulders back, and lifting her head, she pasted on a smile and stepped out unto the front porch embracing the happiness of the celebration.

I don’t think I have seen such an unselfish act since.

My cousin in Scotland mentioned the other day of March 3rd that my Mom has been gone for 30 years and her Mom the identical twin has been gone for 50 years.

Say Cheese! March is Phoneography Month: when the joy is in the picture

These are photos taken of we three.  Is there any purer joy than children who love the camera and are in awe that what they do is reflected back to them? There is an awe in their innocence that they, themselves, are magically recorded.  These are older phone photos but I have been waiting for an opportunity to use them.  And besides, getting the pic also means getting a hug.

                                                                                                                

Almost

 

 

 

Related articles

• Say Cheese! March is Phoneography Month (thewordpressghost.wordpress.com)
• Say Cheese! March is Phoneography Month (dailypost.wordpress.com)
• iPhoneography: Being Lost In The Details (thismansjourney.net)
• iPhoneography Monday: Nature (angelinem.wordpress.com)
• iPhoneography Week IV – Challenger’s Choice. (whatiseerightnow.wordpress.com)

11-11-11 The Game is Afoot

Well it is a game and not a foot but somehow the old saying seemed apropos.  My friend Georgette has tagged me and for this rare moment  I am taking on the challenge with great vigor.  It’s time for some fun.  The kind of fun to stretch our minds and occupy our winter laden cob webbed brains.

The Rules: 

1. Post these rules. 2. Post a photo of yourself and eleven random facts about you. 3. Answer the questions given to you in the tagger’s post. 4. Create eleven new questions and tag new people to answer them. 5. Go to their blog/twitter and let them know they have been tagged.

 

Winter fun

Rules are posted – so far so good.

I took this photo yesterday morning when I had the boys outside for crisp sunny play. (then we went to lunch and an indoor playground, then swimming in the afternoon.  whew! So photo added – check!

Now for 11 random facts.

1)  No matter how tired or achy or old I feel, when there is a chance to romp, play or swim with my Grands I will do it.  That’s what analgesics were created for right?

2) My BFFs include Donna in Manitoba (I mean Mexico for the winter), my sisters and sister-in-law and a close circle of ladies with whom we play, dance, comfort encourage, support and commiserate.

3)  I have discovered over the  years that my band of women are the infrastructure to a good life.

4)  I have found that my male friends who were never romantic partners, are the best male friends for whom I need never appear perfectly coiffed figuaratively or literally.

5) I love using terms like ‘the game is afoot’.  Sayings more common to my  youth and perhaps more quizzical to youths. (Apparently the original phrase, according to phrases.org.uk came from Shakespeare’s King Henry 1v Part 1, 1597: – meaning the process is in active existence: for example ‘The teams are on the pitch- the whistle blows – the game is afoot”)

6)  I have been around since the days of horse-drawn ice wagons, and love the memories and in spite of staying active and current, occasionally find myself feeling dinosaurish, a feeling I fight again and again and…well you get the idea

7)  I struggle to write my stories and have just discovered a feeling of freedom when I loudly proclaim, “I am not a writer, I am a reader!”  The feeling of freedom is fleeting as there seems to be on going discussion within.  (I am also a big fan of alliteration).

8)  My sons are my ‘solid gold’ in this world and the next, and my pride and pleasure at the men they have become fills my heart with eternal joy and gratitude.

9)  There are judgements we heap upon our parents when we are children I think, that we don’t understand until we are adults with young one.  I have quiet conversations to myself with my long departed parents to let them know what I have now realized that I did not then.

10)  I eat a perfect diet and am perfect in my activity and exercise and thrill to every physical challenge of life.  (At least in my mind.  The intention is there.)

11)  I believe we should believe very little of what we are told, or accept very little of the world as it is; of its truths, be it from the government, teachers, or preachers.  There is ‘A Truth‘ hidden within all of it.  It’s up to you to find YOUR truth.  Do not be swayed by public opinion or common acceptances of anything.

The next post – part 2 will continue with the eleven questions Georgette asked me and my answers, and my eleven questions for you.

Meanwhile another photo from yesterday.

Sun and Snow

 

 

Related articles

• 11-11-11 (georgettesullins.wordpress.com)

Boy you check out of life for a bit and…

It’s been a few weeks since I have been able to look outside myself for any period of time due to health issues.  Nothing with deadly consequences mind you, but enough to make me wonder if it was time to get ready to pay the piper.  As horrible as it sounds it was a cold.  Just a cold.  Except it wouldn’t go away.  Dec 18, 2012 I finally went to the doctor rather embarrassed to walk in and say, “I have a cold.”

Doc says, “I hear chest sounds lower right quadrant (he knows I am a nurse) so let’s do an x-ray and depending on results I may have to order medication.”  I was impressed that in this day of madly writing prescription physicians who are overburdened by our health system and who just need to push on to the next patient, this man sat back and said what he did.  I thought this quality kind of health care was long gone.  AND he was a younger doctor!

Long story short I get a call I have right lower lobe pneumonia (something I have never had before) and can pick up a prescription at my pharmacy.  The ten day supply seemed to go on forever but by the end I was all ‘Yeahhhh I am healed’.

That is until two days later when I awoke coughing and sneezing.  I couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe I had a cold so spent another two weeks convincing myself it was a figment of my imagination before relenting and heading back to the clinic.  This time definitely bronchitis, also something I have never experienced.  More antibiotics.  Ten more days.  Yesterday I returned to the clinic on my last day of this round of meds.   Chest clear but my cough sounds, as someone said, like it comes from the soles of my feet.  Follow up x-ray to ensure all is clear and puffers to take for a few days.  Good grief.  These were meds I gave out for years to patients, mostly the elderly.  Was it possible I was now ‘elderly’?  Yikes!

But none of this is the point of my post.  Now that I am securely back in the land of the living, and I am not sure if that is something that is ever ‘secure’ I started looking around at the world around me.  What is going on?

http://weather.aol.com/2013/02/11/photo-lightning-strikes-the-vatican/

The Pope resigns – unusual since it is the first time it has happened in 600 years, but later that night lightening is photographed striking the Vatican not once but twice.  To paraphrase one comedian who said, “It looks like his Boss is not happy with his resignation.”

Asteroid2012 DA14 – buzzed earth then continued its cosmic cruise.  It came a little too close for comfort I think at 27,600 km away.  I consider our moon pretty close at 239,000 odd miles so this asteroid flew closer than some of our satellites.  This guy weighed 143,000 tons. How do they know that?  Are there interstellar weigh stations these objects but stop at, much like truckers on our highways?  That baby may be much smaller than the one that supposedly ended life for the dinosaurs but it could still have done considerable damage wiping out about 2,000 square km *Associated Press.  But while everyone was watching this spectacular show the cosmos had a bigger surprise for us.

Photobucket meteor

Meteor Explodes – While all eyes were turned to our expected cosmic company a meteor speculated to be about the size of a bus but weighing 7,000 tons blazes across the Siberian sky exploding before hitting our little blue marble, but the resounding explosion which equals about 20 Hiroshima bombs caused incredible damage to buildings and people.  Had it not exploded prior to actually hitting the earth, the press (and we all know we can trust what they say) said that the result would have been similar to the destruction shown in some fiction movies.  I don’t doubt it.  We never knew this meteor was coming, and the only reason we had any warning on the asteroid is that it was discovered not too long ago by a dentist whose hobby is looking ‘out there’.

I am surprised that all the folk who forecast the end of life December 21, 2012 have not come forward saying, “This is the beginning of the end.”  Of course there is always someone out there making forecasts, and while some may not believe, you just never know.

There is nothing mankind can do to change the way the universe functions.  We don’t control space.  Heck, half the time we can’t control our own immediate inner space.  I figure that the best we can do is to live well remembering the Golden Rule, accept the miracle of our existence, whether Science or Creation based, and get on with it.

Except of course for those days when micro bugs take over and force us to have a ‘Benylin Day’ or two, or three.

Related articles

• Meteor explodes over Russia, 1,100 injured (wave3.com)
• Asteroid buzzes, misses Earth _ unlike meteor (cnsnews.com)
• 
  http://www.freemars.org/jeff/meteor/
  

Stiff Upper Lip Old Chap

respect (Photo credit: Heliøs)

 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our open information society, and I don’t mean our lives laid out for all to see on Facebook or Dating Sites or Instagram, but how nothing seems to be private anymore.  I have stood in line at grocery stores and in a few moments had people tell me their story or worse yet the intimate details of someone else’s life.  Everything from illnesses, to affairs, to arrests, abortions, drugs..well you get the idea.  In five minutes I can walk away from a complete stranger with more information than I could ever want.

When I was a little girl I watched an old English war movie and there was a scene in a war room where three men were talking.  The one fellow excused himself and one of the other men asked what was wrong with him.  The fellow responded with, “It’s a personal matter.”  The fellow just said, “Oh that is unfortunate.”  And they continued on with business.  Even at that young age I remember thinking about how respectful the whole scene was.

You see I think we have lost some degree of respect when it comes to our personal lives, to ourselves.  The more I consider it, the more I believe it is all about respect.  Respect for ourselves and respect for others by not prying.  The thing is that few people seem to understand what is happening.

I have been doing some research for a potential biography and along the way have found myself asking just how much information should be passed on?  (Especially when that person is not alive to answer to information.)  How much information would I want my children or grandchildren to know about my life?

Do we disrespect ourselves when we just blab about everything?  I used to be a little too open about my life and activities thinking honesty equaled total disclosure.  I no longer feel that way.  Not that I have any horrendous hidden secrets but there is a certain level of information, of intimacy that really is none of anyone’s business.

There is a certain dignity to the old Stiff Upper Lip.  It means that yes I have problems and challenges and I shall look after them.  The whole Suck it up Buttercup idea is along the same lines, though a little more expressive.

What is responsible for our fall from dignity?  I believe it is the ‘Media’, especially so called reality shows that are in my opinion horrid.  Talk show hosts also contribute to this nonsense.  Come on the air, wail about your problems, cry about your circumstance, and we shall reward you.  What is the reward you ask?  Well its some degree of fame I guess.  I guess but I don’t really understand.

Back in the fifties or sixties there was a television show called ‘ Queen for a Day’.   I only watched it once because I saw people degrade themselves spilling information to gain the most sympathy.  It turned my stomach at the time.  I had no way of knowing the future held a whole society of ‘poor me’ and listen to my tale of woe.

When people were more dignified it was not a case of not being able to confide in someone, but you didn’t confide in everyone, and those you did go to kept your confidence for to not do so was shameful.

Some people today do carry on their lives without tell-tale drama.  Jodi Foster is one that comes to mind immediately but there are lots of others.   I have friends that ‘carry on with a stiff upper lip’, that ‘suck it up buttercup’ and do so with grace and dignity.  I think we need a little more dignity and self-respect and no I don’t think I want all my secrets known, not because they are horrible but because they are mine.

How do we begin to change society as a whole?  Can we even do that or is it okay to carry on and hope someone else will want to follow example?

Related articles

• Trope-a-Day: Emotions vs. Stoicism (eldraeverse.com)

Sometimes that Harper Faulkner Gets a Little too Real

English: A Little Baggage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am happily reading your posts and relishing every moment.  It’s 5:25 pm on a Tuesday  and I am pretty pleased with myself that this day has not gone to waste.  Yet.  I did a lovely reorganization of my living quarters that ended up being an exhausting but rewarding endeavour.  Then I click on The Measure of Success .  I read the quotation that’s been on his mind and think ‘Uh Oh’, because then he asks a question.

So the question I am asking myself this morning, and asking you, is what problems in 2012 did you bring with you into 2013 and can you, without needed outside intervention, solve those problems right now, right here, today?

Many of you, my delicious sources of entertainment, often ask questions in your posts.   I always consider them and then sometimes tuck them away for future consideration (avoidance at its best), possibly even find an easy answer for (slightly delusional here), and sometimes I face it head on (though I may not share my thoughts with you).

But it is difficult when HF asks a question.  He seems so sincere in the asking that one feels that answering is unavoidable.  I have been wrestling with my baggage for sometime now – months, and decide at times that it really is not important so there should be no struggle, but its a convenient answer and does not address the issue.  I have even bravely asked myself how I see the me I want to be, but yikes that is really scary so I don’t spend a lot of time on the thought.  But the thought keeps returning.  Again and again.

I did leave a comment for him, but then realized I could not adequately answer in a comment.

We have baggage because it must give us something, provide something – maybe excuses.  I honestly don’t know the answer to that one.

I read on a blog sometime ago, and wish I could remember whose it was, that someone they knew had been in a coma for months, and then suddenly sat up one day and said, “Nothing matters” and then died.  That has taken up residence in my palace of thoughts and while I consider all kinds of possible meanings, I have failed to arrive at any conclusions.

You know in my time as a nurse (many decades) I have been present at a lot of deaths.  Most have been wonderful experiences but some people have expressed that they wish they had done life differently or done something differently or wished they had made different decisions.  Some expressed regret that they had not done enough.  Enough is a pretty personal measurement so who can judge?

When I was younger I used to think that I would die with no regrets, that I would follow every path I could.  But that is a very naive thought because for every path we follow, every choice we make, we leave so many others undone.  Which in some strange way takes me back to the whole baggage thing for there is much that is undone, and yes until I can shed baggage it will be difficult to accomplish.

HF you certainly have stoked the fires of my soul, plainly asking what I have spent so long skirting around.  I don’t even have a whole answer as to the what or the how, but I guess I had better get on with it.  Procrastination is perhaps not as permanent a solution I hoped it was.

Faster Than the Speed of Light and Seriously CSI

First I must clarify – I am of no interest to CERN since I truly did not break any Universal Laws and did not go faster than the speed of light.  I am pretty sure you know that, but just saying.

I did get a speeding ticket Friday afternoon.  It was a fine day for driving; clear roads running alongside a river with just a few graceful twists, soft meanderings that beg for the thrill of a pounding engine, and rubber gripping and releasing and then gripping again the pavement.  Hmmm a little dramatic I think.  Just the facts ma’am, just the facts.

I was speeding.  The car ahead of me was also but being the last vehicle I was easier to catch.  85KPH in a 60.

The nice young man was kind, and ticketed me for 10 K over instead of 25.  Now if this had occurred a few years..um..a few decades ago I would have just had a friendly warning.  Sigh.  But I’ll take it.

Something else happened this weekend during my bimonthly visit to my  hometown when I stay with my sister and we catch up on family and friends.  J lives in a high rise on the fourteenth floor and her balcony overlooks the visitor’s parking lot in the back.  It’s a lovely quiet building inhabited with a mature population and seems to be child free.  The neighbourhood is all large aged trees, gracious old homes built long ago, most of which are now apartments.  It is walking distance to the downtown, should one feel so inclined, and a slight change in direction takes you to Victoria Park, where summer concerts, picnics and winter skating and Christmas lights provide old-fashioned entertainment.

Saturday morning my sis went out early with her daughter to run some errands while I slept in.  The plan was that she would pick me up at a designated time and we would head off to meet my SIL for brunch. (See I can’t get up early for chores but I can always rouse for food.)

I went downstairs at the appointed hour and did not see her immediately outside so waited in the hallway.  A gent exited to take some refuse out to the dumpsters which were immediately to the side of the door.  He returned immediately, garbage in hand, and said that the police were outside and he could not throw anything in the dumpster.

Curious, of course, I went out, spied my sister parked across the road, looked at three police cars and it drivers forming a barricade around said dumpster, looked at the yellow caution barrier and got into the car wondering what it was all about.  We laughed and speculated possibilities with my SIL saying how my own care which was parked near by was part of a crime scene.

Things had not changed much by the time we returned except for a whole lot more police and vehicles and cameras and lights.  Soon Forensics vehicles and a huge traveling laboratory surrounded the building.  Throughout the remainder of the day, evening and night we frequently peered down to watch the activity and wonder when Gil Grissom would arrive. Rumours flew that a body had been discovered so then we discussed whether it could have been a homeless person who had tried to find protection from the cold.

Then the evening news announced that  ’human remains’ had been discovered.  The dumpster was removed to a forensics site.  The biggest lights I have ever seen connected to its own generator turned the land around the building into day.  Somehow in the weirdness of the whole thing we found humour.

Sunday some officers came door to door in the building asking questions.  J and I went out Sunday afternoon and as we were returning she received a text saying that the news announced that the human remains were in fact a female torso.

The ride home suddenly became very quiet.  Jokes about CSI, Grissom, dastardly deeds, and body parts were laid permanently to rest.

Somehow just knowing the gender changed everything.  The was someone.  Someone’s daughter, sister, possibly mother and someone’s friend.

Then the though that a murderer, a real someone, who not only killed this girl but did it with malice, had only been a few feet from us; from our world where CSI only happened on TV or in the movies.  A shadow of fear moved in.  The kind that makes you watchful, and aware.  The kind that grieves for the unknown.

This morning our local Hamilton paper had a small article regarding something ‘macabre’ in Kitchener.  The dismembered torso of a woman as dressed in a black T-shirt that read, ‘Forget princess, I want to be a vampire.’

The article says that the discovery was made by ‘unknown passerby’.  Well in fact my sister saw the woman calling to the policeman and heard him advise her to go home and they would come speak to her and her husband.  So the passerby is not entirely unknown and the grisly discovery was made not as they were ‘passing by’ but we think were probably ‘dumpster diving’. (A new term I just became familiar with and all too descriptive.)

An emotional pallor surrounds us this day.

I Worry

It’s cold here in Southern Ontario. Nothing ‘southern’ about this -11C (12.2F) sunny day here.

I worry about children who went to school not warmly dressed, about the homeless, about small animals left outside, on a day like this.

I am grateful for everything I have that keeps me and mine warm.

It is so cold….’how cold is it? Below are photos I just took. The dryer is on and as the warm air flows out of the vent the air cools it so quickly that the moisture cloud freezes immediately on the ground and the door.

                               BRRRRRRRR!

Of course a few days ago it reached 15 C (59F) which felt like summer to us Canucks.  The perfect environment to spawn a new wave of colds and coughs, which right this moment afflicts me.

Winds are 44 – 54 km per hour ( 25-30 mph) in some places and at least one highway has been closed down.  We have a few more days of ‘arctic air.  Bundle up everyone.  To my friends in warmer climes —ENJOY!

Related articles

• Temperature could hit 15 degrees in parts of Southern Ontario (lfpress.com)

Hurray! It’s Monday

Hip Hip Hurray (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And a fine crisp morning with a scattering of snow on the ground but the winds have abated and even in the stillness it is -7C (19.4F).  Meteorology predicts that even with less harsh gusts the real temp is -13C.  Still it is a fine morning.

Mondays, as I have said before, My Favorite Day.  This day is filled with enthusiasm for all I shall accomplish this week.  Goals are set, engine is running, and we are off!

I hope your day goes well and for those who are less enthusiastic about the beginning of the week - hang in there for another weekend looms around the corner.

My son just emailed me this photo, taken not so long ago at a local park and I just had to share it with you.